SOF Challenges :: H4D: Lean Intrapreneurship for U.S. Special Operations

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Student - NCSU student interested in taking the course in Fall 2019
Operator - Service member interested in being an Mentor, Liaison, Advisor or Interviewee
Scientist/Engineer - Technical expert interested in helping the student teams with technical advice
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Problem Statements

US Army Special Operations Recruiting Battalion must continually attract candidates to be assessed for their potential to fill the 26,000 positions in US Army Special Operations Command. Recruiters: The number of hours in a day are finite and every hour spent inefficiently increases the risk of failing to fill the most critical formations in the formation. Selection and Assessment leaders: SOF forces cannot be mass produced. Quality is prized over quantity. Having a full class is less important than having the highest quality individuals. Qualification Course instructors: After a Soldier successfully completes Assessment and Selection, there is a training and qualification course which can last up to 18 months before the Soldier is a SOF Operator. Quality is paramount in these courses. Applicable areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

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US Army Special Operations Command Recruiting Software: This is a unique recruiting challenge but also a challenge faced by many non-Special Operations organizations. Highly specialized organizations in all industries must seek out the most qualified applicants and then assess them for a small number of critical positions. The product features in this software will likely have applicability in other industry areas:https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/recruiting-tips/2015/4-of-the-biggest-problems-recruiters-face-and-how-to-overcome-them
US Army Special Operations Command Recruiting Recommender System: A constraint for ARSOF Recruiting is that the positions must be filled by personnel already in the US Army. The total number of Soldiers in the US Army is approximately 484,000. ARSOF recruiters have access to data on most of these personnel but do not have a recommender system or machine learning algorithm(s) to help them identify the most promising candidates.

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Next Generation Identification and Characterization:

USSOCOM must be able to identify and characterize in a near-peer, contested environment, without airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (AISR) assets. Adversary capabilities in the future operating environment will limit or completely deny the use of intrusive, large-scale AISR and other collection platforms. The prevalence of commercial technology for encryption, electromagnetic and cyber effects, communications, data mining and related tools will hinder traditional collection methodologies. Next Generation Identification and Characterization must adopt and integrate tools such as cameras, commercial data, private access to space, the Internet of Things and the vast amounts of data being collected by individuals, governments and data-oriented corporation to evolve traditional methods. Applicable areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

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Strategic and Tactical Signature Management

USSOCOM must be able to reduce, obscure, modify or eliminate all observable signature to avoid compromise on deployment, infiltration, and actions on the objective. The prevalence of commercial technology for encryption, electromagnetic effects, cyber, communications, data mining, and related tools will expose USSOCOM to new threats. Non-state actors will have access to very nearly the same capabilities from the commercial marketplace, creating new vulnerabilities that put USSOCOM’s ability to maintain strategic and tactical surprise at risk. Strategic and Tactical signature management will require the adoption and integration of new technical tools and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures to ensure USSOCOM maintains its ability to project decisive force across the globe, in any environment, against any adversary. Applicable areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

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New technologies to mask visual, audible, Radio Frequency and thermal signature of personnel and manned/unmanned platforms and sensors.
Development of a hardened Radio Frequency/electronic posture across USSOCOM to minimize cyber hacking and open source exploitation vulnerabilities.
Ability to identify and mitigate threats to force and alerting signatures generated by social media, Internet of Things, and personal electronic devices.
Incorporation of defensive Radio Frequency and cyber capabilities across the operational continuum.
Methods to use existing commercial communications architecture to send and receive secure communication without alerting authorities or network administrators.

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Contested Environment Situational Awareness

USSOCOM must be able to leverage emerging technology to visualize, understand and surveil complex urban and subterranean environments. Future USSOCOM operations will likely be conducted within a highly technical, very large, densely populated city environment. Applicable areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

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Development of integrated solutions capable of rapidly characterizing and mapping complex urban and subterranean environments. Man, swimmer, Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) or aircraft portable capabilities that can see-through structures (including metal) or densely forested areas, analyze structural material composition, perform 3-D mapping of an environment, and detect and define moving and stationary objects within a room.
Capture and accurate rendering of functional, realistic virtual models of any environment in near-real time to assist with mission planning and execution.
Use of cyber and open-source media tools to enhance real-time situational awareness.

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Countering Autonomous Systems

USSOCOM must be able to anticipate how adversaries will employ autonomous systems and identify technology to defeat and exploit these systems, or mitigate their tactical advantages. The threats of adversarial use of unmanned and autonomous technology, including new ways to employ that technology, is growing. Enemy personnel utilize unmanned systems to achieve early warning, initiate and adjust direct fire engagements and trigger improvised explosive devices. USSOCOM requires the ability to fully and effectively identify and defeat unmanned and autonomous systems employed against the force. Applicable areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

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Detection of enemy unmanned and autonomous sytems regardless of Command and Control links.
Defeat or effective neutralization or capture and exploitation of all adversary autonomous systems, regardless of Command Control links or delivery (air/sea/land) at a tactically relevant range.

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Tactical Communications and Navigation

USSOCOM must be able to communicate and navigate in a contested electromagnetic spectrum, without the use of United States Government (USG) satellites. The growth and proliferation of commercial and foreign space capabilities, along with the ability to deny/spoof space-based signals currently relied upon for communication and navigation, will continue to narrow the relative advantage of USSOCOM. New methods of communication and navigation are required to maintain security and enable effective operations in the future environment. Applicable areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

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Defend the network against cyber and electronic warfare attacks in highly contested or denied electromagnetic environments, created by intentional or unintentional limitations in the areas of communications, navigation information and timing signals.
Develop expeditionary communication and Position, Navigation and Timing capabilities that function in remote locations, highly contested or denied environments, are device agnostic (plug and play), have Low Probability of Intercept/Detection (LPI/LPD) and do not rely on USG satellites.
Incorporation of encryption and validation capabilities to assure the veracity of information used for command, control and targeting.

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Tactical Remote/Autonomous Systems and Human Machine Interface

USSOCOM must be able to identify tasks where unmanned system performance can exceed human capabilities and seamlessly integrate visualization and control functions to expand and enhance an individual operator’s situational awareness and lethality on the battlefield. The growing utilization and dependence of technical equipment and unmanned systems by United States forces and the increasing capabilities offered significantly burdens USSOCOM personnel. Currently the focus and human input required to operate remote equipment significantly detracts from focus that can be applied elsewhere. The additional cognitive load not only limits operational effectiveness but degrades the opportunity to fully leverage developing technical capabilities on the objective. Requisite training and education on current systems burdens operators and takes valuable time from other tactical training requirements. Highly desired:

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Enhanced human-machine interface to allow the ingestion of collected information and the control of technical and unmanned systems with minimal operator focus.
Automation of tasks suited for technical accomplishment thereby lowering Special Operations personnel’s cognitive load during combat operations.
Ability to protect eyes while displaying to an operator a range of visually consumable data and also allow normal unaided vision.
Organic, over-the-horizon, standoff precision engagement system, that is dismounted, mobile or platform-based to identify, target and selectively engage to guide scalable and lethal kinetic munitions to multiple targets.
Technologies for launch/recovery from sea, air, and/or land providing integrated Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance across sensors while operating autonomously.
Technologies for unmanned underwater vehicle operations that enable employment of tagging, tracking, and locating sensors. Must be able to transmit reports to either land, air, or sea based receivers.

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SOF Challenges

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