IHMC project helps pioneer new tools for warfighters

The Russian-Ukrainian War has evolved over the past four years into the world’s first drone military conflict. Ukraine turned to inexpensive off-the-shelf drones at the beginning of the war to combat Russia’s larger and better-equipped army.

The off-the-shelf drones were so effective at tracking Russian troops and bombing enemy targets that Ukraine quickly created manufacturing assembly lines capable of producing a million drones a year.

With support from the U.S., Ukraine began innovating the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that led to a new generation of sophisticated drones that have rapidly transformed the nature of warfare. These innovations in autonomous systems are now being deployed in Iran.

As a result of the military conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, new technologies in drones and autonomous systems are being rolled out around the world at an unprecedented pace. To help pioneer new capabilities, IHMC launched a project called Workbench four years ago. It allows the US military to prototype new concepts and rapidly develop new tools and technologies for warfighters that could be deployed in the battlefield. Over the last four years, Workbench has expanded far beyond its original mission.

“We’ve grown a lot over the last four years,” says Matt Johnson, an IHMC Senior Research scientist and one of the leaders of Workbench. “We started out prototyping new concepts to meet the needs of warfighters. But then SOCOM (U.S. Special Operations Command) started asking us, ‘Can we use this for training on these new systems? Can we use it for mission planning? Can we use it to do rehearsal? Can we use it for advanced drone training?’ So, over the past four years, we’ve extended Workbench to support each of these capabilities in an integrated manner to allow seamless transition between them.”

The project evolved when SOCOM and its Science and Technology Directorate began looking at ways to provide Special Operations Forces with new technologies that could be used in the battlefield in a variety of different environments. These new technologies were in the areas of artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous systems, all strengths of IHMC and its scientists.

So when SOCOM began acquiring these new technologies but quickly realized it also need training programs for these new tools, the command once again turned to IHMC.

“We’ve been quite good at meeting SOCOM needs. Even though Workbench originally was designed to prototype new concepts, we’ve continually adapted to developing training programs and rollouts for these new technologies. While many are skeptical of the value of Augmented Reality having never used Workbench, once they try Workbench out, most leave as converted believers in its value.”

So well that IHMC CEO Morley Stone says Workbench is now ready for prime time.

“Workbench is reshaping how you build products. It’s also reshaping how you validate new products and how you train teams to utilize new technologies, and even how you effectively deploy these new products and technologies in varied situations.”

Today IHMC researchers are working directly with Special Operations Forces to shape Workbench in a way that meets the immediate needs of the warfighter.

“By working directly with warfighters,” says Stone, “the Workbench staff is able to test the integration of these new technologies into a warfighter team earlier in the process of product development. The strength of this approach is that it stresses the importance of the operator being embedded within the process in order to fully understand the product and its operations. It is this interaction of people and technology in a real-world environment and within a mission context that will help us identify the critical issues in tomorrow’s sophisticated technologies.”

Johnson adds that IHMC researchers work hard to be responsive to their customers. “So we go and deliver a product to a customer, and we’ll spend time with them. They’ll bring people by, we’ll walk them through the product. We’ll ask them a lot of questions about what they like, what they don’t like, what they would like to see, what they would like to be able to do? And then we take all of that and bake it into the next solution. So, every time we go back to the customer, we are able to make something better. As a result, the progress of Workbench has been excellent. Each year we have more customers interested than the previous one and that’s always a good sign of value.”

In terms of being ready for prime time, Johnson and the Workbench team are now looking at ways to commercialize some of the capabilities that Workbench is providing. “That’s exciting in the sense that Workbench is mature enough now that we can actually potentially put it out in the market in different ways,” he says.

Stay tuned says Stone. “Workbench has created a whole new way of imagining and developing new technologies and products. The project is pretty young, just four years old. It’s exciting for me to think about what Workbench will be like 10 years in another four years.”