Penn State University Electro-Optics Center in Freeport, Pa., received an $11.5 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide research, design, development, and delivery of sub-systems for the U.S. Navy’s next-generation radars and Common Data Sensor Architecture (CDSA) program to support Integrated Warfare Systems 2 (IWS 2). The CDSA is a centralized system for collecting input information from a variety of sensors and providing information from 1 group of sensors to another.

DID has more on the CDSA program…

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The University of California, Los Angeles, received a $7.2 million firm-fixed-price contract to provide family support services for U.S. military personnel being deployed overseas. The services include group level briefings for pre- and post-deployment military and family, individual consultations, skill-building sessions for families, and multi-session family interventions. The services also include consultation to military staff, schools, family, and community on parenting and combating stress, traumatic grief, and other deployment-related stresses.

The contract awarded by the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) is part of the FOCUS Project (Families OverComing Under Stress), which is a resiliency-building program designed for military families and children facing the challenges of combat operational stress during wartime. DID has more on the FOCUS program…

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Gallium Nitride

DID has reported extensively on research contracts related to Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductors, which offer significantly higher power and performance. Unfortunately, they present manufacturing and cost challenges that have stymied their use in commercial applications.

In May 2005, Compound Semiconductor Magazine offered an excellent overview of the GaN wide-bandgap semiconductors program and DARPA’s goals. Key program objectives include rapid transition of the technology developed into military systems. Other important goals include a “great” improvement in understanding the physical reasons behind device failures and the development of physical models to predict performance, reproducible device and MMIC fabrication processes, and improved thermal management and packaging. Reliability is expected to be a key challenge.

GaN represents an innovation in materials technology. DARPA’s approach adds innovative procurement strategies, via a 3-pronged approach that aims to speed the development of GaN-based microelectronics…

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The US Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program works to support research that involves more than one traditional science and engineering discipline. Traditional research grants can be hard to come by in these cases, and few extend over multiple years but many complex problems require this approach. So, too, does talent development.

Hence MURI’s recent FY 2009 slate, involving $260 million awarded to 69 academic institutions, in order to fund 41 projects over the next 5 years. Exact amounts for each project will be negotiated between the winning institutions and the DoD research offices that will make the awards: the Army Research Office (ARO), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).

ARO, ONR, and AFOSR solicited proposals in 32 topics important to the DoD, and received a total of 152 proposals. Some of the project topics and titles included:

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Bruce Willis missed…
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Kirkland AFB, NM recently entered into a cooperative effort with the University of Hawaii of Honolulu, Hawaii under the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PanSTARRS) multi-year program.

PanSTARRS will address numerous science applications ranging from the structure of the Solar System to the properties of the Universe of the largest scales. It will also be able to detect and catalog large numbers of earth-orbit crossing asteroids, or near earth objects (NEO) that present a potential threat to mankind. That last component to the mission is especially intriguing, as there is a long history of partial efforts in this direction within the US and elsewhere. So, where does this award fit in?

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The concept
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Back in March 2006, BAE Systems received a contract for “design and production of the 32 MJ Laboratory Launcher for the U.S. Navy.” Some hint of what they are talking about can be gleaned from the name. The project is an electro-magnetic rail gun that accelerates a projectile to incredibly high speeds without using explosives.

The attraction of such systems is no mystery – they promise to fire their ammunition 10 or more times farther than conventional naval gun shells, while sharply reducing both the required size of each shell and the amount of explosive material carried on board ship. Progress is being made, but there are still major technical challenges to overcome before a working rail gun becomes a serious naval option. This DID FOCUS article looks at the key technical challenges, the programs, and the history of key contracts and events. Recent additions include another R&D contract to General Atomics…

• Rail Guns: Concept & Technology Developments
• Rail Guns: US Program Information
• Rail Guns: Key Contracts & Events
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
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MQ-8B Fire Scout
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The USA’s RQ/MQ-8 Fire Scout Unmanned Aerial Vehicle has had a colorful history. The program was begun with promise by the US Navy, canceled, adopted by the US Army, and finally revived by the Navy as well. The MQ-8B Fire Scout is currently linked with two major new defense programs: the Future Combat Systems program and the USA’s new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS); this is both helpful to the program because of the implicit commitments, and harmful because it ties the UAV to a pair of programs that have endured stormy histories and may face more turbulence ahead. Meanwhile, a competition expected in 2008-2010 may see the Fire Scout used by the US Marines, and the US Coast Guard’s Deepwater program is another potential buyer.

