CBOA 22

“Technology cannot advance without the vision of a better tomorrow”

— Chief Warrant Officer Three Macio E. Brown

The Chemical Biological Operational Analysis (CBOA) event, developed and executed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), provides researchers an opportunity to elicit warfighter feedback during the technology development process of emerging chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) capabilities for use in a realistic operational environment.

CBOA 22 was held at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, in May 2022. In its role as the Joint Science and Technology Office (JSTO) for the Chemical and Biological Defense Program, Chemical and Biological Technologies Department, DTRA, is the Department of Defense hub for chemical and biological technical expertise. The JSTO, which leads the defense community in preparing for chemical and biological threats, identifies and provides cutting-edge technology solutions to protect the security of the American people while empowering warfighters to achieve their missions in dangerous environments. The JSTO is responsible not only for protecting against the known threats of today but also for anticipating the major threats of tomorrow. In addition, JSTO provides science and technology support to the Department of Defense, other government agencies, and the international community.

DTRA sponsored more than 300 U.S. government, academia, and industry representatives as participants for CBOA 22, which addressed military capability gaps and high-priority mission deficiencies. During the week-long event, new CBRN-related technologies were assessed by capturing user feedback from all branches of the U.S. armed forces. Technologies were rated at technology readiness levels ranging from three to eight, based on four mission areas corresponding to the CBRN core functions: assess, protect, mitigate, and integrate command and control management.

The assessment focused on the following characteristics of the technologies: performance, adaptability, ability to be integrated into the mission command common operating picture, digital security, environmental robustness, training burden, ease of use, task-load requirements for system operations, propensity for system malfunctions, routine maintenance burden, and logistical impacts. The event consisted of three lanes, which contained multiple operational scenarios to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technologies.

CBRN Protection 2030 and Beyond

According to Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3-37, Protection, “Many state and nonstate actors (including terrorists and criminals) possess or have the capability to possess, develop, or proliferate [weapons of mass destruction] WMD. The most likely adversaries during large-scale ground combat have significant WMD capabilities and the doctrine to employ them during conventional operations. The training to conduct operations in a WMD environment is critical to operational success.”[1] In order to achieve freedom of action, increase lethality, and enable movement and maneuver in the execution of large-scale ground combat operations in the complex CBRN environment, the Army must aggressively develop future CBRN defense capabilities to outpace our adversaries.[2]

U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) Pamphlet (Pam) 71-20-7, Army Futures Command Concept for Protection 2028, builds upon the ideas of the multi-domain operations concept and serves as the baseline for required CBRN protection capabilities to enable Army forces in multi-domain operations through CBRN reconnaissance and surveillance, integrated early warning, real-time understanding, inherent survivability, and mitigation of CBRN hazards.[3] The key to successful all-domain protection includes improvement of artificial intelligence and machine learning for CBRN detection and mitigation capabilities. CBOA 22 highlighted breakthrough scientific discoveries and technological innovations that support the central idea of the core CBRN competencies (assess, protect, and mitigate) and the integrating activity of hazard awareness and understanding in support of the United States Army Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear (CBRN) Science & Technology Strategy.[4] By employing capabilities that enable decision making and protect the force, commanders can sense, assess, understand, decide, and act faster and more effectively, thereby gaining an information advantage.

CBOA Technologies Overview

CBRN assessment capabilities enable commanders to understand the environment as early as possible so that they may make informed, risk-based decisions that protect the force while retaining freedom of action in a CBRN environment. The following assessment technologies were assessed during CBOA 22:

Figure 1. Pendar X10

• Dial-a-Threat Assay—a hand-held, unpowered, human-readable biological threat identifier.
• Biological Automated Collector/Detector for Expeditionary Reconnaissance (BioACER©)—a fully automated biological collection and identification device that can be released from an unmanned arial system (UAS) for remote analysis over a plume.
• Falcon 4G©—a 4th-generation laser-based CBRN standoff detector (which was used in a base defense scenario).
• FentAlert©—an all-environments screening assay for pharmaceutical fentanyl-based agents.
• Far-Forward Advanced Sequencing Technology—a technology used to identify DNA- or RNA-based organisms.
• Hazardous-material small UAS—a UAS that is used to fly optimized patterns through hazardous areas, detecting, identifying, quantifying, and mapping hazardous data in real time, thereby enhancing situational awareness and improving decision quality.
• MUSA P3I©—a semiautonomous quadrupedal robot with integrated chemical and radiological detection/identification instruments that can also take photographs in the hot zone and conduct most CBRN reconnaissance/sampling missions.
• NuGBall©—a portable sensor network for real-time CBRN contamination mapping.
• Pendar X10©—a handheld standoff Raman spectroscopy chemical identification system used to identify unknown materials (liquid, solid, gel) at a distance of 1 to 6 feet within a few seconds (Figure 1).
• Raman spectrometer—a spectrometer used to identify collected particles.
• Rigaku©—a portable handheld, dual-technology 1064 nanometer for the identification of chemicals and toxic industrial chemicals.

CBRN protection capabilities enable inherent survivability (individual and collective) in support of large-scale combat operations, without degradation or loss of combat effectiveness in a CBRN environment. The following protection technology was assessed during CBOA 22:

• Second Skin©—a mask cover that is installed on a standard M50 mask to improve the protective garment hood and mask interface.

CBRN mitigation contributes to the negation of hazard effects by providing commanders the flexibility to make risk-based decisions about the mitigation of residual CBRN contamination without the reduction of combat power or unnecessary expenditure of time and resources. The following mitigation technology was assessed during CBOA 22:

• Decontaminating skin soap—a soap that is used to rapidly decontaminate sensitive equipment, materials, and skin from chemical warfare agents, biological warfare agents, toxic industrial chemicals, toxic industrial materials, nontraditional agents, pharmaceutical-based agents, and other emerging threats.

Digital Battlespace Command and Control Management

Digital battlespace command and control management systems provide CBRN staffs with the information required for commanders to make decisions with enhanced situational awareness and understanding in a timelier manner. Digital battlespace command and control management tools allow CBRN staffs to receive large amounts of CBRN threat information and intelligence, conduct analysis, and develop trends related to enemy CBRN employment. Technology developers presented the following capabilities during CBOA 22:

• CBRN Analysis Software—a commercial, off-the-shelf knowledge management application.
• The Hazard Estimation and Assessment Toolkit—a next-generation CBRN hazard modeling application for web-based TAK and Windows© TAK platforms.
• Multiintelligence-Enabled Discovery—artificial-intelligence, machine-learning algorithms that use Azure Cloud© and Azure Cognitive Services© to provide near-real-time processing of multiple types of raw, unformatted environmental and intelligence data to provide intelligence insight and information to decision makers.

Conclusion

CBOA forges the future of CBRN modernization by showcasing experimentation, demonstration, and capability development for the joint force. Commanders need the ability to see the adversary, deny it anonymity, counter specific strengths, achieve positions of advantage, and expand and exploit gained areas. Lieutenant General D. Scott McKean, director of the Futures and Concepts Center, Army Futures Command, Fort Eustis, Virginia, prefaced his CBOA 22 speech on AFC Pam 71-20-7 by stating, “Looking forward, the Army must develop capabilities that can support and integrate with our joint, interagency, interorganizational, and multinational partners to expand the protection capability, increase capacity in competition, and operate at scale in armed conflict.” This guidance exemplifies the Army commitment to protecting the force, improving survivability, and reestablishing the readiness of forces through the development of modernized capabilities.