[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3168 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3168
To establish a Joint Autonomy Office in the Department of Defense, and
for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 9, 2023
Mr. Wittman (for himself and Mr. Ruppersberger) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To establish a Joint Autonomy Office in the Department of Defense, and
for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JOINT AUTONOMY OFFICE.
(a) Establishment.--Not later than 120 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with
the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, shall establish
an Office in the Department of Defense to coordinate and accelerate the
delivery of all-domain autonomous systems to operational users.
(b) Designation.--The office established under subsection (a) shall
be known as the ``Joint Autonomy Office'' (in this Act referred to as
the ``Office'').
(c) Head of Office.--The head of the Office shall be a Director
appointed by the Secretary of Defense from among individuals with
management experience and technical expertise in all-domain autonomous
system technologies.
(d) Duties.--The duties of the Joint Autonomy Office are following:
(1) Utilize commercial and defense best practices and
existing investments in defense cloud infrastructure to
accelerate the delivery of autonomous systems to the
operational user.
(2) Implement an all-domain enterprise autonomous systems
software development and testing platform across classification
levels of the Department of Defense.
(3) Provide access to defense programs with autonomy
requirements to accelerate the development and testing of all-
domain autonomous systems.
(4) Implement an enterprise all-domain data acquisition and
curation process to build, manage, and sustain datasets from
all available autonomy programs of the Department in order to
develop and test all-domain autonomous systems.
(5) Provide access to existing and future service and joint
autonomous system development and acquisition programs,
including such programs as the Optionally Manned Fighting
Vehicle, Robotic Combat Vehicles, Collaborative Combat
Aircraft, and Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle, as development
and testing datasets mature.
(6) Accelerate the Department's development and testing of
all-domain autonomous system prototypes to scaled production in
conjunction with service and joint autonomous system
development and acquisition and the combatant commands.
(7) Accelerate the Department's development and operational
test and evaluation of all-domain autonomous systems in
conjunction with service and joint test community and the
combatant commands.
(8) Continuously solicit and utilize joint warfighter
feedback on requirements and capability progress in the
development process.
(9) Ensure that the development environments, generated
data for autonomous system development, and any prototype all-
domain autonomous system technologies, are designed to
transition to full sustainment within the programs of the
military departments.
(10) Ensure that knowledge of proper autonomous system
program design and execution, including software development,
test, and acquisition best practices, is transitioned to
service program executive offices with unmanned and autonomous
system requirements.
(11) Carry out such other activities relating to the
coordination, development, and delivery of autonomous systems
as the Secretary of Defense determines appropriate.
(e) Hiring Authorities.--
(1) Highly qualified experts.--Pursuant to the authority
provided under section 9903 of title 5, United States Code, the
Secretary of Defense may establish within the Office up to 12
Highly Qualified Expert positions to facilitate the rapid
hiring of technical program managers with experience in the
development, test, production, and delivery of all-domain
autonomous systems. The Secretary may extend the term of each
such Highly Qualified Expert for a period of not more than
seven years.
(2) Excepted service hiring authority.--Each position in
the Joint Autonomy Office shall be a position in the excepted
service, and the Secretary may appoint individuals to such
positions in the same manner as provided under section 1599f of
title 10, United States Code.
(f) Data Access and Related Authorities.--
(1) Data access.--The Secretary of Defense shall ensure
that the Joint Autonomy Office--
(A) subject to the implementation of the security
protocols described in paragraph (2), has unlimited
access to existing datasets within service and joint
autonomous system, artificial intelligence, and legacy
platform and sensor programs regardless of
classification level; and
(B) has the authority to centralize access to such
data and information, as required to carry out the
duties of the Office.
(2) Security protocols.--The Secretary of Defense shall
implement appropriate security protocols to protect any data
and other information shared with or maintained by the Office
under paragraph (1).
(g) Contracting Authorities and Limitations.--
(1) In general.--The Director of the Office--
(A) subject to paragraph (2), may enter into
contracts with private sector, non-Government entities,
as appropriate, for the purposes of leveraging
innovative commercial technologies to aid and
facilitate the execution of the duties of the Office;
and
(B) shall ensure that all programs administered by
the Office are carried out in accordance with section
3453 of title 10, United States Code.
(2) Limitation.--The Office may coordinate with other
offices of the Department of Defense with contracting authority
as required to carry out the duties described in subsection
(d).
(h) Coordination.--The Director of the Office shall ensure that the
activities of the Office are conducted in accordance with Department of
Defense policies and in coordination with the research and development
programs of the Department.
(i) Briefing.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall provide to the
Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives
a briefing on the status of the establishment of the Office under this
section.
(j) Termination.--
(1) In general.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), the
Office shall terminate on the date that is seven years after
the date of the enactment of this Act.
(2) Extension.--The Secretary may extend the termination
date under paragraph (1) for one or more additional periods of
seven years if--
(A) if the Secretary determines that such an
extension is in the best interest of the Department of
Defense; and
(B) submits to the Committees on Armed Services of
the Senate and House of Representatives notice of the
Secretary's intent to make such an extension.
(k) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) The term ``all-domain'', when used with respect to an
autonomous system, means interoperability across one or more of
the ground, aerial, maritime, and space domains.
