IEEE Spectrum September 3, 2020 Many of the robotic gliders and floating sensor stations currently monitoring the world’s oceans are effectively treated as disposable devices. A team of researchers in the US is developing an underwater recharging station for oceangoing drones incorporating self-insulating electrical connector capable of operating while the powered electrical contacts are submerged. They tap phase change caused by the temperature differences between warmer water at the ocean surface and colder water at the ocean depths to generate electricity. By attaching an external energy-harvesting module they have transformed robotic probes into assets that can be recharged and reused […]
Tag Archives: Military technology
IARPA pursues advanced radio eavesdropping defenses
Defense Systems August 18, 2020 IARPA has released a request for information for the Securing Compartmented Information with Smart Radio Systems (SCISRS) Research Program. It wants to find elusive radio frequency irregularities in increasingly complex radio environments, including low probability of intercept signals (LPIs), altered or mimicked signals, and abnormal unintended emissions using smart radio technologies…read more.
Army advances learning capabilities of drone swarms
EurekAlert August 10, 2020 The existing reinforcement learning schemes can only be applied in a centralized manner which requires pooling the state information of the entire swarm at a central learner resulting in increased computational complexity and communication requirements. To address this problem a team of researchers in the US (Oklahoma State University, Army Research Laboratory, North Carolina State University) is developing a theoretical foundation for data-driven optimal control for large-scale swarm networks, where control actions will be taken based on low-dimensional measurement data instead of dynamic models. It decomposes the global control objective into multiple hierarchies and a broad […]
Army research enables conversational AI between soldiers, robot
EurekAlert July 27, 2020 A team of researchers in the US (US Army, University of Southern California) supported by the Army Next Generation Combat Vehicle Army Modernization Priority and the Army Priority Research Area for Autonomy has developed the Joint Understanding and Dialogue Interface (JUDI) which enables bi-directional conversational interactions between soldiers and autonomous systems through bidirectional speech and dialogue in tactical operations. The technology gives the robot the ability to ask for clarification or provide status updates as tasks are completed. The dialogue processing is based on a statistical classification method. JUDI is designed for tasks that require reasoning […]
Researchers create surface coating that can create false infrared images
UC Berkeley July 23, 2020 At certain temperature tungsten-doped vanadium dioxide can phase shift from an insulator to a metal. An international team of researchers (US Berkeley, Singapore, China) created special structures made from delicately engineered thin films of tungsten-doped vanadium dioxide. With judicious engineering of the doping profile, the insulator-metal phase transition can even out, allowing the substance to emit a constant level of thermal radiation over wide range of temperature variations (15-70 degrees Celsius). This state of equilibrium prevents a camera from detecting the true infrared signals that an object normally emits around room temperature. The coatings can […]
Multifunctional nanofiber protects against explosions, extreme temps
Science Daily June 29, 2020 Current protection against both thermal and ballistic threats is a combination of multiple high-performance materials that increases equipment weight and complexity. Using para-aramid polymers as the building block researchers at Harvard University engineered precursor solutions to be fluid-like during fiber spinning and solid-like during fiber formation. This allowed for the fabrication of porous, continuous para-aramid fiber sheets (pAFS). Although exhibiting moderately reduced single-fiber mechanics, these pAFS had fragment projectile resistance comparable with commercial para-aramids, while providing 20-fold heat-insulation capability. With these synergistic properties, the nanofiber sheets act as a multifunctional material that can provide improved simultaneous protection…read more. Open […]
Long-range Communications without Large, Power-Hungry Antennas
DARPA News June 9, 2020 To break the dependence on big antennas and amplifiers for establishing long-range tactical communications for U.S. troops in remote locations, DARPA recently announced the Resilient Networked Distributed Mosaic Communications (RN DMC) program which aims to provide long-range communications through “mosaic” antennas composed of spatially distributed low SWaP-C transceiver elements or “tiles.” This approach replaces high-powered amplifiers and large directional antennas with mosaics of dispersed tile transceivers. Transmit power is distributed among the tiles, and gain is achieved through signal processing rather than by a physical antenna aperture to concentrate energy. The antenna mosaic concept could […]
The Army working on a battlefield AI ‘teammate’ for soldiers
FedScoop February 3, 2020 To provide a more detailed picture of the battlefield for a solider and get them the most critical information researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are working with the Army to develop a system called the Aided Threat Recognition from Mobile Cooperative and Autonomous Sensors (ATR-MCAS), that will scan and classify imagery from sensors that can be mounted on vehicles, aerial coverage and autonomous vehicles to help soldiers recognize incoming threats. Currently the algorithms are being trained on test data. Soldiers will be able to the feed to show desired area of interest or livestream the raw […]
Suspending Threats in Mid-Air: Army Laser Beam Capable of Detecting Chem-Bio Warfare Agents
Global Biodefense January 14, 2020 An international team of researchers (US – US Army, Australia) used a single laser beam to develop an advanced analytical technique that can detect and characterize any type of airborne particles, naturally occurring (dust, smoke, pollen, ash, etc.) or those harmful and deliberately disseminated such as chemical and biological warfare agents. They used two small parabolic mirrors to shape up a hollow laser beam and create highly efficient trapping forces — instead of using expensive microscope objectives and complex optical setup. The approach provides contactless particle manipulation and allows a rapid and precise physio-chemical characterization. […]
Nanomaterial fabric destroys nerve agents in battlefield-relevant conditions
Phys.org January 8, 2020 A team of researchers in the US (Northwestern University, US Army – Aberdeen) has developed a generalizable and scalable approach for integrating MOFs and non-volatile polymeric bases onto textile fibers for nerve agent hydrolysis. The composite material showed similar reactivity under ambient conditions compared to the powder material in aqueous alkaline solution. This represents a critical step toward a unified strategy for nerve agent hydrolysis in practical settings, which can significantly reduce the dimensions of filters and increase the efficiency of protective suits. The material could be integrated into protective suits and face masks for use […]