In a Defense and Technology Paper (DTP) entitled "A Methodology for Assessing the Military Benefits of Science and Technology Investments,"1 the National Defense University (NDU) Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) presented a variety of approaches for deriving the return on investment - in terms of warfighting capabilities - for Army science and technology (S&T) efforts. As a follow-up to the methodology study that generated the DTP, the CTNSP wished to demonstrate parts of the methodology in the evaluation of an actual Army S&T effort. The Army Research Laboratory's (ARL's) Micro-Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) Collaborative Technology Alliance (CTA)2 program was chosen to demonstrate the utility of the methodology because it offers significant future capabilities for our Army, provides a set of very robust present-day technical challenges, and offers a significant assessment challenge since it is focused on basic research.

This paper originated with the concerns of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology (DASA(R&T)), whose duty is to assess the Army's science and technology (S&T) program.1 The Deputy Assistant Secretary has aggressively sought innovative ideas for measuring the impact of the Army's S&T on the future fighting force. Recently, the National Defense University's Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) conducted a full review of the past contributions of Army laboratories to today's military capabilities.2 Aware of that review, the Deputy Assistant Secretary asked CTNSP to develop approaches for measuring the benefits of today's S&T investments on the future military.