Concepts Experimentation Program

Mission — Army/Joint Experimentation source

This project supports current and future concepts and capabilities development, design and integration in support of the Army Vision and Army Modernization Strategy. Experimentation focuses on the latest Army Warfighting Concept, operational and organizational concepts to validate and provide insights to develop and design the future Army. Live, virtual, and constructive environments explore concepts, capability, and formation requirements. Potential solutions across Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, and Facilities (DOTMLPF) domains are developed. Army Focused Warfighting Experiment (AFWE) assessments executed in the field with human participants with emerging technology to emulate relevant threat assessments. These efforts result in lessons learned and mitigate risk for current and future forces. Experiments and multi-scale assessments inform Army future concepts and assess high-risk conceptual assumptions in order to focus required capabilities, formations and represent user requirements in the future Army. Experiments use the combined resources of Army Battle Laboratories, operating force units, research laboratories, materiel developers, concept developers industry, and academia to collaborate in the development, refinement, and assessment of future force concepts, capabilities and Army formations. This project also supports the Army's Simulation-Based Experiments (SIMEX) and Table Top Exercises (TTX) to integrate and assess near, mid, and far-term future force concepts, force designs, and Future capabilities.

Mission — Current Force Capability Gaps source

This project enables the Army to develop, integrate and help synchronize capability requirements and solutions into the operational force to meet the Army's goal to deliver and design future Army. Funding ensures that the Warfighter is independently represented by, complementing the materiel and non-material developers, providing total capability management that integrates all doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) considerations. This project provides resources to execute Capability Development and Integration Directorate (CDID) Battle Lab experimentation, assessments and analysis addressing the Army's most significant modernization challenges. The Army plans and conducts experiments to gain insights and recommendations in the development of integrated concepts and requirements to inform Army Senior Leader modernization decisions through the results of a rigorous Campaign of Learning. Funding in this project enables maintenance of the Army Capability- based Architecture Development and Integration Environment (ArCADIE) providing storage, accessibility, production, and certification of authoritative architecture data and supporting systems. ArCADIE enables the process to develop, verify and validate operational architecture for eight major BCT formations.

Mission — Concepts Experimentation Program source

The Army Concepts Experimentation Program supports current and future concepts and capabilities involving Soldiers and Leaders within live, virtual, and constructive environments by exploring concepts, capability requirements and solutions across Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, personnel, and Facilities (DOTMLPF) domains. The purpose of Concepts Experimentation is to clarify and mitigate risk for current and future forces. Experiments and projects inform Army futures concepts and assess high-risk conceptual assumptions in order to focus required capabilities and represent user requirements in the future Army, to field the Army. Army experiments use the combined resources of Army Battle Laboratories, operational units, research labs, materiel developers, concept developers, industry and academia to collaborate in the development, refinement, and assessment of future force concepts. Simulated Experiments (SIMEX) will integrate and assess Army Concepts and Force Design phases with Army-level issues across the breadth of a campaign that highlights validation and integration of MDO capabilities. This Program Element (PE) enhances Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) development in support of Program Executive Offices (PEOs) and Program Managers (PMs) for acquisition milestone decisions. Funding ensures AFC/FCC serves as the voice of the warfighter and compliments the materiel developer in providing total capability management ensuring the integration of DOTMLPF solutions. This PE resources the Army's Continuous Learning Campaign, currently known as Project Convergence (PC). PC is the Army's campaign of learning based on a continuous, structured series of demonstrations and experiments, designed to aggressively advance and integrate our Army's contributions to Joint Force overmatch. It ensures the Army, as part of the Joint fight, can rapidly and continuously integrate or "converge" effects across all domains to overmatch our adversaries in competition and conflict. PC is part of the Army's intent to achieve a full Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) capability. Capstone is the periodic, joint, multinational experiment within Project Convergence that pulls together concepts, technology, gaps, and requirements at scale for the Army and applies them to the Indo-Pacific and European theaters. Capstone experiments on ways to defeat our pacing threat in the Indo-Pacific and the five key functions the Army performs in this theater: building and defending bases, command and control for Combined Joint Force (CJF), sustaining logistical supply lines, defensive fires through long-range precision strikes, and counter-attack forces. In addition, Capstone experiments against near-peer adversaries in the European theater, against which the CJF demonstrates pulsed operations to enable a land-centric exploitation. Capstone focuses on Army with the immediate need to integrate select technologies to keep the Army ahead of our peers and on the leading edge of development. This PE provides funding for Defender, Forager. These experiments help the Army evaluate emerging concepts, new formations, integrate new technologies, and promote interoperability between the Army, other services and multinational partners. The Soldier-Centered Analysis Future Force Project (33B) will provide early application of human performance and human figure modeling tools in the development of Soldier-focused requirements to shape technology for Future Force development. These efforts include design analyses, constructive simulations, and Soldier-in-the loop assessments to ensure that manpower requirements and workload and skill demands are considered, avoiding information and physical task overloads and taking optimum advantage of aptitudes, individual and collective training, and numbers of Soldiers for an affordable Future Force. The FY 2026 request was reduced by $26.443 million for Advisory and Assistance Services to promote efficiencies and advance the policies of the Administration in alignment with Executive Order 14222, "Implementing the President's Department of Government Efficiency Cost Efficiency Initiative." The FY 2026 request was reduced by $0.219 million for civilian personnel to optimize the workforce in compliance with Executive Order 14210, "Implementing the President's Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative."

Mission — Soldier-Centered Analyses For Future Force source

This Project will provide early application of human performance and human figure modeling tools in the development of Soldier-focused requirements to shape technology for Future Force development. Efforts include design analyses, constructive simulations, and Soldier-in-the-loop assessments to ensure that manpower requirements and workload and skill demands are considered, avoiding information and physical task overloads and taking optimum advantage of aptitudes, individual and collective training, and numbers of Soldiers for an affordable Future Force. The cited work is consistent with the Strategic Planning Guidance, the Army Science and Technology Master Plan (ASTMP), the Army Modernization Plan, and the Defense Technology Area Plan (DTAP).

Mission — Project Convergence (PC) source

This project supports the Army's campaign of learning experimentation called Project Convergence (PC) . PC is a multi-year Army hosted joint and coalition experimentation plan focused on designing and delivering the Army of the future. This is a concept-informed experiment that incorporates deliberate modernization efforts in a field environment. Continuous, planning and structured series of demonstrations and experiments culminates at Capstone. This singular periodic experiment pulls together concepts, technology, requirements, and gaps. The purpose of these efforts is to learn and mitigate risk for current and future forces. Joint Services, Army Organizations, industry and academia collaborate in the development, refinement, and assessment and outcomes of future force concepts, capabilities and formations. This project also supports research required to oppose adversary technologies in the operational environment.

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (10)