Rapid Response

The Pentagon's Rapid Response Technology Office hopes to lure new business by making test beds available for companies to try out their new technologies. Speaking this week at the Emerging Technologies for Defense Applications conference in Arlington, VA, Benjamin Riley, director of the RRTO office, said it is possible for companies to book time on the Stiletto ship, for example, as well as at the Yuma Test Center in Yuma, AZ.

Inside the Pentagon reported this new use for Stiletto, "an all carbon-fiber vessel measuring 88 feet long and 40 feet wide," which was recently employed by U.S. Southern Command in counterdrug operations. Riley described the ship as a "maritime environment test bed," where companies can book time on the ship to use their plug-and-play technologies.

Time at the Yuma Test Center can also be booked by companies who want to test their counter-improvised explosive device technologies, said Riley.

The test bed effort is part of RRTO's outreach to innovative businesses, one of the office's key priorities for fiscal year 2009, according to Riley.

He listed other major areas where his office intends to invest its energies and resources in FY-09. One key priority is Thunderstorm, a multi-sensor program aimed at quickly mining data. The office will also look at the interface between law enforcement and military operations, strategic communications and influence operations, interagency coordination, biometrics and forensics, capabilities to support denied area operations, small dispersed unit operations, autonomous systems operations and strategic multi-layer assessment, said Riley.