National Spectrum Consortium Support Services (TIDES)

TIDES is a test and evaluation (T&E) platform where technologists can incubate innovative technologies in diverse, realistic settings, identify and address technical issues, and then test and assess the technologies with direct warfighter involvement in operationally relevant environments. TIDES provides an opportunity for technology developers to demonstrate and experiment with new and evolving technological capabilities in an operationally relevant environment and obtain insight into federal technology gaps and emerging needs. TIDES aims to enable a collaborative working relationship between government organizations, academia, and industry to identify emerging needs and technology discoveries to the Department of Defense (DoD) and interagency partners. The TIDES design comprises three parts. The first part (incubation) includes testing of emerging technologies in Hawaii to assess their readiness in an isolated or integrated setting and to identify problem areas before introducing the technology to the warfighters. After follow-on development has been conducted to resolve technical issues, the second and third phases of TIDES (demonstration and experimentation) are to insert the technologies, with unit sponsorship, into exercises or training events for user-operational military utility assessment.