The Army is tailoring its ability to sense and shoot as it prepares to compete in a large-scale combat operations environment, a panel of experts said.

“All-domain sensing … [seeks] to … enable enhanced understanding and decision-making through integrated and ubiquitous sensing across all domains,” said Col. Shannon Nielsen, chief of staff of the All-Domain Sensing Cross-Functional Team out of Huntsville, Alabama. “We remain focused … [on] the Army of 2040, but we also recognize that we must be agile enough to transform in contact and take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves with new and emerging technologies as they come about.”

Speaking on a panel Dec. 3 during the Association of the U.S. Army’s Hot Topic on land-based fires in large-scale combat operations, Nielsen said, “The sensor itself isn't the most important part of it, it's the data, and it's the data management.”

“There are a lot of sensors out there that are already really, really good, and they collect data passively in terms of collecting things that they weren't originally designed to collect,” he said. “The challenge is, … how do you pull it? How do you know what to pull in terms of the data, and how do you send it out?”

In addition to data management, the Army is harnessing things like artificial intelligence and data analytics as “decision aids” to “decrease” soldiers’ “cognitive burden” and enable them to “make the right decision at the right time,” said Col. Guy Yelverton, deputy director of acquisition and systems management for Program Executive Office Missiles and Space.

“It's not about engaging as far out as possible with the most expensive round type to breathe a little easier,” he said. “It might be letting that particular threat round come in a little closer so I can take it out with the right system, … [and] I can better utilize my entire suite of munitions and take on the full effect of the fight.”

To meet the needs of the future fight, soldiers will need to embrace “complexity” as “normalcy,” said Brig. Gen. Alric Francis, commandant of the Army’s Field Artillery School.

“How do you train in a high combat environment … with lots of sensors and lots of data and lots of information? How do you normalize that so they can synthesize [it]?” he said. “We’re seeing that a lot of our targeting is transitioning from deliberate planning out from 24- to 96-hour time horizons, to ... becoming dynamic because the enemy gets evoked, [and] conditions are changing.”