AMIS demonstrates Army readiness during DEFENDER-Europe 20

FORT BELVOIR, VA. ­­– DEFENDER-Europe 20 [Dynamic Employment of Forces to Europe for NATO Deterrence and Enhanced Readiness – Europe 20] began in May 2020 with the primary objective of fully testing combined military readiness through the deployment of a large combat force in conjunction with U.S. allies and NATO partners. Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems’ (PEO EIS) Automated Movement and Identification Solutions (AMIS) program tested and validated three core components during the exercise, Transportation Coordinators’ Automated Information for Movements System II (TC-AIMS II), Radio Frequency In-Transit Visibility (RF-ITV), and the Portable Deployment Kit (PDK). Additionally, AMIS field service engineers provided unit technical assistance and training in both Europe and the U.S. AMIS personnel traveled to Fort Eustis and Fort Lee in Virginia, Germany, and Poland to strategically train soldiers on the use of the PDK, RF-ITV tracking portal and TC-AIMS II.

The TC-AIMS II system facilitates the planning and execution of unit movements and enables movement control elements to manage and coordinate transportation requests, both CONUS and OCONUS. Over 6,000 soldiers and 3,000 pieces of equipment arrived in Europe, and over 9,000 vehicles effortlessly moved from Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) sites to training areas in Germany using TC-AIMS II applications.

Next, the RF-ITV system successfully handled the demands of the exercise. When the initial movement of assets for DEFENDER-Europe 20 began in December 2019, the RF-ITV tracking portal monitored the movement of 8,774 individually tagged items. The portal traced the identity, status and last known location of supplies and equipment from fort to port, and from port to final destination, using radio frequency identification (RFID), cellular and satellite transponders in support of the exercise. 

“We had seamless tracking from Fort Hood to theater for all our equipment, ensuring our senior commanders were able to focus on the mission as opposed to manually tracking equipment locations,” said Tony Ballard, a traffic management specialist at Fort Hood, Texas. “AMIS reached out multiple times in the months leading up to execution to ensure our office had the equipment and training we needed for a successful mission. They also were in contact almost daily during execution to go over trends and data quality for more than 1,400 radio-frequency tags for the mission. AMIS also was able to monitor and report real-time data on the effectiveness of our operations, based on uploads to the national server as we prepared our equipment for deployment.”

Many RF-ITV users concurred that the high point of the exercise was the use of cellular and satellite transponders. These sophisticated units tracked barges, trains, heavy equipment transporters and convoys of vehicles as they moved from receiving ports, APS sites and European Command-based units to their ultimate destinations. Transponders were attached to the conveyance or convoy lead vehicle, with RFID tags attached to the individual equipment associated with the vehicle. This provided direct association of RFID tags to the individual transponder using the RF-ITV Tracking Portal. The transponders provided high visibility along the route without requiring Portable Deployment Kit (PDK) or fixed RFID readers. Those traditional options were only used when the equipment was on-loaded or off-loaded from the conveyances, or at the convoy beginning and end points.

The final AMIS component tested and proven at DEFENDER-Europe 20 was the PDK, which provides accurate GPS location services and RFID tag writing and reading. Where there is no fixed RF-ITV infrastructure, the PDK provides access to current RF-ITV capability. PDKs enable active RFID tag read and write capabilities in austere environments, provide accurate GPS locations and a standalone secure communication capability. Working with the Combined Arms Support Command/Deployment Process Modernization Office, AMIS increased PDK capability, creating the PDK III and standardizing its configuration across the Army. An improvement over its predecessors, PDK III includes an integrated barcode scanner, tablet PC and portable printer, and is at least $5,000 less expensive than the PDK I. 

AMIS successfully brought together these exceptional tracking resources to support a single goal. The utilization of the resources within DEFENDER-Europe 20 provided one of the most comprehensive tests of their combined value to date. By streamlining movement management processes, AMIS continues to demonstrate its effectiveness in increasing movement efficiencies and automating near real-time in transit visibility of material and equipment, all while interfacing with 20 different DOD systems. After-exercise summaries and analyses were conclusive: the value of AMIS resources is exceptional in large, multi-faceted troop and equipment deployment environments, and vital to ensure Army readiness.