House defense authorizers are recommending a new pilot effort for the Defense Department’s innovation arm to enable faster testing and evaluation of commercial technologies that could meet warfighters’ needs.
Currently, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) funds promising systems and technologies from commercial vendors working in partnership with other DoD organizations to rapidly prototype and field new capabilities. The recommendation by the House Armed Services (HASC) Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technology, and Innovation would create an “alternative testing and evaluation pathway that have the potential to provide warfighting capabilities to the Department of Defense in the near-term and mind-term timeframes,” according to draft bill language released on Monday.
The draft language would direct the DIU director to create a test and evaluation cell made up of “dedicated personnel” within the organization to manage its activities, and consult with each service’s innovation arms and research laboratories, the combatant commands, the Pentagon’s acquisition, research, and test and evaluation heads, industry partners, and other government and international stakeholders with test and evaluation infrastructure.
The proposal directs DIU to “conduct continuous and iterative” testing to “emulate operationally relevant threat scenarios and conditions,” and to do so with expected concepts of operations and employment.
The pilot program would end on Dec. 31, 2028.