A
Statement of Task and Completion Matrix
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene an ad hoc committee to assess the physical and technical suitability of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) ranges, infrastructures, and tools used for test and evaluation (T&E) of military systems’ operational effectiveness, suitability, survivability, and lethality across all domains (land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace). Specifically, the committee will:
- Assess the aggregate physical suitability of DoD’s ranges to include their testing capacity, the condition of their infrastructure, security measures, and encroachment challenges.
- Assess the technical suitability of ranges to include spectrum management, instrumentation, cyber and analytics tools, and their modeling and simulation capacity.
- Evaluate the following attributes for each range:
- Physical Attributes of Range: Do ranges allow for full exercise of tested systems in the manner that will be used to achieve their mission?
- Electromagnetic Attributes of Range: Can the system under test, and emulated threats to the system, access and utilize spectrum as designed and needed?
- Range Infrastructure: Can range instrumentation properly and fully assess system performance and record test data (as well as training data that could be applied to T&E requirements)? Can range tools adequately process and transmit test data and efficiently provide test results?
- Test Infrastructure Security: How secure are ranges, infrastructure, and test capabilities against physical and cyber intrusion that could lead to exploitation of weapon systems performance data by an adversary?
- Encroachment Threats and Impacts: What are the existing and potential future encroachment threats and impacts (physical space, spectrum, alternative/competing DoD uses)?
- Directed energy, hypersonic systems, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, space systems and threats, 6th generation aircraft, advanced acoustic and non-acoustic technologies for undersea warfare, and advanced active electronic warfare/cyber capabilities.
The committee acknowledges the limitations of their data-gathering efforts based on the availability of Distribution A resources to inform their assessments. As a result of these limitations, portions of the statement of task must be addressed by the second phase of this study, which is permitted to utilize resources at higher classification levels than permitted in this phase. Table A.1 is a matrix to illustrate the committee’s ability to address the components laid out in its statement of task.
The committee also recognizes the innate challenge of responding to the statement of task language introducing (3): “Evaluate the following attributes for each range” (emphasis added). DoD’s test and training ranges number over 500 in total, including the 23 major facilities in the MRTFB. DoD does not currently have standardized and comprehensive reporting on test ranges and facilities that would address the items in the statement of task. To assess the current physical and technical state of the test ranges, the committee selected representative ranges spanning all domains (land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace) to provide insights on the aggregate challenges with operational testing unique to each domain. This strategy enables the committee to report on concerns and conditions that were articulated by multiple ranges, services, and agencies. The committee further recognizes that each of DoD’s test ranges will face specific challenges and opportunities unique to the individual facility or organization that are not addressed in this report.
TABLE A.1 Statement of Task Completion Matrix
Domains | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Land | Sea | Air | Space | Cyberspace | ||
Assessment of DoD Test Ranges |
Physical Suitability for Testing Capacity
|
**, a | **, a | **, a | *, b | **, a |
Infrastructure Conditions
|
**, a | **, a | **, a | *, b | **, a | |
Cyber and analytics tools | **, a | **, a | **, a | c | *, b | |
M&S capacity | **, a | **, a | **, a | *, c | *, b | |
Recommendations to Address Test Deficiencies
|
**, a | **, a | **, a | c | **, a | |
Range Attributes | ||||||
Security Measures
|
**, a c | **, a c | **, a c | c c | c c | |
Encroachment Challenges
|
**, a **, a **, a | **, a **, a **, a | **, a **, a **, a | *, b *, b *, b | N/A *, b **, a | |
Electromagnetic attributes
|
**, a *, b c | **, a *, b c | **, a *, b c | *, b c c | **, a *, b c | |
Instrumentation
|
**, a | **, a | **, a | c | **, b |
Key: ** Fully addressed
* Partially addressed
(Blank) Not addressed
- Publicly accessible information enabled committee to address this topic
- Limited to no publicly accessible information available
- Deferred to Phase 2, due to sensitivity of topic