New Jersey

How an experiment in New Jersey could shape the Army’s future network

Published

1 year ago

October 16, 2024

How an experiment in New Jersey could shape the Army’s future network

Last spring at the Army’s fourth Project Convergence capstone event, the service and its partners proved they could integrate data from multiple web-based applications into a common user environment.

The event — one of the Army’s premier experimentation series — brought together the U.S. military services and international partners like Australia and the United Kingdom to test new software, connectivity tools and user interfaces.

The results were unprecedented, according to Army officials, who said the experiment demonstrated the ability to share vast amounts of data at previously unheard-of rates.

But for all its success, the exercise lacked an important dose of realism: a degraded network.

“We ran it on a network that was essentially pristine and was not representative of what would maybe be in the field, an austere environment,” Joseph Welch, acting deputy to the commanding general of Army Futures Command, told Defense News in a recent interview.

Through a series of experiments this summer and fall known as NetModX, the Army sought to wring out some of those capabilities in conditions that posed a greater challenge to its network operations. This year’s exercise was hosted at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst near New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, where connectivity is easily thwarted by rolling hills and thick tree lines.

Starting in July, the Army’s C5ISR Center — short for command, control, communications, computers, cyber and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — posted up at the base for more than three months. Leading up to the event, the center invited scientists, engineers and industry to propose lab-developed capabilities that they wanted to test in a real-world environment.

Seth Spoenlein, assistant director for systems integration at the C5ISR Center, told Defense News during a visit to NetModX in late September that the experiment has two broad goals: to mature technology — or as he said, “kick the tires” — and see how it performs when integrated with other capabilities. This year, the event featured about 100 technologies from more than 50 organizations, with projects ranging from science and technology efforts that hadn’t seen the outside of a lab to more field-ready systems.

Throughout the demonstrations, Army officials and program managers had a chance to observe the capabilities in action and collect data to inform future requirements and acquisition decisions.

This year’s event showcased technology that could inform the Army’s strategy for Next-Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, one of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George’s top modernization priorities, Welch said. The service’s fiscal 2025 budget included $2.7 billion for the effort.

The vision for NGC2 is to upgrade everything from user devices and applications to computing infrastructure to the underlying network. Whereas Project Convergence tested the data integration and application layers, Welch said, the experimentation at NetModX focused on how the network and compute aspects support those higher-level functions. It’s also exploring how the entire NGC2 tech stack works together.

“What I see as an outcome of this is, now we are better understanding where those technical challenges are,” he said. “They’re solving some of them right here in the field, but we’re also learning about things we may need to require.”

Network experimentation

During the event, soldiers and representatives from a slew of commercial companies spread out across the base’s Range 86 to experiment with technologies that could allow the Army to shrink the size of its command posts, better manage electronic signatures and navigate its network in less-than-ideal conditions.

In one area, a team from Virginia-based Research Innovations, Inc., served as a red cell, using an advanced edge computing sensor to continuously map electronic signatures, challenging nearby units to reduce their footprint or try to confuse the simulated adversary.

That experimentation could feed into the Army’s Mobile and Survivable Command Post program, or MASCP. The service plans to launch a pilot program in 2025, but for now, it’s using events like NetModX to figure out what user devices, computing infrastructure, software and signature management tools could help make its command posts more nimble.

A team led by RJ Regars, the Army’s project lead for MASCP, installed 22 different technologies into command post vehicles during NetModX — the most it’s integrated to date by far, Regars said.

“Leading up to this, there’s been a lot of work identifying technologies, working with those technologies in the lab, working with these technologies in a standalone fashion with the end goal of getting them all into vehicles and interoperating with them,” he said. “Not everything worked, but a lot did work, and we definitely had a great learning experience from it.”

The Army’s C5ISR Center partnered with industry and academia to research commercial 5G tech to provide a high-bandwidth, low-latency communications network for the distributed command post at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst during this year’s NetModX. (Dan Lafontaine/U.S. Army)

Elsewhere on Range 86, vehicles equipped with satellite terminals from several different providers allowed the service to see how the network adapts when a connection is interrupted or broken.

The service has struggled with how to move and reroute data within different echelons of its communications, or transport, architecture, said Col. Matt Skaggs, director of tactical application and architecture development for Army Futures Command. At NetModX, the command experimented with capabilities that bring redundancy into its network, allowing it to do that more seamlessly.

“It’s a reactive and redundant network,” he said in an interview. “We call it comms agnostic. If one pathway is blocked, that system will automatically find another pathway.”