Fire Scout-related awards to Northrop Grumman and Raytheon have been quite varied. DID lists them, along with budgetary figures from official DoD documents, and also explains the Fire Scout’s history and capabilities. The latest developments include an order for surveillance and targeting turrets, and a software development contract…

• MQ-8: The Platform (i.e. Continue reading…)
• MQ-8: The Program
• Fire Scout Program Budgets
• Fire Scout Contracts & Key Events, full history [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
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Warren Snowden
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Research and Development is essential to any national technology base, and to the health of its defense industrial base. The USA is a global research leader, and some of its efforts have created international infrastructure – like the internet. In other cases, it has been a matter of adapting existing civilian research like low-power, flexible displays for military use. For smaller nations like Canada, Australia, et. al. R&D budgets are smaller, and so funded research must be more focused.

Australia’s Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) Extension Program aims to take existing DSTO research projects to higher maturity levels for operational./ commercial evaluation, in a manner similar to the USA’s SBIR Phase III awards. Australia’s Minister for Defence Science and Personnel Warren Snowden recently announced 4 winners in this area:

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Giuseppe Ceracchi:
“Minerva as the Patroness
of American Liberty”
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In this day and age, more people associate “Minerva” with a strict teacher at a fictional wizard’s school than with Rome’s incarnation of Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, knowledge, and war. As “WIRED: A Different Kind of Net-Centric Warfare in Iraq” revealed, however, Minerva’s ancient incarnation remains very relevant today. “The surge” in Iraq is best known for its increase in the number of American troops, but that was actually its least significant feature. Its most significant feature was a major shift in the way the Americans fought the war, using a counterinsurgency doctrine that acted on the lessons from successes like Malaysia – and on newer insights from social scientists embedded with the American military. See also General Petraeus’ December 2008 remarks in Washington [Transcript | Slideshow].

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has previously served as the president of Texas A&M University. Under his watch, the US DoD has unveiled The Minerva Initiative to foster longer-term research that’s relevant to the national security community. Now the first awards have been made under that program…

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The US military’s DARPA research agency is sponsoring research under the Biofuels-Cellulosic and Algal Feedstock program. Its goal is to develop the technical capability and commercial experience to produce an affordable JP-8 surrogate fuel from algae, in order to create a wider range of options if some of the US Army’s Corps of Engineers’ predictions come true over the next couple of decades. JP-8 is the fuel used by the US Air Force; Army vehicles also use it as an option, which can simplify the supply chain. Bids solicited were via the Broad Agency Announcement and 17 bids were received by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, VA.

Dec 15/08: Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) in San Diego, CA won a $14.9 million cost-plus fixed-price contract. Work will be performed in Vienna, VA; Minnetonka, MN; Albuquerque, NM; Houston, TX; Baltimore, MD; Austin, TX; Irvine, CA; Imperial, TX; Des Plaines, IL; and Grand Forks, ND, and is expected to continue until March 10/10 (HR0011-09-C-0033).

Dec 9/08: A team led by General Atomics in San Diego, CA won a $19.9 million cost-plus fixed-price contract. Work will be performed by General Atomics in San Diego, CA; Scripps Institutions of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA; Arizona State University in Mesa, AZ; Blue Sun Biodiesel in Golden, CO; Texas A&M AgriLIFE in College Station, Texas, UOP LLC in Des Plains, IL; Hawaii Bio Energy in Honolulu; The University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmetal research Center in Grand Forks, ND; and Utah State University in Logan, UT. Work is expected to continue until June 8/10 (HR0011-09-C-0034)