Army Experimental Framework
Research Project
- Start Date:
- 6 January, 2005
- Project Status:
- Active
DSTO is involved in the Army Experimenal Framework which aims to inform the planning, progression and delivery of land warfare capabilities for future joint and coalition environments.
The Australian Army has undertaken a deliberate modernisation program based on operations research, analysis and experimentation. The aim of the program, known as the Army Experimental Framework (AEF), is to ground Army’s development in clearly articulated concepts of how it will operate in the future battlespace. These future warfighting concepts, once fully developed and tested through analysis and experimentation, can then be used to inform capability development paths for each Army sub-output. The AEF provides the discipline, tools and processes required to validate and refine concepts and test capability options.
Experimentation is fundamental to any effort to transform or modernise military forces. The past decade has seen the emergence of rapidly progressive technologies that have the potential to dramatically change the way in which military operations are conducted. However, without coordinated experimentation in the joint and multi-national arena to explore these advances, their benefits may go unrealised. Worst is the possibility that without experimentation; transformation and modernisation efforts may be directed towards an operational environment that no longer exists.
The AEF differs from most other military experimentation programs, in that it seeks to provide a formal framework in which to co-evolve future concepts and capabilities for both the near-term and longer-term (15 - 30 year) timeframes. Evidence from international experimentation programs and other sources offers firm support for the goal of simultaneous evolution of future concepts and capabilities in the face of a strategic environment that is also evolving.
The AEF research is seen as a milestone in the Army’s journey towards a concept-led form of renewal. It also demonstrates how DSTO’s scientific approach is helping provide the ADF with the capability to fight and win knowledge-based warfare in the 21st century.