(2) The term ``autonomous system'' means a system with the
ability to conduct integrated sensing, perception,
communication, decision-making, and action within specific
boundaries and independently from a human operator's
instruction.
(3) The term ``Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence
Officer'' has the meaning given that term in section 846(b) of
the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2023 (Public Law 117-263).
(4) The term ``operational test and evaluation'' has the
meaning given that term in section 4171(h) of title 10, United
States Code.
(l) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized to be
appropriated to the Department of Defense $55,000,000 for fiscal year
2024 to carry out this section.
SEC. 2. FRAMEWORK FOR CLASSIFICATION OF AUTONOMOUS CAPABILITIES.
(a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date on which
Joint Autonomy Office is established pursuant to section 1, the
Director of the Office, in consultation with the Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and
Engineering, the commanders of the combatant commands, and the
Secretaries of the military departments, shall establish a Department-
wide classification framework for autonomous capabilities.
(b) Purpose.--The purpose of the framework required under
subsection (a) shall be to facilitate the development of a common
understanding within the Department of Defense of autonomous
capabilities and related operational requirements to better plan for,
resource, and integrate appropriate autonomy-enabling hardware and
software into current and future systems across the Department.
(c) Autonomy Classification Framework.--At a minimum, the framework
required under subsection (a) shall--
(1) include multiple levels of increasingly complex
autonomous maneuver capability with a focus on classifying
necessary levels of human supervision or control during
operational use;
(2) apply to current and future autonomous systems
operating across land, air, maritime, and space domains;
(3) include estimates of costs necessary to achieve
specific levels of autonomous capability; and
(4) include--
(A) operational requirements including necessary
levels of survivability in GPS- or communications-
denied environments;
(B) specific operational or engagement scenarios;
and
(C) necessary levels of teaming with other
autonomous systems.
(d) Progress Report.--Not later than 30 days after the
establishment of the framework under subsection (a), the Director of
the Joint Autonomy Office shall submit to the congressional defense
committees a report that includes a description of the framework and
the specific methodologies, criteria, and operational requirements used
to develop the classifications under the framework.
(e) Regular Reassessment.--
(1) In general.--Not less frequently than once every two
years, Director of the Joint Autonomy Office shall reassess and
update the classification framework required under subsection
(a) to ensure the framework incorporates recent developments in
technology, standards, and operational requirements relating to
autonomous capabilities.
(2) Briefing.--Not later than 30 days of the completion of
each reassessment under paragraph (1), the Director of the
Joint Autonomy Office shall provide to the congressional
defense committees a briefing on the results of the
reassessment and any resulting revisions to the classification
framework under subsection (a).
(f) Implementation.--Not later than 90 days after the establishment
of the framework under subsection (a), the Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy shall issue instructions to the military services to
implement such framework by operationalizing the use of the framework
in the planning and budgeting processes of individual program offices.
SEC. 3. PLAN FOR INTEGRATION OF AUTONOMOUS CAPABILITIES INTO SYSTEMS OF
THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.
(a) Plan Required.--Not later than one year after the date on which
Joint Autonomy Office is established pursuant to section 1, the
Director of the Joint Autonomy Office shall develop and implement a
plan and procedures to standardize the planning, resourcing, and
integration efforts with respect to autonomous capabilities for current
and future systems across the Department.
(b) Elements.--The plan required under subsection (a) shall include
the following:
(1) A Department-wide assessment of the status of efforts
to resource and integrate autonomy software into current and
future systems, including--
(A) the identification of current and future
systems across the Department which can be integrated
with autonomy software to enable continuous operational
capability of such systems in GPS- or communications-
denied environments, including those systems identified
in the report required by section 246 of the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (Public
Law 117-81; 135 Stat. 1622); and
(B) an assessment of gaps in--
(i) program funding related to the
acquisition of autonomy software;
(ii) acquisition processes, including the
planning, programming, budgeting, and execution
process for acquiring and integrating autonomy-
enabling capabilities across relevant programs
of record;
(iii) training capabilities;
(iv) testing, evaluation, verification, and
validation capabilities in all environments,
including virtual and real world environments;
and
(v) efforts to test, resource, and scale
commercially available technologies.
(2) A plan to address, to the maximum extent practicable,
the gaps assessed in paragraph (1), including--
(A) updated procedures to plan for autonomy
software costs at the onset of the acquisition life
cycle;
(B) plans to include in greater detail the
projected autonomy software costs for applicable
programs of record within period covered by the Future
Years Defense Program; and
(C) plans to standardize the acquisition of
autonomy software for programs of record across the
military services including the use of the capability
classification framework required in section 2 of this
Act.
(c) Consultation.--The Director of the Joint Autonomy Office shall
develop the plan under subsection (a) in consultation with--
(1) the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and
Sustainment;
(2) the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer;
(3) the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
(4) the senior acquisition executive of each military
service;
(5) the commanders of the combatant commands; and
(6) such other organizations and elements of the Department
of Defense as the Director determines appropriate.
(d) Report.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 90 days after the
completion of the plan under subsection (a), the Director of
the Joint Autonomy Office shall submit to the congressional
defense committees a report that describes the specific
elements of the plan.
(2) Form.--The report under paragraph (1) shall be
submitted in unclassified form but may contain a classified
annex.
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