The complex information systems the military needs to achieve superiority during future operations require shorter development cycles, must be "upgradeable" after they are fielded, and increasingly need to leverage advances in commercial technology. Systems engineering is the multidisciplinary, iterative process that transforms an operational need into a fully integrated battlefield system. The systems engineering process involves understanding the requirement, translating it into a high-level system architecture, optimizing total system definition and design, integrating the system's components to maximize system performance, and transferring the total system to operational use.

Since its founding, ACS has been a source of systems engineering expertise for Army advanced concept technology development programs. From concept development and requirements definition through system-level design, modeling and simulation, and test and evaluation, ACS supports the development, acquisition, and deployment of the C4I systems that will maintain information dominance in the 21st century.