Army Modernization and Spatial Computing

Abstract：In 2018, the Army submitted its Army Modernization Strategy (AMS) report to Congress, establishing the Army’s six materiel modernization priorities and envisioning the endstate for the future Army of 2035.1 To achieve the Army’s modernization goals, then Secretary of the Army Mark Esper announced the establishment of Army Futures Command (AFC) in Austin, Texas.2 The modernization approach integrated elements of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leader development and education, personnel, facilities and policy (DOTMLPF-P) and aligns cross-functional teams (CFTs) within AFC to compress acquisition timelines from capability gap identification through operational experimentation.3 This paper contends that the Army is experiencing a risk in achieving its modernization mission through oversight of spatial computing research, which involves the integration of digital and physical worlds. The Army should, therefore, include spatial computing research as its tenth priority research area and allocate additional resources to bridge this seemingly overlooked gap within the AMS.