{"id":3378,"date":"2026-07-14T23:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/3378\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T23:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:39:14","slug":"defense-industry-shifts-procurement-model-to-speed-drone-deployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/3378\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense industry shifts procurement model to speed drone deployment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few technology developments have turned the military\u2019s acquisition and deployment requirements upside down more than the advent of cheap drones.<\/p>\n

Defense officials have made major strides in deploying unmanned air and sea craft over the past decade. The rescue of downed helicopter pilots<\/a> in the Strait of Hormuz by an autonomous Corsair maritime vessel earlier this month illustrated how years of investment appear to be paying off.<\/p>\n

But the surprising success \u2014 and rapid evolution \u2014 of inexpensive autonomous systems and drone technologies in Ukraine and the war with Iran have made it clear that traditional five-to-ten-year hardware procurement cycles and high-priced systems no longer meet the needs of modern warfare. That\u2019s prompting the military services and the defense industry to fundamentally restructure their acquisition models.<\/p>\n

Part of that restructuring involves shifting how requirements are established by encouraging engineers to test new technology solutions directly on the battlefield, according to defense and industry officials who spoke at the recent GDIT Battlespace of the Future<\/a> summit, hosted by Scoop News Group.<\/p>\n

Rather than evaluating unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) solely on standalone hardware specs or volume, defense agencies are also prioritizing the development of operating systems that more easily integrate with common command-and-control networks. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it really comes down to two things\u2026 The first is adaptation\u2026 The second is integration and common control,\u201d said Brig. Gen. Anthony Gibbs, Capability Portfolio Executive for Mission Autonomy for the U.S. Army. To that end, Gibbs reinforced the need for standard procurement methods that align with the threat envelope.<\/p>\n

Flipping procurement paths in active commands<\/p>\n

As part of efforts to accelerate acquisition and deployment, the military branches are actively upending traditional requirements-generation by executing acquisitions in reverse.<\/p>\n

Rather than starting with a set of requirements and shopping for the most qualified solutions, defense leaders are having programmers identify a specific field operational problem and prototype technical components directly alongside operational units. The parallel approach allows teams to update tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and justify production funding while the core technology is actively field-tested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe acquisition reform we\u2019ve been through over the last year and a half fundamentally gives us tools we did not have before,\u201d said Captain JJ Murawski, Chief of Staff for Portfolio Acquisition Executive Robotic and Autonomous Systems for the Department of the Navy. The new flexibility allows acquisition executives to \u201cchange the way we do requirements\u201d and adjust dynamically to emerging maritime threats. It also enables engineers to bypass the lengthy five-year planning cycles that routinely stall innovation, he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, the Army\u2019s \u201cTransforming-in-Contact<\/a>\u201d modernization initiative is helping to accelerate deployment of cutting-edge technology directly to operational units for real-time testing, feedback and tactical deployment, according to Gibbs. \u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve been putting capabilities, such as drones, into those units, and actively not just experimenting, but scaling those capabilities across those units,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gibbs added that the Army is also working directly with industry to expand the range of drones available to units. The new approach \u201callows units to apply market power and communicate directly with industry about what\u2019s working, what\u2019s not, and what needs to change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Alleviating cognitive and logistics strains<\/p>\n

Embedding thousands of autonomous systems into distributed units on the front lines, however, poses new human and mechanical challenges, cautioned Col. Jeremy \u201cHank\u201d Hester, Director of the Aviation Combat Element Capabilities Development Directorate and Drone Dominance Task Force for the U.S. Marine Corps.<\/p>\n

A ground control station and related components can add 30 pounds of weight to a soldier\u2019s regular gear. Managing drone systems can also drain attention away from a unit\u2019s primary combat focus, he said, adding these are \u201cpain points we\u2019re working through.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defense industry must also develop new approaches to making autonomous vehicles more fault-tolerant, resilient and survivable, added Bill Tecos, Director of Software and Cyber Engineering at General Dynamics Land Systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoftware is no longer about \u2018smart platforms.\u2019 It\u2019s about ecosystems as capability and interoperability become the dominant drivers, especially for our modernization efforts such as XM30 and M1E3,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, as we transition into (a scalable autonomous ecosystem), software-defined platforms are critical to what we must deliver every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tecos noted that, as defense partners roll out survivability upgrades, they need to focus on a combination of frequency, reliability, speed and adaptability. \u201cSoftware can change behavior. It can change roles. It can change tactics. We need to be thinking of the mission as a configurable payload that can change to meet the need.\u201d<\/p>\n

As software increasingly defines modern tactical vehicles, industrial developers and government partners must collaborate through open application programming interfaces (APIs) to give remote units the flexibility they need, as demonstrated at Operation Jailbreak, Tecos said.<\/p>\n

This article was produced by Scoop News Group for DefenseScoop and sponsored by GDIT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Scoop<\/p>\n

\t\t\tWritten by Scoop News Group<\/p>\n


\n
\nThis article was written and produced by Scoop News Group and its creative subsidiary, SNG Content Studio. It reflects the journalistic style and standards of SNG\u2019s publications but was produced separately from SNG\u2019s editorial department, in consultation with and paid for by the sponsor.
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