Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said a joint autonomy office within the Department of Defense’s chief digital and artificial intelligence office could help DOD facilitate coordination and push the adoption of autonomous systems, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.
Wittman and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., introduced a bill that would create the office within CDAO to speed up the development and delivery of autonomous platforms in support of U.S. military operations.
Wittman said that office proposed in the Autonomous Systems Adoption and Policy Act would serve as a single venue for how the department directs its efforts and policy related to autonomous technologies.
“We’ve seen in the Pentagon where there has been a movement towards autonomy at a faster pace than has happened in the past. But as in, again, part of the element of any large organization and bureaucracy, it’s still very fragmented,” he said during his keynote speech at an event Wednesday.
“If we’re going to have unity and purpose, it needs to be in a single place… This bill allows that to happen,” Wittman added.
The JAO proposed in the bipartisan measure would offer a departmentwide framework to classify autonomous capabilities, an enterprise platform for all-domain autonomy testing and plans and methods to standardize resourcing, planning and integration efforts.
