U.S.
Army science and technology leaders want to use rapid-prototyping equipment more often to help bring innovation to the battlefield faster.
Increasing the pace of innovation has been a popular topic this week at the Association of the United States Army’s winter meeting.
Army technology experts and defense industry officials have discussed ways to simplify and improve how capabilities are developed, focusing on keeping costs down in the early days of testing until after technology is fielded.
Brig. Gen. John Charlton, commanding general of the Army’s Brigade Modernization Command, said the Army should use rapid prototyping more often when taking soldier feedback on new technologies.
“I think what prototyping allows us to do is to better understand the art of the possible because you don’t always know it until you see it, and the other thing I think it allows us to do is get immediate feedback from the soldier,” Charlton said Wednesday at AUSA.
The Army has been using state-of-the-art equipment such as
Rapid Prototyping 3D Printers in forward areas in Afghanistan since 2012. These machines can produce plastic parts that may not even exist in the current inventory. Similar devices, known as a Computer Numerical Control Machining system, can quickly produce parts and components from steel and aluminum.
“A lot of times we have systems during exercises at Fort Bliss, Texas and soldiers will say ‘you know if you just changed this or just changed that, this thing would be twice as good,’” Charlton said. “If you had the ability to just change this and just change that right there on the spot very quickly and put it back in their hands, you could validate whether or not that feedback actually led to a more valued outcome.
“So if you take that rapid prototyping and you pair it with the ingenuity, imagination and common sense of soldiers, you are going to get innovation.”
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