Communities of Interest

Task Requests are projects which are deemed to be of common benefit to both industry and Government. These projects are awarded to the NAMC as prime contractor and include multiple NAMC members as subcontractors through the course of the project. Task Requests may organize a Community of Interest (COI) or a Community of Practice (COP), a subset of NAMC members who provide feedback, participate in discussions, and monitor the progress of the project on a voluntary basis.

NAMC currently coordinates four COI/COPs on behalf of the Government: 

• Army Robotic Common Software (ARCS) COP
• Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) COI
• Vehicle Protection Systems (VPS) COI
• Ground Combat Systems (GCS) Common Infrastructure Architecture (GCIA) COI 

If you are interested in participating in any of these Communities, please review the details on how to join in each section below.

The Army Robotic Common Software (ARCS) Community of Practice (COP) is strategically designed to propel Industry success in the ground autonomy domain through a collaborative framework with the Government. This initiative prioritizes Industry's active involvement in shaping the ARCS enterprise-level technical and business approaches, ensuring that the resulting standards and processes directly benefit Industry's ability to innovate and compete. Furthermore, the streamlined access to ARCS provided by this initiative will reduce development costs and accelerate time-to-market for Industry partners, ultimately enhancing their competitive edge and driving their sustained success.

In addition to the general COP, there have also been four (4) subcommittees established under the COP: 

• Acceptance, Availability, Accessibility (AAA) Group
• Technology Advisory Board (TAB)
• Government/Industry Collaboration Executive Committee (GICEC)
• Senior Steering Committee

These subcommittees are comprised of individuals from various NAMC industry members, NAMC, and Government. 

Eligibility: The COP is open for individuals of NAMC members to join via application. Subcommittees are currently closed but will periodically reopen to ARCS COP members as the need arises for more board volunteers. 

The RAS COI is an umbrella COI for the Robotic Operating System (ROS), unique to military requirements (ROS-M), Common Controller Architecture (CCA), and Interoperability Profiles (IOP) COIs. Due to the significant commonality and intersection of interests among these three initiatives, the Government and NAMC have decided to organize and maintain one common RAS COI to enable members to readily access cross-referenced information.  

Eligibility: Open for individuals of NAMC member organizations in good standing to join via application following the link below. Once approved, individuals may access artifacts, including access to RAS-G IOP, ROS-M, and CCA.

Robotic Operating System - Military (ROS-M)

NAMC has entered into a task request with the Government to develop a prototype variant of the ROS-M. ROS-M will be based on the same ROS‌-2 suite of security-enhanced, core messaging and interface formats, libraries, and software development tools used by the general ROS community. As a result, the ROS-M ecosystem will be able to incorporate generic robotics software routines developed by ROS developers that are suitable for defense-related RAS. ROS-M will also build upon ROS‌-2, by providing the additional tools, standards, and processes needed to develop, test, and document software unique to military applications; and to identify, vet, and provide access to all the software modules and routines resident in the ROS-M domain.

Interoperability Profiles (IOP)

IOP is a collaborative effort with the Government to develop, support, enhance, and extend IOP standardized baseline instantiations (SBIs) jointly developed by the RAS COI and the Government for certain classes and types of ground RAS.

Common Controller Architecture (CCA)

CCA is a collaborative effort with the Government to develop an interoperable open software architecture for a common controller capable of operating various, heterogeneous tactical air and ground RAS. Implementing such an interoperable open architecture (IOA) will enable software components running on one or more common controllers, including those developed by different providers at different times, to seamlessly provide services to and accept services from one another, and in so doing enable them to effectively operate together. This effort is synchronous with a requirement in the Army Common Robotic System – Individual (“CRS(I)”) program of record (PoR) for an operator control unit “able to achieve & maintain active and/or passive control of any current Army and Marine Corps PoR battalion & below level Unmanned (Air or Ground) System and/or their respective payloads.”

The VPS COI (formerly the MAF COI) is an industry-wide forum consisting of approved, participating NAMC members who are working to develop MAF open architecture virtual model prototypes. The industry forum follows an "adopt-adapt-author" methodology in the effort to move towards establishing a set of common open architectures for use within the vehicle and mission system communities. These prototype virtual model architectures will be independent of specific hardware, software or firmware solutions and will be used to evaluate the feasibility of the MAF concept.

Eligibility: Members in good standing may apply at the organizational level by submitting a short (1-2 page) white paper for Government review. Instructions and a white paper template can be found using the button below. 

Once approved, individuals from the organization can request access to VPS artifacts. Members have access to the latest MAF IOP and are invited to both classified and unclassified VPS events with the Government.

NOTE: If you are a Government user interested in joining the VPS COI, please contact Click here to show email address to request access. You do NOT need to fill out the application below or provide a whitepaper.

The GCIA COI was previously known as the Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) COI.

The objective of this COI is to improve GCIA compliant GCS platforms computer and network infrastructure proposed to be acquired or developed by the DoD by enabling faster/modular integration of new components onto GCIA compliant systems. The GCIA COI will establish Working Groups (WG). Members of the GCIA COI are eligible to apply to participate in the working groups and once approved, will have access to the latest GCIA release.

In addition to the standard COI, WGs consisting of Government and participating NAMC members will be established to develop and review updates and processes related to the current GCIA. The WGs will establish a vetted process and approach for use within GCS communities. This effort will forge an advancement in the state of the GCS industry base by further broadening the subsystem marketplace to subsystem developers, which will enable them to have input to GCIA, before developing subsystems that could be acquired in the future. The effort will prototype an enhanced GCIA standard to include interfaces and features necessary to transition to Program Management (PM) partners. The Government will provide documents and models to NAMC for distribution to qualified NAMC members for their review and comment. Feedback from the GCIA COI WGs will be considered to provide direction for updating the GCIA models, as well as the associated documentation.

Eligibility: Open to U.S. Persons of NAMC member organizations in good standing to request to join via application. Once approved, individuals may access artifacts, including latest GCIA release, and will be included in open calls for applicable WGs as they are established.

If you are interested in joining the GCIA COI, please click the button below for the application and submission instructions.

GCIA Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Tools and Techniques (T&T)

GCIA, an open standard for Ground Combat Systems, updated to version 2.1 in March 2023, enables agile tech integration, cost reduction, and faster updates. It standardizes interfaces for modular, interoperable systems in connectivity, safety, and cybersecurity. GCIA version 2.2 is expected to be released this FY. Continuous improvement relies on Industry feedback.

Under the GCIA COI, working groups, including Government and NAMC members, develop Prototype updates. Currently, the Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) working group is active through July. We are excited to announce the launch of a new working group focused on Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Tools and Techniques (T&T), beginning 10 April. This WG aims to facilitate knowledge sharing, best practices, and collaboration on MBSE methodologies, toolsets, and implementation strategies as they relate to GCIA. We encourage all members interested in advancing their MBSE capabilities to participate. The meetings will occur once per month on Thursday from 09:00-11:00 am until December 2025. Additional details on the schedule and meeting format will be shared soon. If you’d like to be involved or have specific topics of interest, please let us know.