ARC said that the new award will integrate the firm’s flagship product with USMC enterprise maintenance system data
National security and public safety company Armaments Research Company (ARC) announced a contract award intended to further scale its conditions-based maintenance platform for U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) crew-served weapons.
In a release, the firm noted that this new award will integrate ARC’s flagship product with USMC enterprise maintenance system data “to gain deeper sustainment insights, create a seamless user experience, and implement resilient system security.”
This task order is part of the 5-year, $60-million Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase III contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and General Services Administration (GSA) to develop systems for the Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) project portfolio. JADC2’s goal is to connect sensors from each military service into one, integrated network.
The project expands upon Task Order 2 with the USMC, which ARC introduced last October. Task Order 2 focused on developing a turnkey predictive maintenance software system that empowers units to anticipate, plan and take proactive steps for events such as parts repair or failure before they occur, ensuring reliability and safety during training and operations. This platform will now be bolstered by enterprise maintenance data to better detect non-age-related weapons issues and empower end users to take action.
“The USMC has consistently expressed its desire for an integrated maintenance solution rather than an application end users must manage separately,” said Michael Canty, ARC’s CEO. “This project represents a meaningful step toward building this weapons maintenance capability into end users’ natural sustainment rhythm.”
ARC adapted Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensor to crew-served weapons platforms to collect, synthesize, and communicate diagnostics for units to assess the overall health of their platforms. The data was used to develop machine-learning (ML) algorithms to detect when a component of the weapon may fail or when the weapon system requires maintenance.
In August, ARC said that its IoT technology will be introduced in the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) program of record, in partnership with Sig Sauer.
The U.S. Army’s initiative will replace its individual rifles, squad machine guns, fire control system and ammunition, with the main aim of modernizing the military equipment.
ARC’s technology platform will provide data on individual weapons at scale, according to the company. The resulting insights will enable U.S. Army’s units to regularly assess weapons’ health, reduce failure rates, extend the lifetime of a weapon and optimize maintenance plans, enhancing performance and reducing costs, ARC says, adding that the data gathered by ARC’s platform can also improve a unit’s understanding of its readiness.
The first production delivery of NGSW weapons will include ARC’s round count and inventory management system, gathering weapons usage data on the units over the next several years. The NGSW program was development in response to findings that current weapons systems threaten conflict overmatch, ARC said.
ARC also noted that its weapons intelligence platform works with tactical tools and artificial intelligence to ensure mission readiness and improve small-unit performance.
ARC said that its proprietary systems provide national defense, law enforcement and security professionals with embedded IoT sensors, intelligent mobile applications and cloud-based analytics platforms.
