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Through T-REX, DoD seeks to fill technology gaps

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3 weeks ago

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The Defense Department’s Technology Readiness Experimentation is all about finding the technology needles in the haystack.

Through this live-fire and prototype demonstration, T-REX is trying to validate the technical maturation and military utility of specific technologies to fill gaps in the warfighters’ arsenal.

These gaps could be urgent operational needs or from an integrated priority list developed by the goals set by the Joint Staff.

“T-REX is unique in the case that we’re take technologies right out of the laboratory. We’re talking technology readiness levels anywhere between four and six, which is our initial entry criteria. There are special use cases, where we go a little earlier than that, if it’s software use initiatives, but we need to make sure that as prototypes come into fruition from concept and we’re driving the capability and fielding into the warfighters hands, that it works,” said  Lt. Col. Matt Limeberry, the commander of the Rapid Assessment of Prototype Technology Readiness (RAPTR) Task Force in Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, on Ask the CIO. “That technology come with their white sheets, their quad charts, and we say, ‘Hey, if you have an unmanned aerial system that can fly an endurance of eight hours and carry a 10-pound payload, well, prove it in any platform, any domain, outside of the laboratory and outside of a controlled environment.’”

Limeberry said his team of about 100 uniformed personnel on the RAPTR Task Force, stationed at Camp Atterbury-Muscatatuck in Indiana, puts these technologies through their paces in an environment that closely duplicates certain operational environments.

Indiana National Guard industry partners test launch unmanned aerial systems designed to enhance real-time surveillance and battlefield awareness at the Department of Defense’s 10-day Technology Readiness Experimentation event, hosted by the Indiana National Guard’s Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve Task Force at Camp Atterbury, near Edinburgh, Indiana, on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Jonah Alvarez, Indiana National Guard Headquarters)

“As these technologies come through and use T-REX as a venue, we want to be that publisher, that clearinghouse and underwriting authority for technologies going to the warfighter. That speed of relevancy matters,” he said. “As technologies are being assessed in T-REX, they get that military utility feedback from the warfighter, and can iterate on the spot. That’s purposeful for a reason because it helps us buy down risk now for the future warfighter. What we say is let the warfighter fight tonight with tomorrow’s technology. T-REX does that. It helps us buy down risk. It helps us save costs and iterate technology fast and early, fail often and fast, because when the warfighter needs it.”

Brandon Bean, the senior director for artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions in the chief technology office in the defense division at General Dynamics-IT (GDIT), said his team experienced these concepts in action. He called T-REX  “the ideal proving ground. It created realistic, fast-paced and unforgiving circumstances.”

DOGMA platform put through its paces

At the T-REX exercise in the summer of 2024, GDIT and its partners, including Amazon Web Services, tested out the Defense Operations Grid-Mesh Accelerator (DOGMA) platform, which is an AI software that is aiming to modernize long-range communications to support U.S. air defense systems.

GDIT says DOGMA integrates cloud and AI technologies with satellite connectivity capabilities in order to streamline data processing, analysis and decision making.

Bean said the Army and GDIT used T-REX to validate the platform’s adaptability, latency and ability to perform under pressure, while still being able to show how modular edge AI capabilities can extend decision making to the tactical edge, even without reliable communications.

“We combine resilient mesh networking edge optimized compute and real time AI and machine learning inference to process sensor data without the reliance on the persistent cloud connectivity when necessary, but when we’re in a disrupted, degraded, intermittent and low-bandwidth (DDIL) condition, we’re able to also extend connectivity beyond the edge of the battlefield using AWS as a secure cloud backbone,” Bean said. “It was originally built for NORAD and the Alaskan command to predict aircraft trajectories in low visibility radar denied environments, using historical and real-time sensor data. It was originally built for looking for what we call big hunks of metal in the sky. We quickly were able to adapt the solution for T-REX to adapt to the counter UAS mission.”

Bean said GDIT pivoted its use case toward counter UAS in about two weeks leading up to the exercise and then during T-REX, it modified the technology again in about eight hours to test it at the edge with low-bandwidth.

