The Role of Technology in Future Air-To-Surface Systems

Technology development in the classic sense of improvements in single discipline performance or function continues to move at a rapid pace. This in itself is not sufficient to get the technologies into advanced systems. A parallel conscious effort is needed to evaluate the technologies in a conceptual system/mission context to develop measures of the technologies worth in terms of end product payoff; i.e., capability improvement of a system with a technology set infused. This serves two purposes; (1) it identifies high payoff technologies, and (2) it helps to establish a potential system's capabilities. The latter can interact with Using Command needs to define specific, realizable system requirements.