DSIAC collects and publishes articles related to our technical focus areas on the web to share with the DoD community.
Air defense was focused on the Russians. Then it was terrorists. Now it is both. NORAD’s mission fundamentally shifted after Sept. 11, 2001, to address the threat of asymmetric terrorist attacks aimed at North America. But now North American Aerospace Defense Command is changing its focus once again, re-emphasizing advanced threats from outside the homeland.
Computational models and simulations can be enormously helpful when designing complex military systems such as new aerospace vehicles and engines, reducing development costs and times. However, realistic, high-fidelity models require enormous amounts of computing power in order to be able to accommodate all of the different factors that may affect predictive accuracy. To mitigate this
An aircraft lifting pin will be the first piece of equipment deployed by the Navy with a new zinc-nickel plating process designed by chemists and engineers at Fleet Readiness Center Southeast. The coating will act as a living barrier between aircraft components and the harsh marine environment in which they deploy. The secret to the
Flowing particles in liquids act as a filter to suppress long-wavelength waves but allow short-wavelength ones to be supported, according to physicists at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Liquids are the least understood state of matter and for a long time it has been believed that they can sustain both gas-like waves with long
The use of 3D printing technology at Boeing could seem futuristic to some, featuring as it does levitating objects and spacecraft. But this is par for the course according to one Boeing director, “I’m not going to stick around for someone’s dream to come true, we just have to do it” says Leo Christodoulou. Christodoulou
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
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