Association Press release
AUVSI Submits Comments to Congress on Replicator Initiative
Today, the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) submitted comments to the House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation, ahead of a hearing on, “Can it Work? Outside Perspectives on DOD’s Replicator Program.”
AUVSI supports the announced goals of the Department of Defense’s Replicator program to overcome acquisition challenges and swiftly field thousands of unmanned systems. In comments to Subcommittee Chairman Mike Gallagher and Ranking Member Ro Khanna, AUVSI writes that for Replicator to succeed, Congress has a strategic imperative to strengthen the domestic industrial base and rebuild a domestic component supply chain.
As written in the comments: “The U.S. may currently lack the domestic industrial base to entirely meet the goals of the Replicator Program. It may be possible, with significant effort, to rapidly integrate many thousands of uncrewed and autonomous systems in the next 18-24 months; however, maintaining that pace, scaling production levels to increase the velocity, and backfilling the loss of attritable systems will require significantly greater attention and policy changes.”
AUVSI’s comments accordingly challenge the U.S. government to take further action to level the playing field for U.S. uncrewed system manufacturers and their component suppliers through demand signals like Replicator and other methods including manufacturing tax incentives and loan guarantees.
Ahead of the hearing, Chief Advocacy Officer Michael Robbins said:
“Can Replicator work? Yes – and in fact, it must succeed. The success of the United States’ policy of strategic deterrence and our agility, and success, on the battlefield is predicated on the rebuilding of our industrial manufacturing capacity. Replicator can galvanize progress in U.S. military innovation and technological integration.
The stakes are too high for Replicator to fail. AUVSI and our member companies are working diligently to ensure that the uncrewed and autonomous systems industry is doing everything it can to meet the goals or the program; however, success requires government actions to build a robust domestic industrial base and secure supply chain.”
AUVSI’s comments come on the heels of the recent launch of its Partnership for Drone Competitiveness, a drone industry coalition to forge American leadership in advanced aviation and reduce dependence on foreign supply chains for components and rare earth materials.
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