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Briefs Medical
AFRL Teams With Indy Racing League® for Neck Protection
The bulletlike, open-wheel Indy racing cars hurtle around oval tracks at breakneck velocities, often approaching speeds of 220 mph or higher. While a crash at this speed is a violent,...
Briefs Photonics/Optics
Dynamic Cavity Formation Imaging
When an Air Force bomber drops a penetrating munition, what happens as the warhead travels underground to the target? AFRL researchers at the Advanced Warhead Experimentation Facility (AWEF) recently captured...
Briefs Materials
Monazite Deformation Twinning Research
AFRL scientists have significantly advanced the understanding of a phenomenon called deformation twinning, a major materials deformation mechanism that is particularly important at low temperatures and...
Briefs Materials
Design of Lightweight and Durable Composite Structures
In the field of engineering design, "factors of safety" are derivatives of inadequate knowledge and therefore are a necessary, but costly, element of engineering design. Designing...
Briefs Information Technology
Developing Condition-Based Maintenance
Like any manufacturing equipment, semiconductor fabrication systems have a finite lifetime. Technicians normally perform maintenance on these hardware systems according to preset schedules and regardless...
Briefs Information Technology
Military Worth Analysis of New Concept Weapons
Weapon systems analysts traditionally conduct military worth analysis (MWA) to evaluate the warfighter payoff resulting either from the development and implementation of new assets or from the...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
The Next Frontier of Networking—The Airborne Network
It is the next frontier of networking—a frontier where communication nodes may move at Mach speeds, wireless line of sight covers hundreds of miles, and weather affects communications...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
Low-Cost Transmit/Receive Module for Satellite Control and Communications
A multidisciplinary team led by AFRL scientists is developing a geodesic dome phased-array antenna (GDPAA) for a proposed future Air Force (AF) technology demonstration.1...
Briefs Materials
Characterizing Mechanical Properties at the Microscale
Scientists from AFRL, Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, and General Electric Aircraft Engines, working under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Accelerated Insertion of Materials...
Briefs Materials
Ceramic Matrix Composites Research
AFRL scientists characterized and evaluated the high-temperature mechanical behavior of fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composite (CMC) materials used in aerospace structural applications. Researchers examined...
Briefs Materials
New Capability to Characterize the Mechanical Properties of Explosive Materials
Improved targeting accuracy and the long-standing desire to minimize collateral damage are causing current and future munitions to become much smaller. As munitions...
Briefs Software
Geo*View
Visualization of geospatially correct, remotely sensed data is a key element of many government and commercial applications. It enables a user to analyze and assess ground activities and other conditions of interest. Because remotely...
Briefs Sensors/Data Acquisition
Surface-Emitting Laser Arrays Bring Light to the Top
Laser diodes are an integral part of everyday life, incorporated into commonplace items as diverse in function as laser pointers, fiber-optic communications systems, and DVD players....
Briefs Manned Systems
Coordination of Autonomous Unmanned Air Vehicles
Future autonomous unmanned air vehicles (UAV) will need to work in teams to share information and coordinate activities in much the same way as current manned air systems. Funded by AFRL,...
Briefs Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Active Flow Control Demonstrated on “Airborne Wind Tunnel”
AFRL engineers, collaborating with aerospace manufacturers and other Air Force groups, recently demonstrated the first-ever airborne active flow control system when they manipulated...
Briefs Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Fruit Flies
He refers to them as "nature's fighter jets" and has devoted his life's work and an entire lab to monitor their every move. Thus is the relationship existing between Dr. Michael Dickinson and the objects of his attention—fruit...
Briefs Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Microelectromechanical Systems Inertial Measurement Unit Flight Test
AFRL and Boeing engineers conducted successful flight tests of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial measurement units (IMU) on the Joint Direct Attack Munition...
Briefs Information Technology
Response Surface Mapping Technique Aids Warfighters
When weaponeering a target, military planners pinpoint a detonation location that will result in the desired damage to the entire target, or even a particular area within the target. The...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
RASCAL Facility
AFRL's Radiation and Scattering Compact Antenna Laboratory (RASCAL) enables researchers to develop and evaluate advanced aperture technologies that support electronic warfare, radar, communication, and navigation— technologies...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
Weapon Data Link Demonstration
One of the US Air Force's goals is to reduce the time needed to strike time-sensitive targets, thus minimizing the adversary's perceived mobility advantage and leaving concealment as that enemy's primary defensive...
Briefs Physical Sciences
AFRL’s Demonstration and Science Experiments Mission
A document describes the Air Force Research Laboratory's Demonstration and Science Experiments (DSX) mission, dedicated to research needed to advance the ability to operate spacecraft in the harsh radiation environment of medium earth orbit (MEO). The DSX spacecraft, to be launched in late 2009...
Briefs Manufacturing & Prototyping
Fabrication of Lightweight Armored Doors for HMMWVs
A document describes a concept for fabricating lightweight armored doors for the Army’s high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs). Essentially, the concept is to reinforce high-hard (HH) steel armored doors used on some HMMWVs with a laminated, woven, high-tensile-strength glassfiber/...
Briefs Physical Sciences
Progress in Research on Bacteria-Powered Motors
Progress has been made on several fronts in research on biomotors and especially on microscopic motors powered by bacteria. The progress consists mostly of advances in the art of attaching motile bacterial cells to surfaces in specific, pre-designed microarrays.
Briefs Physical Sciences
Imaging System for Characterizing Materials and Processes
Ahigh-performance digital imaging system has been assembled to provide enhanced capabilities for characterizing materials and processes. Highspeed imaging is needed for observation and analysis of such fast dynamic processes as impact fracture (including ballistically induced fracture) in...
Briefs Medical
Portable Simulator for Training in Robot-Assisted Surgery
Aportable apparatus is being developed as a means of training surgeons in robot-assisted surgery, including laparoscopic and other forms of minimally invasive surgery. The apparatus can be characterized as a virtual reality system that includes not only a computer and a visual display...
Briefs Medical
Implantable Electrochemical Sensors for Metabolic Monitoring
Arrays of electrochemical sensors that include specially coated (as described below) gold electrodes on flexible polyimide sheets have been fabricated and tested in a continuing...
Briefs Photonics/Optics
Study of Membrane Optics for Lightweight Space Telescopes
Astudy has been performed to establish a foundation for the analysis, design, and further development of inplane- actuated deformable membrane mirrors for lightweight spaceborne...
Briefs Photonics/Optics
Optical-Fiber Infrasound Sensors
Optical-fiber infrasound sensors (OFISs) are being developed for detecting acoustic pressures in the frequency range from a few millihertz to a few hertz. As explained below, these sensors were conceived to...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
Miniature Semiconductor Diodes as Pumps and Motors
Experiments have shown that when a miniature semiconductor diode floats in an aqueous solution and an alternating electric field is applied, (1) the diode rectifies the alternating potential...
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