“In an environment like T-REX,  there’s always something that’s going to be thrown at you. The first was being able to identify when we wanted to design our model retraining triggers. When you’re working on data like UAS data, over time, that data will drift, and that could be from a compendium of things and it’s mainly just the way the data is being sent and we are adding new sensors. So we really were able to get a good sense of what the real world conditions would be, allowing us to essentially model the auto-retraining of our models based on that live data drift and orchestrate how we do that at the edge when we’re actually in detail,” he said. “Another one would be our edge orchestration logic. We’re currently working to harden how DOGMA prioritizes its edge workloads when compute is constrained. That was one of the big things we dealt with out there.”

T-REX is a twice-a-year exercise

Limeberry said during T-REX, the Army has key performance measures to evaluate the technologies against to ensure they meet warfighter needs. These include everything from supply chain risk management to scalability to being able to change, correct and adjust in near-real time.

Bean said DOGMA could be used by other agencies beyond DoD. He said the Department of Homeland Security, for example, is another agency with UAS mission areas, whether it’s Customs and Border Protection or FEMA. The Agriculture and Interior departments also are using drones to measure and manage land and wilderness areas.

“There are a lot of a lot of places out there where people don’t really assume DOGMA is beneficial, but anywhere that you need analytics and you need data moved off of the objective, whether that objective is an internet of things sensor, whether it’s a camera, whether it is edge compute, some type of a radar sensor, DOGMA is applicable,” he said. “It’s that secure backbone that allow you to get that data off of the objective and somewhere that you can use it, whether it is out at the edge or back at the core data center.”

Limeberry said DoD has used T-REX to look at an assortment of other technologies too, including resiliency in that communication, predictability in the AI modeling and deterring, detecting and defeating adversarial aerial platforms that threaten the security of bases.

“We are prefacing into 2026 and we’re looking at what we call ‘Top Gun,’ which is a first-person view UAS platforms and drone-on-drone conflict. We are looking at offensive and defensive swarming capabilities, multi domain, collaborative autonomy, so controlling air, maritime and aerial platforms at the same time through learning autonomous stacks,” he said. “It’s all about how we achieve some of the latest administration executive orders of American drone dominance. These tie into those policies and procedures that we want to achieve in American made and manufactured requirements to build our defense industrial base moving forward into the future.”

The post Through T-REX, DoD seeks to fill technology gaps first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Politics

President Trump Taps Dr. Ben Carson for New Role — A HUGE Win for America First Agenda

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39 minutes ago

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September 25, 2025

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Dr. Ben Carson is the newest member of the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, was sworn in as the national adviser for nutrition, health, and housing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins shared that Carson’s role will be to oversee Trump’s new Big Beautiful Bill law, which aims to ensure Americans’ quality of life, from nutrition to stable housing.

After being sworn in, Carson shared, “Today, too many Americans are suffering from the effects of poor nutrition. Through common-sense policymaking, we have an opportunity to give our most vulnerable families the tools they need to flourish.”

Table of Contents

WATCH:

Per USDA:

Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced that Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., was sworn in as the National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“There is no one more qualified than Dr. Carson to advise on policies that improve Americans’ everyday quality of life, from nutrition to healthcare quality to ensuring families have access to safe and stable housing,” said Secretary Rollins.

“With six in ten Americans living with at least one chronic disease, and rural communities facing unique challenges with respect to adequate housing, Dr. Carson’s insight and experience is critical. Dr. Carson will be crucial to implementing the rural health investment provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill and advise on America First polices related to nutrition, health, and housing.

“As the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump Administration, Dr. Carson worked to expand opportunity and strengthen communities, and we are honored to welcome him to the second Trump Administration to help lead our efforts here at USDA to Make America Healthy Again and ensure rural America continues to prosper.”

“Today, too many Americans are suffering from the effects of poor nutrition. Through common-sense policymaking, we have an opportunity to give our most vulnerable families the tools they need to flourish,” said Dr. Ben Carson. “I am honored to work with Secretary Rollins on these important initiatives to help fulfill President Trump’s vision for a healthier, stronger America.”

On Sunday, Dr. Carson was one of the many speakers at the memorial service of the late TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk.

