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The potential of network-centric operations is growing with the capability to link, interpret, process, manage and share data from multiple sensors in near real time and throughout a battlespace. This information could be delivered directly to a commander's laptop computer to provide a clearer and more complete picture of detected threats.

The menu for U.S. Army information operations now runs several courses long as the service integrates low-end news activities directed at local populace with high-end cyberspace defense and attack. As all of these elements come together in a common operational mode, the future cyberwarrior may see netwar visualization capabilities that provide cyberspace situational awareness akin to icon-driven battlefield monitoring systems.

Satellite communications, Web services and imagery have come of age in the battlespace of operation Enduring Freedom. This first network-centric war has revealed an explosion in capabilities that has been matched by information demands at all levels of command.

Future military communications equipment may one day be able to detect and use locally available radio spectrum automatically. U.S. Defense Department researchers are developing methods that allow systems to scan for unassigned frequency bands autonomously. These technologies will allow warfighters to deploy quickly anywhere in the world without time-consuming spectrum management and allocation concerns.

Researchers have developed highly efficient thermal transfer devices that can cool or heat an area thousands of times faster than existing methods. An alloy-based substance can be deposited in microscopic layers on hot spots in electronics or next-generation fiber optic switches to improve their efficiency. The technology also makes possible the creation of tiny, localized heat sources for use in biochemistry, laboratory-on-a-chip systems, and mobile power sources for soldiers.

Professionals often find solutions that repeatedly prove successful. By documenting these best-of-breed approaches, experts are now able to develop working taxonomies of patterns of success. Known as knowledge patterns, these resources will result in an array of tools to help conduct audits, develop strategies and make decisions.

The U.S. Army is putting the power of Web technology behind its transformation into a knowledge-based force. The effort aims at improving the decision dominance of individual soldiers and the Army as a whole by sharing information and making its cumulative expertise a powerful instrument.

The solution to information overload may lie in one of the key contributors to the phenomenon. Recently developed software now can address the complementary issues of managing data and making it more useful. Personnel at the U.S. Joint Forces Command Joint Experimentation Directorate are exploring systems that could transform military engagement methodology and usher in decision-based operations.

A new digital signal processing technology originally developed for the commercial world now is being incorporated in military systems where it offers significant improvements over current techniques. Known as pipelined frequency transform, the architecture is a licensable intellectual property of cores, or engines, that can be included in programmable logic devices such as semiconductors or system-on-chip designs. Major defense application areas include advanced radar, signals intelligence, secure wireless communications and electronic warfare.

Laser-based position location systems are entering a new era that is based on quantum mechanics. The research could lead to the dawn of technologies such as entangled lasers that surpass a fundamental limit on the accuracy of classical systems and add a built-in cryptographic capability.