DSIAC collects and publishes articles related to our technical focus areas on the web to share with the DoD community.
Forget about a family of systems. Next-generation air dominance will require an aircraft with a family of advanced technologies. The Air Force is racing the clock to preserve its ability to control the air. As new adversary fighters and air defenses develop—and are already challenging USAF’s ability to go anywhere and strike any target—the service
The Army and Navy are increasingly incorporating laser weapons on a limited number of platforms and training exercises, according to Matthew Ketner, branch chief of the High Energy Laser Controls and Integration Directorate at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Virginia. Ketner spoke on these emerging laser technologies spoke last month during Lab Day
The Army is speeding up development work on its future Modular Active Protection System for combat vehicles. As the service works on expediting interim solutions for combat vehicle Active Protection Systems, officials are simultaneously ramping up some of the first MAPS tests using soft-kill countermeasures. There is also a plan to begin using the first
The Army intends to buy 20 robotic mules from manufacturers and send them out with brigades for a year-long operational test and evaluation, the service’s program manager in charge of unmanned ground systems said March 23. Bryan McVeigh, project manager for force protection, said a recent Army Requirements Oversight Council looking at the squad multipurpose
The U.S. Navy”s experimental railgun is getting new upgrades to make it fire more powerful shots, and fire them faster. It”s the latest bit of progress on this still-landlocked weapon, but when and where it actually would be installed on a warship is not clear. Defensetech reports the Navy wants to push the Office of
A father and son team in the START-UP NY program have invented a liquid metal printing machine that could represent a significant transformation in manufacturing. A breakthrough idea five years ago by former University at Buffalo student Zack Vader, then 19, has created a machine that prints three-dimensional objects using liquid metal. … Vader Systems
Electrical engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a temperature sensor that runs on only 113 picowatts of power — 628 times lower power than the state of the art and about 10 billion times smaller than a watt. This “near-zero-power” temperature sensor could extend the battery life of wearable or implantable
Heterogeneous nanostructured materials are widely used in a variety of optoelectronic devices, including solar cells. However, due to their heterogeneous nature, these materials contain nanoscale interfaces exhibiting structural defects that can affect the performance of these devices. It is very challenging to identify these defects in experiments, so a team of researchers at the Department
The U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the South Dakota School of Mines through a joint ownership agreement commercialized a system to reclaim unserviceable parts and reduce the amount of maintenance required by military and commercial sectors. VRC Metal Systems, a start-up company from SDSM, manufactures the cold spray system. ARL”s Victor Champagne and Dr. Dennis
Draper combines navigation and neuromodulation to guide insects The smallest aerial drones mimic insects in many ways, but none can match the efficiency and maneuverability of the dragonfly. Now, engineers at Draper are creating a new kind of hybrid drone by combining miniaturized navigation, synthetic biology and neurotechnology to guide dragonfly insects. The system looks
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy”s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed a proof-of-principle photoelectrochemical cell capable of capturing excess photon energy normally lost to generating heat. Using quantum dots (QD) and a process called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG), the NREL researchers were able to push the peak external quantum efficiency for hydrogen
SpaceX’s upgraded Dragon capsules will not return astronauts to Earth for powered landings as originally envisioned, company boss Elon Musk said Wednesday, a design change that raises questions about the space transport firm’s plans to send commercial landers to the surface of Mars. Musk cited safety concerns for eliminating plans for propulsive Dragon landings in