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 five COI/COPs on behalf of the Government: 

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

• TAB (Technology Advisory Board): Advises on technological roadmaps, architecture, and best practices to help inform Army Ground Autonomy initiatives and standards.
• AAA (Acceptance, Availability, and Accessibility): Help to develop and implement a process to support access, standardization and availability of resources and data.
• EXCOM (Executive Committee): Responsible for developing the business plan of the COP, to include IP rights and other overarching topics that influence all subcommittees.
• SSC (Senior Steering Committee): Responsible for oversight of TAB and AAA and ensuring the COP is aligned with current Army priorities and initiatives.

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

Eligibility: The COP is open for NAMC members to apply for participation. Subcommittee applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. If you are interested in actively participating, please select a subcommittee when submitting your COP application.

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.

As part of Working Group Three, we are asking for your feedback on the attached draft ICD template. Your perspective as builders and implementers is critical to ensuring this document is not just technically complete, but genuinely useful. 

This effort is in response from the feedback that we received that GCIA is too complicated and not user-friendly. Our intent is to bring the requirements up several levels and standardize the ICDs.

This ICD template is designed to be the definitive "contract" for a given interface. Its purpose is to:

1. Record the required message traffic between GCIA elements and vendor systems.
2. Define all message parameters to create a mutual understanding of how data is processed.
3. Enable your engineers to efficiently develop the necessary APIs to support that message traffic.

Please use the following questions to guide your review of the template: Click Here to Review Interface Description Document

We are looking for candid, detailed feedback.

This initiative is dedicated to the rapid advancement and modernization of capabilities for the M1 Abrams systems and subsystems. The primary objective is to enhance platform efficiency, survivability, and overall mission effectiveness through the integration of mature, ready-to-deploy solutions. Strong consideration will be given to Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) or near-COTS solutions, though all proven technologies are welcome. This effort focuses on the agile fielding of new components, payloads, and system upgrades rather than early-stage research.

Eligibility: Membership is open to organizations that can demonstrate both the organizational agility required for rapid prototyping and specific capabilities in at least one of the outlined technology areas. Accepted members gain exclusive eligibility to receive and respond to program RFPs. While members are not obligated to submit a proposal for every opportunity, the group is intended for partners capable of delivering results on tight timelines when they do choose to participate.