On a hot, dry hilltop in central California, an unlikely group of students, academics, and industry representatives gathered together recently — in person and virtually — to watch and witness what may be the future of technology in the U.S. Navy.

A spectrum of exercises and demonstrations is helping to find new and better solutions to hard warfighting problems, and the nexus for addressing those problems with innovative solutions is the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

“We’ve been instrumental in transitioning a variety of solutions from small companies and those that have not traditionally worked in the defense sector,” said Prof. Raymond R. Buettner Jr., Ph.D., who serves as the director of the Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) at NPS.

So begins Edward Lundquist's article Navy Tests Cutting-Edge Technology in California Hills in the Fall 2020 issue of Navy, published by the Association of the United States Navy (AUSN).  Lundquist describes how the JIFX Program, sponsored by the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering's Rapid Reaction Technology Office, enhances Private Sector's ability to demonstrate evolving technologies and collaborate with U.S. Government Science and Technology community members.  One way the value proposition for commercial participants is enhanced is Cybersecurity Vulnerability Assessments are performed on participating technologies, which assists teams with understanding "how the government is going to evaluate their technology...[and if the company wants] to sell their technology to the government down the road, they understand at the early prototyping level what it’s going to take to do that," according to a statement by Dr. Buettner in Lundquist's article.

Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) students and faculty also benefit.  In addition to discovering commercial technologies that may be able to assist Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen, and Guardians, the field experimentation can be used to support their research.  "NPS provides unique value to Navy and Marine Corps officers through JIFX, with students looking at the technologies and offering their thoughts on how these technologies would be useful to the fleet and in the field. They even provide comments about the implications of these technologies being used against the United States."

The AUSN is a private entity with a vision of "[being] the leading voice for America’s Sailors and the premier advocate for a strong Navy. We will represent Navy Veterans, active duty Sailors, reservists, retirees, and our Navy family." (AUSN)

Source: Lundquist, Edward. (2020, December). Navy Tests Cutting-Edge Technology in California Hills. Navy, 67(2), 8-13. https://editions.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=60745&i=683250&p=1