Revolutionizing Warfighting: Fort Drum’s Innovative Technology Symposium Brings Cutting-Edge Solutions to Soldiers

Fort Drum’s 10th Mountain Division Sustainment Brigade hosted an Innovative Technology Symposium on April 15 to discuss how technology is being used to enhance warfighting capabilities. The symposium aimed to introduce new technology to the military base and showcase how Fort Drum can collaborate with other agencies to provide this technology to soldiers.

The Pathfinder program, whose main mission is to gather problem sets from Soldiers at the tactical level, works with partner schools and DIRT labs to find solutions to these issues. For example, feedback from a 2nd Brigade Combat Team soldier led to the development of a prototype for the assistant gunner bag that improved operational functionality and weight distribution. The goal is to involve Soldiers in the development process to ensure effective solutions are created.

The Mountain Innovation Systems Integration Lab is set to open on Fort Drum by late summer. This lab will allow soldiers to bring forward ideas to address problems encountered during training or deployments, offering them engineering support and guidance. Initial projects will focus on furthering the division’s alpine planning efforts. Soldiers were recently trained on the TRV-150 Tactical Resupply Vehicle, which was field-tested during the Mountain Peak exercise. These vehicles can travel up to 60 mph and transport 150 pounds of cargo in challenging terrains where vehicles or personnel may not be able to reach for resupply missions.

Finally, a Civil-Military Innovation Institute Team will examine the TRV-150 during the 1st Brigade Combat Team’s Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, Louisiana. The goal of this examination is to gather feedback and further enhance the functionality of these vehicles based on the experiences of soldiers in the field.