Moving Army logistics forward
"The backbone of a successful war is logistical support--from providing the right types of material to getting that material to combatants in a timely and reliable manner," said Dave Scharett who manages PNNL's work with LTA.
Scharett and his staff work on-site at the LTA in Ft. Belvoir, Va., to help identify advanced and emerging technologies that could support Army modernization. "A key part of that modernization is transforming the capability of logistics functions to make them more efficient, timely and less costly while not adversely affecting the force's combat effectiveness."
The team's search for technologies encompasses not only PNNL and other national laboratories, but also other federal agencies, various branches of the armed forces, universities and private industry, both nationally and internationally.
During the war in Afghanistan weight-in-motion (WIM) technology was identified to speed up loading of Apache helicopters onto C5 aircraft. Currently, all combat vehicles must be weighed and balanced before loading for deployment. To do this, a soldier must drive a vehicle onto a scale and perform calculations manually.
WIM, a combination of advanced sensors, microtechnology and artificial intelligence, performs all the calculations in an automated system. "You can drive a vehicle, including trailers, over the system at 5-15 miles per hour without stopping. Instead of taking 30 minutes for each rig with a 20 percent error rate, it's now 30 seconds per vehicle with a zero percent error rate," Scharett said.
"A Stryker Brigade has over 1,100 wheeled vehicles. Using WIM means loading in a few hours as opposed to a few days. For fast deployment, this is a great advantage."
Another new concept, configured loads packaging, is a more efficient way of distributing supplies to soldiers. "We can package supplies and configure them in a way that they can be sent from strategic level to tactical level with no need to do any reconfiguration or tailoring of load," said Dan Labin, who directs PNNL's support of the configured loads project.
Faster and more precise than current supply methods, configured loads packaging is also interactive. A commander in the field can order supplies and have them delivered in the exact configurations they want and packaged using a platform that is compatible with how they plan to unload it.
Scharett and colleague Joyce Moody also write the logistics section of the Army's science and technology master plan, which is used annually as testimony to Congress on the Army's R&D program. The plan provides the Army with information on future technologies and recommendations on which might be useful to the Army.