During the memorial service, Carson highlighted that Kirk was shot at 12:24 p.m. and then continued to share the Bible verse John 12:24, which reads, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

WATCH:

The post President Trump Taps Dr. Ben Carson for New Role — A HUGE Win for America First Agenda appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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LEAKED MEMO: Deep State Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia Claim There Isn’t Enough Evidence to Convict Comey Amid Reports of Imminent Indictment

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45 minutes ago

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September 25, 2025

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On Wednesday evening, disgruntled officials in the Eastern District of Virginia leaked contents of a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey.

As reported earlier, former FBI Director James Comey is expected to be indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia in the next few days.

Comey will reportedly be charged for lying to Congress in a 2020 testimony about whether he authorized leaks to the media.

Officials in the Eastern District of Virginia are still fighting to stop Comey from being charged after Trump fired US Attorney Erik Siebert.

President Trump last week fired Erik Siebert as the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia because he refused to bring charges against Letitia James, Comey, Schiff and others.

On Saturday evening, President Trump announced that he had appointed Lindsey Halligan – his personal attorney who defended him against the Mar-a-Lago raid – as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Now, with just days to go before the statute of limitations runs out to charge Comey for lying during a September 30, 2020 testimony, Lindsey Halligan is reportedly gearing up to indict Comey.

Prosecutors reportedly gave newly sworn-in Halligan a memo defending James Comey and explaining why charges should not brought against the fired FBI Director.

Per MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian:

Two sources familiar with the matter tell me prosecutors in the EDVA US attorney‘s office presented newly sworn US attorney Lindsey Halligan with a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey, because there isn’t enough evidence to establish probable cause a crime was committed, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict him.

Justice Department guidelines say a case should not be brought unless prosecutors believe it’s more likely than not that they can win a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.

The post LEAKED MEMO: Deep State Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia Claim There Isn’t Enough Evidence to Convict Comey Amid Reports of Imminent Indictment appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Nearly 8 in 10 Voters Say the United States is in Political Crisis After the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

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57 minutes ago

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September 25, 2025

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Nearly eight in ten voters believe that the United States is in a political crisis in the wake of the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk.

According to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released on Wednesday, a massive 93 percent of Democrats, 84 percent of independents, and 60 percent of Republicans said the nation is in a political crisis.

“The Kirk assassination lays bare raw, bipartisan concerns about where the country is headed,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said of the poll results.

Quinnipiac reports:

Seventy-one percent of voters think politically motivated violence in the United States today is a very serious problem, 22 percent think it is a somewhat serious problem, 3 percent think it is a not so serious problem, and 1 percent think it is not a problem at all.

This is a jump from Quinnipiac University’s June 26 poll when 54 percent thought politically motivated violence in the United States today was a very serious problem, 37 percent thought it was a somewhat serious problem, 6 percent thought it was a not so serious problem, and 2 percent thought it was not a problem at all.

Nearly 6 in 10 voters (58 percent) think it will not be possible to lower the temperature on political rhetoric and speech in the United States, while 34 percent think it will be possible.

Over half, 54 percent, of voters believe the US will see increased political violence over the next few years. Another 27 percent said they think it will stay “about the same,” while just 14 percent believe it will ease.

A 53 percent majority also said they are “pessimistic about freedom of speech being protected in the United States.”

Surprisingly, a 53 percent majority also believes the current system of democracy is not working.

“From a perceived assault on freedom of speech to the fragility of the democracy, a shudder of concern and pessimism rattles a broad swath of the electorate. Nearly 80 percent of registered voters feel they are witnessing a political crisis, seven in ten say political violence is a very serious problem, and a majority say this discord won’t go away anytime soon,” Malloy added.

The vast majority, 82 percent, said the way that people discuss politics is contributing to the violence.

“When asked if political discourse is contributing to violence, a rare meeting of the minds…Republicans, Democrats, and independents in equal numbers say yes, it is,” Malloy said.

The survey was conducted from September 18 to 21 among 1,276 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.

The post Nearly 8 in 10 Voters Say the United States is in Political Crisis After the Assassination of Charlie Kirk appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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