Replicator Updates from AUVSI: Feb 9, 2024

Welcome back to AUVSI’s biweekly newsletter to keep the uncrewed and autonomous systems industries updated on DOD’s Replicator initiative.

AUVSI Engagement

• What we’re up to: Yesterday, AUVSI’s Defense Advocacy Committee hosted Dominik Wermus of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) and Eric Lofgren of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), who briefed the members on Replicator and provide a 2024 congressional outlook.
• What’s next: Next week, AUVSI and many DAC members are participating in the DIU Summit which will focus, in part, on Replicator.

DOD Publications on Replicator

Remarks by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks 'Collaborative Disruption at DoD: Innovating to Win in the 21st Century' at the American Dynamism Summit, Washington, D.C. (As Delivered)

• Hicks said: “We've been fortunate to have strong bipartisan support on many fronts for driving innovation, including the Replicator initiative — from Congressman Gallagher, who you'll hear from later today; also, Congressman Calvert, who's championing innovation like never before in the appropriations process; Senator Tester, who's laser-focused on ensuring we can out-compete China by modernizing DoD; as well as Senator Reed, who has been stalwart.”

Hicks Makes Case That Effective Defense Innovation Is Moving Forward

• "We've put our heads down, worked with Congress, with the commercial sector and across DOD to deliver," Hicks said. "And, today, we are on track to meet Replicator's goals.”

DIU 3.0: Scaling Defense Innovation for Strategic Impact

• “A first test of this revamped focus for the Department, and for DIU, will be the Replicator Initiative, which aims to field thousands of attritable, autonomous systems in 18 to 24 months.”
• “Replicator is already breaking new ground, teeing up challenges for the senior leaders of the DISG and DIWG to break down. And it is on track, well into its first phase, to deliver the capability Secretary Hicks described, on the timeline she laid out.”

Replicator in the News

Army acquisition chief hopeful that Congress will grant reprogramming request for Replicator Defense Scoop

• The Pentagon submitted a spending plan and reprogramming requests to Congress on Jan. 31 for Replicator, which would allow DOD to ramp up and accelerate production for selected capabilities.

Defense Innovation Unit’s tech-scaling strategy focuses on partnerships Defense News // see also from Breaking Defense: In DIU’s new strategy, innovation hub looks to take on more ‘real risk’

• DIU Director Doug Beck is a member of the influential Deputy’s Innovation Steering Group. The group oversees DoD efforts to quickly get high-need technology into the field, including the Replicator initiative. Beck also chairs the Defense Innovation Working Group, which directly supports the steering group by vetting capabilities for it to consider.
• The DIU strategy notes that these elevated roles will help DIU establish stronger partnerships with Pentagon leadership and service acquisition officials that ensure it is focusing on the right technology projects and scaling in the right areas.

Inside DIU 3.0 & Pentagon’s Replicator Initiative With Aditi Kumar GovCon Wire

• “Replicator is a good example of how we are partnering with services to achieve scale fast,” Aditi Kumar said. “With the leadership of Deputy Secretary Hicks, DIU is working with stakeholders across the department, the commercial sector and Congress to leverage emerging technologies to deliver this operational capability. Five months into this work, we have already accomplished what normally would take the department two to three years, and we are on track to meet the goals of Replicator.”
• “With Replicator, we’re not asking Congress for additional authorities,” Kumar said. “We are within the PPBE cycle, within the two-year timeframe, showing that we can use all of the different acquisition pathways that they’ve already granted us, different contracting strategies, the authorities that we already have with respect to experimentation building and so on, to get multiple thousands of systems into the hands of the warfighter.”

PACFLEET CO Paparo Warns a Weak U.S. Maritime Sector Risk in Conflict with China USNI News

• “I think there are a number of initiatives, such as the Department of Defense’s Replicator initiative that seeks to gain scale with innovative practices and by closing on design and invoking small business and increasing the defense industrial base,” Paparo said. “I think another key point is to understand the opacity of the financial community and the extent to which investments in the PRC – through their civil-military fusion – directly could confer to weapons building that could affect and could harm Americans on the battlefield.”

Replicator’s ‘PRIME’ time: DIU seeks small USV interceptors ready for rapid production Breaking Defense // see also from USNI News: Pentagon Puts Out Call for Swarming Attack Drones That Could Blunt a Taiwan Invasion

• DIU is seeking industry contractors capable of producing small USV “interceptors” at a “high-rate” of production as soon spring of next year — part of the military’s sprawling Replicator effort.
• Although the CSO does not explicitly name Replicator, a DIU spokeswoman confirmed the solicitation is part of both Replicator as well as a “wider push on autonomy” reflected in several CSOs.

FARA Is Dead - The Army Will Trade New Scout Helicopters For Drones Forbes

• Exactly how much money will be available to invest in these other systems was not made clear. However, those paying attention may make a link between the Army’s decision and funding that could become available for the Pentagon’s Replicator program which has for months faced (but not answered) questions about where it will find the finances to build tens of thousands of attritable drones.

Opinion | The Pentagon has been learning the wrong lessons for three decades - John G. Ferrari , Defense One

• The first is that we can no longer build weapons at scale. With policy pushing for ever more technologically advanced systems, we forgot that we actually have to build them.
• One bright point within DOD is the call for drones as part of DOD’s Replicator initiative. If the Pentagon successfully fields drones at the scale and condensed timeframes put forth by the initiative, then it could act as a path forward for future weapons design. But we shouldn’t wait to find out. Therefore, the first reform should be a requirement that weapons be “designed to be manufactured at scale.”

Learn more about AUVSI's Defense Advocacy Committee: Contact Michael Smitsky, Esq.