Along with testing out the transport architecture, the experiment also helped identify which “bespoke” applications put too much strain on the network.

“We learned that we had to dial back the resource requirements on these web applications and make it thinner so they work on the tactical network,” Skaggs said. “If we hadn’t had this experimentation event, we would have been way further down the acquisition pipeline before we learned these kinds of lessons.”

Building a network baseline

The Army’s experimentation at NetModX is just one piece of its broader NGC2 effort. The service has been on a path toward modernizing its network for the last six years, narrowing its focus last year on an acquisition approach that delivers capabilities iteratively rather than aiming to field a complete package of upgrades all at once.

Skaggs likened the Army’s strategy for NGC2 to laying a new foundation for integrating data. Once that foundation is set, the service can then bring on new applications and tools that build on it.

“We push out a baseline product, the soldiers touch it and use it in their mission command application and we’ll continually modify it,” he said. “So, it’s constantly evolving and constantly getting updated.”

In May, the Army signed off on a “characteristics of need” for NGC2 and on Oct. 1 it issued a request for information to industry. The service plans to feed its learnings from NetModX into its next Project Convergence capstone, which is slated for March 2025. A minimum viable product should be finalized later that year and the service could start fielding NGC2 capabilities as soon as 2026.

An experiment like NetModX is crucial in that process because it puts NGC2 technology in context, allowing the service to consider “the art of the possible” as it writes requirements and issues acquisition plans, Welch said.

“There are a lot of products out there — brochures, slick sheets, endorsements, what have you,” he said. “We’re separating out what really works and what doesn’t.”

Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.

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New Jersey

Murphy was a clemency hero. Sherrill has to step up for NJ | Opinion

Published

2 hours ago

January 28, 2026

Press Room

Murphy was a clemency hero. Sherrill has to step up for NJ | Opinion

3-minute read

Celeste Trusty
| Special to the USA TODAY Network

As we close the curtain on Gov. Phil Murphy’s tenure, he leaves behind some big shoes for Gov. Mikie Sherill to step into as her term begins. I often speak with government officials as part of my work who are wary of using their powers to give incarcerated people second chances due to their fear of political blowback. While it would have been easy for Murphy to sit on the sidelines, instead he followed through on his promises to expand access to pardons across the state and help alleviate the collateral consequences of past criminal convictions.

Murphy granted 307 people clemency under his administration — more people than all of New Jersey’s governors in the last three decades combined. We now look to Sherill to continue that good work, because there’s still so much more to be done.

New Jersey must keep making progress on clemency

Despite how successful New Jersey has been in cutting its incarcerated population in half over the past 15 years, this state still has the most racially disparate prison population in the nation. Not only that, New Jersey Department of Corrections’ data shows about 22% of the state prison population is aged 50 or older, which is a drastic increase from just 13% a decade ago. Increased medical costs associated with the aging of New Jersey’s prison population costs the state up to $2 million each year per person, without even including the $300,000 in wages that go to corrections officers. New Jersey must take common sense action to return elderly incarcerated people to their communities and unburden the corrections system from the weight of unnecessarily incarcerating this population.

Sherill already has tools at her disposal from day one to do something about this. Clemency is an extremely powerful tool that can be utilized to address past and current injustices, safely reduce the prison population, save taxpayer money, and return much-needed mentors to our communities. In fact, clemency is enshrined in the state constitution as a power that provides the governor with broad discretion to grant pardons and commutations to people with criminal convictions. This power is at its most useful when applied to people whose continued criminal convictions or sentences of incarceration no longer serve the interest of justice and are no longer in the interest of public safety for New Jersey’s communities — which is a perfect description for the people aging in our prisons, as recidivism and reincarceration rates for those over 60 in the state has been found to be as low as 3%.

Murphy leaves behind a strong legacy of mercy and justice that will forever define his years in office. Now Sherrill has an opportunity to continue that legacy by building on Murphy’s clemency initiative and the strong foundation he established. This commitment will help ensure New Jersey continues to set the standard for safely reducing prison populations and that we continue the work to help balance the scales of justice while preserving public safety.

Celeste Trusty is state legislative affairs director for FAMM. She previously served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons.

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New Jersey

New Jersey’s Amazon Fresh era ends with barely a grocery cart used

Published

14 hours ago

January 27, 2026

Press Room

New Jersey’s Amazon Fresh era ends with barely a grocery cart used

You’ve heard me on The Judi & EJ Show talk about how much I love grocery shopping at Aldi — and I’ll say it again: I am an Aldi shopper through and through. Our coworker Kyle Forcini is too. We both love the tight selection of quality items, and for staples it’s the best value in Jersey. Of course, when I’m looking for specialty items, I still like to hit ShopRite, Giant, or Acme.

