The Research Integration Center (RIC) – one of four components of the George H.W. Bush Combat Development Complex (BCDC) – is BCDC’s headquarters. The RIC is complete, occupied and fully operational as of August 2021. Ground was broken for the RIC on Oct. 12, 2019.
The BCDC’s RIC is an intellectual hub for innovation, where researchers and other experts from industry, government, academia and the military gather to collaborate on emerging technologies.
The three-story facility is where data is collected, stored and curated for real-time and after-action analyses.
The heart of the facility is a command center to direct, observe and evaluate the testing underway anywhere in the BCDC in real time. It features a wall-sized display of video feeds, thermal imagery, data streams, analytics and map overlays of whatever is being tested. This visual presentation can speed test insights and help identify testing article or experimentation design changes.
The facility has offices for research teams and include U.S. Army personnel, laboratories, a machine shop and high-tech makerspaces for product development.
Specialists manage the collection, storage, analysis and sharing of data with the military and others. Another group of experts evaluate the cybersecurity resilience of everything being tested.
Finally, a team of simulation environment creators can supplement real-world experiments with virtual testing, which helps validate results through repetition and puts results in broader context.
Testing at the BCDC is comparable and shareable with testing at other U.S. facilities, and allows the BCDC to participate in testing at other facilities.
The RIC is complete, occupied and fully operational as of August 2021.
