A provision in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Defense Department to perform an operational test and evaluation procedure to ensure the Joint Regional Security Stacks system will work to protect DoD networks from cyber attacks, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law the bill that contains such a requirement for JRSS, a $1.6 billion shared platform of 12 regionalized cyber centers implemented under the Joint Information Environment.

Jared Serbu writes DoD leaders could bypass the OT&E requirement if they can certify to Congress that JRSS is critical to national security and performs its functions.

DoD’s inspector general said in its annual oversight plan that it plans to start a series of initial audits to evaluate whether the implementation of the JRSS system works to reduce the Pentagon’s exposure to external and internal cyber threats, according to the report.

The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army have started to migrate their computer networks and plan to move the rest of their systems to JRSS in 2017, Serbu reports.

The U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy plan to begin the migration process for their large enterprise networks to the JRSS system’s 2.0 version in 2018, the report added.

The U.S. Marine Corps looks to expand the use of autonomous technologies in the military branch’s air, ground and sea operations, Marine Corps Times reported Wednesday.

Matthew Schehl writes the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines currently works on wargaming robotic technologies that will serve as the ground combat element for the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit beginning 2017.

One of those technologies is General Dynamics‘ Multipurpose Unmanned Tactical Transport, an all-terrain vehicle designed to move up to 600 pounds of payload at eight miles per hour, Schehl reported.

“[Autonomous systems] will interface with a human just like a subordinate fire team leader who goes back to their squad leader when they have something to report or need new orders,” said James Jenkins, director of science and technology at the Marine Corps’ warfighting laboratory.

The Marine Corps joined a U.S. Army program in June to create a robotic variant of Malloy Aeronautics‘ Hoverbike turbo fan-powered quadcopter that would feature a 125-mile range and payload capacity of 800 pounds.

The U.S. Army plans to conduct a series of demonstrations by the summer of 2017 at Fort Benning in Georgia in order to assess the potential role of combat vehicles as “robotic wingmen,” Defense News reported Wednesday.

Gen. Michael Lundy, commanding general at the Army’s Combined Arms Center in Kansas, told reporters that the service branch plans to equip an Abrams tank with a robotic loader and allow the weapons loader to control unmanned ground and aerial systems, Jen Judson writes.

The Army will also use Humvees and M113 armored vehicles to demonstrate the robotic wingman concept in order to facilitate the development of programs of record for both semiautonomous and autonomous wingmen, according to the service branch’s slides presented during a capabilities data exchange between industry and the Army Training and Doctrine Command in Virginia.

The semiautonomous robotic platform is set to enter the program of record in 2023 and would allow the combat vehicles to perform obstacle detection and avoidance as well as navigation functions, Judson reports.

The Army expects the autonomous wingman to be a program of record by 2035 and would be equipped with teleoperated weapons and navigation capability, the report added.

The U.S. Air Force has partnered with Engility to conduct a cyber risk audit of the service branch’s over 100 command-and-control systems as well as battle situation awareness platforms, Federal News Radio reported Tuesday.

The military branch previously awarded the company a potential $31 million contract as part of the Defense Department’s efforts to build up the systems’ cyber defense capabilities.

Scott Maucione writes the Air Force will work to evaluate the systems and ensure that they comply with the security controls of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

“If we are conducting assessments across three or four enterprise level command and control systems, if we see trends in that particular area then we will work with our customer to help make recommendations so the various program managers can implement the correct security controls,” said Floyd McKinney, director for cyber at Engility.

Maucione reported the company will focus the audits on C2 systems’ software and hardware under the contract with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, which is part of the Defense Technical Information Center.

Air Force program managers will collaborate with Engility in order to get the authority-to-operate certificate that would ensure that cyber risks are mitigated and security controls for the systems are implemented and verified independently, according to the report.