Why I kept driving past Amazon Fresh without stopping

Lately I’ve also been intrigued by the Amazon Fresh stores each time I drive by one. I suppose the intrigue comes from being an Amazon online shopper — you know, when I drive past and say, “oh cool, look at that Amazon supermarket.” But it seems I was just not curious enough to actually go inside. And now… I might not get the chance anyway.

Amazon announces closure of all Amazon Fresh grocery stores

Amazon just announced it’s closing all of its physical Fresh stores nationwide, which includes the ones we have right here in New Jersey. The company says it will continue Amazon Fresh as an online grocery brand, but the brick-and-mortar Fresh and cashier-less Go stores are shutting their doors because Amazon hasn’t been able to “create a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model” for expanding these stores.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

New Jersey Amazon Fresh locations that are closing

In New Jersey, the Fresh locations that are slated to close include:
Eatontown – 137 NJ-25, Eatontown
Lodi – 2 Memorial Drive, Lodi
Paramus – 30 E. Ridgewood Avenue, Paramus
Woodland Park – 1510 Route 46, Woodland Park

Amazon hasn’t given a lot of details on exact closing dates here, but reports indicate most Fresh and Go stores are expected to be closed by early February 2026 as the company pivots toward other grocery formats.

Could Whole Foods replace Amazon Fresh stores in New Jersey?

Here’s an interesting twist: some of these Fresh stores could be converted into Whole Foods Markets, and Amazon plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods and related formats in the next few years.

So, while I’ll miss the drive-by curiosity, I’ll likely be sticking with my Aldi route and grabbing specialty items where they’re easiest to find. And who knows — maybe a Whole Foods in one of these spots will give me something new to explore!

The best supermarkets in New Jersey

These are the highest-rated supermarkets in each of New Jersey’s 21 counties. The ratings are based on reviews left by customers on Google. To be included in the top, a supermarket had to have a substantial number of reviews (typically at leas a thousand).

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New Jersey

New Jersey bans some products with toxic PFAS. Here’s what to know

Published

1 day ago

January 27, 2026

Press Room

New Jersey bans some products with toxic PFAS. Here’s what to know

What does the new legislation do?

The Protecting Against Forever Chemicals Act prohibits the sale of carpets, fabric treatment, cosmetics and food packaging that use intentionally added PFAS. It excludes products that get tainted by PFAS in the manufacturing process. The ban will take effect in January of 2028.

The law also requires cookware manufacturers to include warning labels when PFAS was used to manufacture their products. Penalties for violating the act could range from $1,000 to $25,000.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection will also use $5 million to research, monitor and eliminate PFAS across the state.

Adams said while he applauds the new measure, he wishes the law went further.

“There are other products that are not covered by this bill that should have PFAS removed from them completely as part of a broader effort to remove PFAS from our environment,” said Adams. “Other states have passed larger-scale bills, but this is a phenomenal start in removing PFAS that, once enforced, will be incredibly beneficial to the health of every Jerseyan.”

Are PFAS-free alternatives available for household products?

There are more than 500 PFAS-free alternatives, according to a 2024 National Library of Medicine paper, and 164 major brands have already committed to removing these toxins from their products.

Do other states ban PFAS products?

New Jersey is the first state in the region to ban products containing “forever chemicals.”

However, more than a dozen states have passed similar legislation.

What products contain PFAS?

A number of household products contain PFAS, including pots and pans, microwave popcorn bags, waterproof clothing and boots, stain-resistant carpet, cosmetics and food packaging.

“These chemicals have become sort of ubiquitous in our home and work environment,” said Dr. Richard Hamilton, chair and professor of emergency medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine. “The problem with PFAS is that the chemicals are present in things that we have purchased many years ago, and they remain there.”

The chemicals can leach into household environments through air or dust, said Robert Laumbach, associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice at the Rutgers School of Public Health.

“Some of those [PFAS] are actually volatile and evaporate into the air, and then others can be particles of dust or the wear products of carpet fibers and so on that can get into the air and then we breathe them,” he said.

The chemicals are used in the manufacturing process because they can make products water and oil resistant, and they don’t break down chemically or by heat, Laumbach said. He said some products don’t intentionally contain PFAS, but are contaminated during the manufacturing process.

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