Rethinking Military Technology Development:Land Warrior Case Study

Land Warrior is the U.S. Army’s leading program to provide next generation capabilities to the dismounted soldier. This system includes communications, processing, display, navigational and other technologies that will enable the soldier to see first, understand first, act first, and finish decisively. In order take advantage of the most advanced technologies, a new military technology development paradigm was adopted that focused on rapid prototyping leveraging Commercial Off The Shelf equipment. This approach led to a highly successful demonstration at the Joint Contingency Force Advanced Warfighting Exercise.

Presenter(s)

Dr. George Park is a Managing Scientist in Exponent's Technology Development practice. He has eight years of experience in operational management within high tech companies, from start-ups to multinationals. Dr. Park's experience includes strategic planning for information technology organizations, with an emphasis on mobile devices and networked data storage systems. His expertise also includes computer based modeling, such as physics-based simulation of natural scenes and phenomena, modeling of lidar systems in marine environments, and automatic image matting and interpolation systems. Dr. Park's experience with government programs includes the development of software training packages for Army logistics, the development of a knowledge management strategy for nuclear skills within the DoD, and a technical analysis of system performance of a variety of optical remote sensors. He has designed and conducted experiments with superconducting systems, including studies on optical interactions with superconductors, magnetic flux pinning, and measurement of superconducting band gaps using a Scanning Tunneling Microscope.

Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Park was an Associate with McKinsey & Company's Silicon Valley Office, Senior Scientist at Areté Associates, and an Analyst at the RAND Corporation.