Army Technical Test Instrumentation and Targets

The Army Technical Test Instrumentation and Targets program (PE 0605602A) is a key element within the Army's Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E) Management Support budget. Its primary goal is to provide critical investments in the development and modernization of test and evaluation (T&E) capabilities necessary to support the Army's transformation initiatives, particularly those aimed at enabling Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)-capable forces. The program supports the United States Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) and its subordinate organizations, including the Operational Test Command (OTC), Army Evaluation Center (AEC), and several major test centers across the country.

The specific objectives of this program include the development of new test methodologies and standards, advanced test technology concepts, and future T&E capabilities. It also focuses on the full-scale development of advanced modeling, simulation, and instrumentation prototypes. These investments are essential for providing realistic, multi-domain operational test environments, conducting test monitoring and control, and performing data analysis to inform acquisition milestone decisions for Army programs.

The program ensures that T&E infrastructure remains current by replacing unreliable, obsolete, or irreparable instrumentation and incrementally upgrading hardware and software systems. Its principal project develops, acquires, and upgrades critical T&E technology and instrumentation to support the development, testing, and evaluation of Army weapons and equipment. This includes providing hardware and software for real-time range operations, live, virtual, and constructive test environments, and data support systems for full integration. The project acquires instrumentation for measuring performance of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) systems, as well as reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) data collection for vehicles and weapons.

ATEC test centers, such as the Aberdeen Test Center (ATC), Electronic Proving Ground (EPG), Yuma Proving Ground (YPG), White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), and Redstone Test Center (RTC), are responsible for implementing these objectives. Planned activities for FY 2025 and FY 2026 include acquiring and upgrading instrumentation for C5ISR, RAM, automotive, ballistics, missile, aviation, and environmental testing. Investments include ATC's advanced ballistics instrumentation, EPG's distributed environment testing, YPG's telecommunications modernization, WSMR's directed energy laser test modernization, and RTC's pulsed ultra high frequency amplifier system.

The program also supports the modernization of test environments for extreme conditions, such as hot desert and cold arctic testing, and the upgrade of survivability and vulnerability test capabilities for live fire testing. Additional efforts include the replacement of range control instrumentation, radar, optics, and telemetry for missile testing, as well as improvements in test efficiency through the use of smart devices as data collectors. The program is closely aligned with Army signature transformation efforts, including Project Convergence and Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Assessment Exercise (PNTAX).

A Congressional add in FY 2024 was the Rapid Assurance Modernization Program - Test, which developed a suite of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) applications on Amazon Web Services (AWS) called the Cognitive Operational GovCloud (COG). These applications were designed to support the Security Assistance Group - Ukraine (SAG-U) by enabling soldiers to analyze large volumes of open-source data, including social media, to identify operationally relevant information.