Implementing heterogeneous military systems

As access to technology improves the capability of peer adversaries, the need for the US military to incorporate technology into complex systems will accelerate. Both the increased complexity of systems and the pace of change present challenges and are contradictory in the context of our current approaches to system development. This paper explores how they can approach heterogeneous implementations and capabilities to improve system complexity in a rapid and cost-effective manner. Reference implementations and development environments organize the Smart Phone world. Future military system of systems will be organized and controlled by reference implementations for Missions (Systems of Platforms), Platforms (Systems of Subsystems), and Subsystems (Systems of Components) and associated Development Environments. Both reference implementations and development environments are expected to be government controlled. Industry performers will build implementation based upon the reference implementations and will build Applications using the development tools to operate and manage the System constituents. DARPA´s Contested Communications program is starting the process of creating the reference implementations and development environment for communication systems using this construct. The developments in this program are expected to expand and evolve to provide the reference implementations and development environments to support the entire range of System of Systems options.