EW tool contract cancelled by U.S. Army
NewsMay 01, 2024
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. The U.S. Army recently announced the cancellation of the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT) task order competition under the RS3 Enterprise contract, a decision officials say was prompted by evolving requirements and a strategic realignment within the program.
According to the Army's press release, moving forward, the Army will continue to prioritize its service-specific EWPMT fielding of current capability and will also focus on EWPMT software architecture modernization. Program Executive Office - Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, and Sensors (PEO IEW&S) is working on a pilot program as part of the architecture modernization in collaboration with the United States Marine Corps (USMC), shifting EWPMT’s electromagnetic warfare and spectrum management capabilities to the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) framework. This effort is being led by the Electronic Warfare Integration (EWI) product management office.
The TAK-X framework enables building of applications for presenting situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations; the TAK user community collaborates across the EW user space and presents opportunities for technology advancement and integration across the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Special Operations Command, and the Joint Communities of Interest. The Army says that the strategic move aims to ensure that EWPMT is a relevant capability at the forefront of emerging operational requirements.
The results of the U.S. Army-USMC collaboration on the TAK-X foundation aims to provide a microservice-based, modular software architecture satisfying joint and individual service requirements, enabling agile development, integration, and ability to rapidly adjust to evolving operational requirements.
The initial releases of the modernized architecture, EWPMT-X, will be piloted and demonstrated over the next year, according to the Army statement, to gain EW operator feedback; upon a successful pilot effort, EWPMT-X will replace the current version of EWPMT in fiscal year 2026.