The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is readying a new start this summer that will focus on cross domain battle management.
Craig Lawrence, program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, speaking Thursday at the annual C4ISRNET Conference, couldn’t offer many details on the project given it is still awaiting final signature.
What he did say was that the program would focus on helping develop “kill webs” for targets across all five domains of battle.
“I’d like to discover capability in any domain that exists,” he said of the effort. This could include real time or planning time and be done in a decentralized fashion to discover the best solution in a particular domain for a particular problem.
The military writ-large is moving toward some version of multidomain operations that would seamlessly integrate effects and capabilities through each domain of warfare. This is in contrast to approaching problems from a domain centric view — applying a land solution to a land problem — as opposed to applying a cyber solution to a land problem, for example.
Lawrence said a big push for him is trying to get his hands around what multidomain or crossdomain means, adding if the U.S. is serious about bringing a greater capability to bear on the adversary, the military needs to figure out how to plan and manage across domains to develop kill webs.
Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.
