The Army has created a means to send mission-specific applications and data to soldiers’ mobile devices, via a “tactical marketplace” built to resemble the functionality of Apple’s App Store or the Android Market.
The critical difference is the platform, called Tacmark, also lets a designated commander or leader send applications to the devices of his subordinates, said Steven P. Mazza, of Handheld/Tactical Technology branch of the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Command, Power & Integration directorate.
“If you’re walking around here at Aberdeen [Proving Ground, Md.] or the Pentagon and you have a commercial tablet or smartphone, you can reach into Army’s enterprise marketplace, browse around and pick and choose what you want,” Mazza said. “But it doesn’t work that way when lives are on the line. When lives are on the line, people are issued things.”
Tacmark is built in-house at CERDEC. Its creators say it is complementary to the Army Software Marketplace launched in March, which today contains mostly commercial applications.
As with a commercial app store, Tacmark allows users to browse and post feedback — but it also allows applications to be pushed out to soldiers from above them in the chain of command.
“There are things you can pick for your device and things you need for your device,” said Johnathan Gilday, lead engineer on the project.
A squad leader, for instance, would log into a Tacmark client on a desktop or laptop computer to assemble a “mission pack” using a soldier-friendly user interface, adding and subtracting components as necessary.
The program, like a social network, allows the leader to identify subordinates on his team who would receive the mission pack. Subordinates can be assigned to teams, and assigned roles within those teams.
Tacmark has the ability to distribute commercial applications like those found on iTunes, proprietary government apps, image files and document files.
The policy on what exactly will be distributed still rests with the Army’s Office of the Chief Information Officer/G-6.
Also, just how these devices and the network will be fielded and secured are still open questions. However, the Tacmark will work regardless, Mazza said.
“The real win is that regardless of the transport, regardless of the device and the data, we have a framework that is very orthogonal on all those fronts,” Mazza said. “We can accommodate not just the Army’s needs now but a decade from now, when soldiers are carrying devices you won’t recognize.”
Tacmark’s creators told Army Times the technology is being considered to become part of either the Army’s Nett Warrior mobile computing platform, or one of the programs under Project Manager — Mission Command. The latter oversees a number of situational awareness and battle command systems.
CERDEC tested Tacmark last summer at Fort Dix, N.J., during a network modernization exercise, and it demonstrated the ability to provision Android devices with Android apps over Army cellular networks, Gilday said.
In the demonstration, a mission pack was assembled on a laptop and pushed to users carrying commercial devices, using a few Wi-Fi hubs and a Humvee carrying a portable cell tower developed by the Army.
“We exercised Tacmark, told people to go into the woods, and we exercised this over a couple of different network layers,” Mazza said. “We continued to ride over the top of this in a comms-agnostic matter, and it was a huge success.”
Tacmark is expected to undergo further user tests at an upcoming Network Integration Evaluation still to be determined. The NIE is the service’s semiannual process for rapidly fielding technology.
CERDEC is still refining how the system will work at the “tactical edge,” where bandwidth and network access are limited. “That remains one of the biggest hurdles, to continue to do it better and better,” Mazza said.
Its creators admit the software is not so much a cutting-edge program as it is a means to bring the Army in line with other commercially available applications. Building a mission pack will feel very familiar for a soldier, like filling an online shopping cart, they say.
“We had to look at industry best practices and survey what the industry leaders are doing, like Amazon, and they don’t let their secrets out easily,” Mazza said. “It was a lot of reverse-engineering.”
The point is not to reinvent the wheel but to mimic the look, feel and functionality of other programs that a young soldier might be used to using out of uniform.
“It works like most smartphone apps work; you get it right away,” Mazza said. “They’re purpose-built, and the marketplace looks like a marketplace.”
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