Advances in a plethora of military communication and situational awareness platforms have created unintended repercussions for the U.S. Navy, from the “forest of antennas” that can consume a ship’s deck to the debilitating effects of radio interference that clog airwaves and impede critical links to vessels, aircraft, drones and even satellites. Navy engineers are toiling on a handful of projects to ensure effective and secure communication links, which are so fundamental to military operations.
Navy Research Lab
Imagine the Energizer Bunny living at the bottom of the sea. Instead of running on batteries, it keeps going, going, going because of energy harvested from the marine environment. This concept is under development as an alternative to using man-made batteries, which need to be replaced, to run oceanographic sensors.
“Our goal is to harvest energy from the marine environment to operate [them],” says Lenny Tender, a research chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C.
Daylight Defense, LLC, Poway, California, has been awarded more than $5 million to perform efforts associated with research into and development of quantum cascade laser demonstrator units for emerging directional infrared countermeasure systems for use against terrorist attacks. The Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.