The U.S. Army is tapping nontraditional businesses to tackle the challenge of future robotic combat vehicle (RCV) sustainment, say officials of the Army Applications Laboratory (AAL) in Austin, Texas. The AAL is choosing companies that can develop hardware and software around sensors to gather, fuse, and interpret robotic combat vehicle sustainment requirements to deliver actionable information to decision makers, Army officials say. The Army has a history of neglecting sustainment when developing programs; experts instead try to solve how to manage systems after they are fielded. Army leaders are helping modernize the service by considering the entire life cycle into account to save cost and time. The Army Applications Lab works with businesses that may not have much experience in the defense world but have technology with useful military applications like sustainment of robotic combat vehicles.
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