DSIAC collects and publishes articles related to our technical focus areas on the web to share with the DoD community.
The US Army is investigating how one of its drones took an unplanned 623-mile excursion and ended up stuck in a tree two states away. The Shadow RQ-7 drone was launched by soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Brigade of the 7th Infantry Division during a training mission in Arizona at 17:16 local time. It was
Drones are designed to fly, but crashes are a fact of life, whether because of external forces or pilot error. Some commercial drones employ techniques like propeller guards to at least protect the drone, or humans nearby, but they’re not exactly effective all the time. More industrially-inclined drones even have “cages” that protect them but
Soldiers view live-stream full-motion video from unmanned aerial vehicles via a smartphone. They access 3D digital maps to send precision target coordinates. Soldiers are relying on these advanced technologies to improve lethality and maintain battlefield dominance. These are among the improvements that will be embedded in future fire-support capabilities. The Army has started testing four
Why do militaries invest in some emerging technologies but not others? Conventional wisdom suggests that capable states have reasons to hedge their bets and invest in emerging military technologies as widely as they can. Yet, even the most capable states do not invest in all technologies of military utility. Moreover, in some cases, early investments
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory”s (NRL) Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence (NCARAI) has conducted initial human studies of the tactical battle manager (TBM) technology. NRL’s TBM is a software system that deploys intelligent agents to guide unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that each serve as a ‘wingman’ in manned / unmanned teams, in
All indications from the pilots and commanders at Red Flag are that the F-35A performed far better than recent reports from the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation seemed to indicate. The now-departed Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Michael Gilmore, said the Lockheed Martin-built aircraft is “not effective and not suitable across the required
AFRL researchers recently traveled to Hill Air Force Base, Utah, to demonstrate the Remote Access Nondestructive Evaluation (RANDE) system. Developed through a contracted effort with OC Robotics of Bristol, United Kingdom, RANDE is a flexible, robotic snake-arm tool that can reach into confined areas to perform required inspections, or simply look into tight spaces. Typically,
Unavoidable vibrations, such as those on airplanes, cause rigid structures to age and crack, but researchers at the University of Michigan may have an answer for that—design them more like tooth enamel, which could lead to more resilient flight computers, for instance. Most materials that effectively absorb vibration are soft, so they don”t make good
The future of rotary-wing or vertical lift aircraft across the services is the focus of a Defense Department initiative that seeks to improve the speed, range, refueling and interoperability capabilities across the military services, U.S. Special Operations Command and the Coast Guard, and was the subject of a discussion today at the Center for Strategic
Researchers at the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) successfully fired the first grenade created with a 3-D printer from a grenade launcher that was produced the same way. This demonstration shows that additive manufacturing (commonly known as 3-D printing) has a potential future in weapon prototype development, which could allow engineers
A US Department of Defense scientific advisory board has called on the Trump administration to rebuild the country’s nuclear weapons infrastructure and modernize its nuclear arsenal. The recommendations, detailed in a December report, include the development of new, low-yield warheads to give the military the option of a limited nuclear strike. The report, written by
Erosion caused by the impact of water droplets on component surfaces can lead to failures in key technological applications. For example, in steam generating plants, the leading edge of turbine blades suffer major erosion damage from the steam driving the turbines, requiring costly maintenance and repair with consequent loss of generating capacity. Similarly, erosion caused