Latest Stories
Briefs Information Technology
Intelligence Fusion System Tracks Mobile Targets
Current intelligence fusion systems are not accurately and quickly performing the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) fusion necessary for tracking moving targets that use...
Briefs Materials
Integrated Aircraft Oxygen Sensor
Shortly after its takeoff from New York City on July 17, 1996, Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean and crashed. The accident investigation board determined that the center wing fuel tank caught fire and exploded. Although the ignition source remains unknown, it was unquestionably...
Briefs Power
Film Cooling Using Pulsed Coolant
Turbine engine designers routinely use film cooling to cool engine components in the hot-gas flow-path. Film cooling is the process of injecting coolant fluid at one or more discrete locations along a surface...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
Textile Capacitor
The Air Force (AF) is evolving from a Cold War-era force with a large, containment- focused infrastructure to a smaller, more responsive and affordable Air and Space Expeditionary Force. In support of this transformation, AFRL...
Briefs Sensors/Data Acquisition
Patterned Gallium Arsenide Devices for Infrared Countermeasures
The US Air Force has a need for improved tunable laser sources—both in the midinfrared region, for developing infrared countermeasure (IRCM) applications, and in the longinfrared...
Briefs Unmanned Systems
Unmanned SkyTote Demonstrates Capabilities
AFRL scientists are working on SkyTote, a novel unmanned air vehicle (UAV) that will take off and land vertically like a helicopter (see figure) but also transition into horizontal flight like a...
Briefs Aerospace
The Propulsion - Safety, Affordability, and Readiness Program
Propulsion - Safety, Affordability, and Readiness (P-SAR) is a new and unique program effort intended to achieve common engine sustainment goals across the Army, Navy, and Air Force...
Briefs Aerospace
Nonchromated Treatment for Aluminum Surfaces
AFRL scientists and engineers recently completed development of a nonchromated treatment for aluminum aircraft surfaces and structures. The new treatment method is the result of a collaborative...
Briefs Materials
Ground-Penetrating Radar
AFRL engineers used prototypes of recently developed ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electronic cone penetrometer (ECP) devices to determine whether voids and anomalies in a particular airfield's subsoil were...
Briefs Materials
Materials Knowledge Base
A team of scientists, engineers, and developers from AFRL and RJ Lee Group, Inc., recently completed functional prototype development of the Materials Knowledge Base (MKB), an object-based data repository for laboratory...
Briefs Defense
AFRL Study Defines Standards for Low-Level Chemical Agent Exposure
Results of a 5-year, $40 million effort to study chemical warfare agents will benefit military and civilian personnel alike, helping leaders in both arenas cope with events...
Briefs Defense
Advanced Hardware-in-the-Loop Sensor Simulation
AFRL researchers and their counterparts at CG2, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quantum3D, Inc., are collaborating through a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract to...
Briefs Defense
AFRL Seeks Ways to Prevent Hearing Loss in Military Environments
In the 1988 movie "Good Morning, Vietnam," character Adrian Cronauer, a Saigon- based military disc jockey, performs an on-air skit in which he contacts an artilleryman in the...
Briefs Software
Dynamic Air Battle Planning
An air tasking order (ATO) implements air operations supporting the joint force commander's campaign by assigning aircraft and munitions to targets and specifying the timing and grouping of air missions. Currently,...
Briefs Aerospace
Adaptable Miniature Initiation System Technology
The ever-changing nature of warfare presents constant challenges to weapon system designers, who must carefully consider various perspectives of mutual importance. Specifically, designers must...
Briefs Aerospace
AFRL Supports C-5A Evaluation Program
AFRL materials integrity experts are collaborating with the Aeronautical Systems Center's C-5 Systems Group, Warner Robins Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC), and Air Mobility Command (AMC) in an effort to...
Briefs Materials
Microelectromechanical Systems Switch Simulator
AFRL materials scientists developed a highly sophisticated laboratory instrument that simulates the effects of physical forces and electrical current on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)...
Briefs Aerospace
Strain-Induced Porosity Model
AFRL scientists developed advanced computer models to improve the processing and quality of titanium alloys used in manufacturing gas turbine engine parts and critical structural components for military aircraft....
Briefs Materials
Conductive Polymeric Nanocomposite Materials
AFRL scientists have developed a method for uniformly dispersing carbon nanofibers throughout polymeric materials to increase their conductivity. Engineers will be able to employ the resulting...
Briefs Materials
Composite Material Fire Safety Training Course
AFRL scientists and engineers, working cooperatively with experts from academia and the firefighting community, have developed a Composite Material Fire Safety training program designed to improve...
Briefs Nanotechnology
Automated Material Deposition Chamber
AFRL materials scientists have acquired an automated deposition chamber (see figure on next page) that enables them to simultaneously or sequentially deposit solid-lubricant coatings onto target objectives...
Briefs Software
Computational Model of a Plasma Actuator
Controlling subsonic aerodynamic flow through the use of plasma actuators is an active area of research in both the Air Force (AF) and the general scientific community. A typical plasma actuator consists...
Briefs Mechanical & Fluid Systems
AFRL Finding Ways to Decrease Unmanned Air Vehicle Costs
In support of the Aeronautical Systems Center's (ASC) Global Hawk Systems Group, AFRL has undertaken a program to study manufacturing tolerances for laminar flow on aircraft wings. On the...
Briefs Photonics/Optics
Cyberspace Security via Quantum Encryption
Perfect information- theoretical security requires that the meaning of an encrypted message transmitted from point A to point B be statistically independent of the ciphertext in which that message is...
Briefs Software
Unified Flow Solver
A variety of gas flow problems are characterized by the presence of rarefied and continuum domains. In a rarefied domain, the mean free path of gas molecules is comparable to (or larger than) a characteristic scale of the...
Briefs Information Technology
A Concept for Information Extraction From Remote Wireless Sensor Networks
Recent advances in the development of microsensors, microprocessors, information fusion algorithms, and ad hoc networking have led to increasingly capable wireless sensor...
Briefs Manufacturing & Prototyping
Rapid Model Fabrication for Responsive Aerodynamic Experimental Research
Technicians machine traditional metal wind tunnel models in a process that can span months. Although these models are highly precise, the meticulously slow manufacturing...
Briefs Materials
Geopolymers
The use of ceramics in an ancient culture is one measure of that society's overall technical sophistication. Combining the study of ancient ceramics with modern science and technology has led to the creation of new ceramics with...
Briefs Data Acquisition
AFRL Supports Desert Hawk Program
AFRL aeronautical engineers collaborated with the Electronic Systems Center's (ESC) Force Protection Program Office, Hanscom Air Force Base (AFB), Massachusetts, to conduct an in-house effort assessing the...
Top Stories
INSIDERDefense
New 3D-Printable Nanocomposite Prevents Overheating in Military Electronics
Technology ReportSoftware
Talking SDVs and Zonal Architecture with TE Connectivity
NewsDesign
2026 Nissan Sentra Review: Putting the Pieces Together
INSIDERDesign
New Defense Department Program Seeks 300,000 Drones From Industry by 2027
INSIDERDefense
Anduril Completes First Semi-Autonomous Flight of CCA Prototype
INSIDERDefense
Webcasts
Transportation
Hydrogen Engines Are Heating Up for Heavy Duty
Manufacturing & Prototyping
SAE Automotive Podcast: Solid-State Batteries
Manufacturing & Prototyping
SAE Automotive Engineering Podcast: Additive Manufacturing
Defense
A New Approach to Manufacturing Machine Connectivity for the Air Force
Automotive
Optimizing Production Processes with the Virtual Twin
