DSIAC collects and publishes articles related to our technical focus areas on the web to share with the DoD community.
John Keller’s recent thought piece entitled Commodity COTS military technology and its potential threat to military capability and innovation raises some points that beg elaboration. Mr. Keller”s piece, which appeared online on 21 Feb. 2017, revolves around the role that COTS technologies and open standards play in delivering innovation and advanced capabilities to the warfighter.
The future of the Helicopter Sea Combat Community (HSC) community is at risk. HSC, which is made up of both carrier air wing (CVW) and expeditionary (EXP) squadrons that employ MH60S helicopters, struggles with its purpose to the fleet. Platform capabilities fail to keep pace with technological advancements and HSC warfighting relevancy is diminishing. A
The Navy and Missile Defense Agency are leveraging prototyping programs to incrementally pursue complex ideas such as a laser weapon integrated into the Aegis Combat System and a high-power laser for boost-phase kill in missile defense, officials said today at the 2017 Directed Energy Summit. This ability to learn through prototypes and experiments has always
U.S. ballistic missile defense experts are asking Lockheed Martin Corp. to refine the electro-optical sensor and seeker design of an advanced missile interceptor able to destroy several incoming ballistic missile warheads and decoys using just one missile. Officials of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) in Huntsville, Ala., announced a $53.1 million contract last week
Addressing the growing domestic and international demand for the French fighter aircraft, Dassault and the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA) will soon begin a six-year development phase of the next-generation Rafale F4. The French Minister of Defense, Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian, authorized the start of development of the next generation variant of the Rafale. The
At Media Day TrackingPoint demonstrated their latest precision-guided rifles. New this year is their 300BLK (black out) M400 model that reaches out to 400 yards and is a bit lighter than their original M300. The system is designed to improve off-hand target engagement, and the software has been updated including the ability to tag targets
A self-healing, water-repellent, spray-on coating developed at the University of Michigan is hundreds of times more durable than its counterparts. It could enable waterproofing of vehicles, clothing, rooftops and countless other surfaces for which current waterproofing treatments are too fragile. It could also lower the resistance of ship hulls, a step that would reduce the
Textron Systems has built a new drone ground control station that allows operators to control multiple unmanned vehicles on a single display screen and connect platforms across domains. Synturian drone control technology offers a way to coordinate missions between unmanned surface vehicles, air drones and ground robots simultaneously. If an aerial reconnaissance drone discovers an
As our personal collections of electronic devices grow, so does the demand for available wall outlets and the unsightly—and potentially dangerous—tangle of power cords. A University of Maryland (UMD) team of researchers has developed a new technology for wireless power transfer (WPT) that could help people untangle cords and free up outlets for good. The
A team of researchers based in Switzerland is on the way to laying bare much of the secret technology inside commercial processors. They pointed a beam of X-rays at a piece of an Intel processor and were able to reconstruct the chip’s warren of transistors and wiring in three dimensions. In the future, the team
The U.S. Army celebrated a ribbon cutting for a new research and development aircraft hangar at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., Feb. 10. The U.S. Army”s Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, or CERDEC, moved its Flight Activity or CFA, from a 74-year-old WWII hangar into a modern facility. This multimillion dollar facility is an Army
The EmDrive, a hypothetical miracle propulsion system for outer space, has been sparking heated arguments for years. Now, Guido Fetta plans to settle the argument about reactionless space drives for once and for all by sending one into space to prove that it really generates thrust without exhaust. [The drive being sent into space by