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Connectivity

AeroVironment Releases New Puma 3

Last month, AeroVironment, Inc. began accepting orders for their new Puma 3 unmanned aerial system (UAS). The company, which also manufacturers UASs for commercial applications, developed the Puma 3 with...

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Articles
Photonics/Optics

Communications in Space: A Deep Subject

Transmitting and receiving radio signals between spacecraft in deep space is a snap compared with getting those signals back to Earth, especially when the spacecraft is 120 billion miles away.

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Briefs
Defense

Designing for Compressive Sensing: Compressive Art, Camouflage, Fonts, and Quick Response Codes

Compressive sensing (CS) is a relatively new field that has caused a lot of excitement in the signal processing community. It has superseded...

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News
Imaging

EU to Deploy UAV Traffic Management System by 2019

The Geneva-based body that navigates international air services for Switzerland and certain bordering countries, skyguide, joined forces with AirMap unmanned traffic management (UTM) to...

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INSIDER
Weapons Systems

Army Developing Lasers That Pierce Fog, Dust to Destroy Targets

A lot of people think that high-energy lasers, or HELs, can't penetrate fog, rain and dust, said Thomas Webber, director of the Directed Energy Division's Technical Center,...

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Articles
Photonics/Optics

Identifying and Isolating Signals Using Radio Frequency Photonics

A single antenna can be used for both transmission and reception. To accomplish this, the transmission must be isolated from the reception. In Figure 1, a radio frequency...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) Suppression and Long Delivery Fibers at the Multikilowatt Level with Chirped Seed Lasers

One obstacle in the scaling of high-power fiber lasers arises because of nonlinear effects (e.g., stimulated...

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Articles
Photonics/Optics

Electronically Dimmable Aircraft Windows

That was the challenge posed to Gentex by Boeing. Window shades typically do the job on an airplane, but they’re cumbersome to operate, expensive to maintain, and do little to reflect the hightech...

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Articles
Aerospace

Microwave Photonic Notch Filter

Interference mitigation is crucial in modern radio frequency (RF) communications systems with dynamically changing operating frequencies, such as cognitive radios, modern military radar, and electronic warfare...

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INSIDER
Imaging

Robot’s Speed-of-Light Communication Could Protect You From Danger

Cornell University researchers are developing a system to enable teams of robots to share information as they move around, and if necessary, interpret what they see. This...

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INSIDER
Photonics/Optics

Heads-up Display Improves Soldiers’ Situational Awareness

A novel technology called "Tactical Augmented Reality," or TAR, is now helping soldiers precisely locate their positions, as well as the locations of friends and foes. It even...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

High Energy Computed Tomographic Inspection of Munitions

An advance computed tomography (CT) system was recently built for the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, for the inspection of...

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INSIDER
Photonics/Optics

Software Gives Bomb Techs X-Ray Vision

In the chaos that followed the terrorist attack at the 2013 Boston Marathon, bomb squads scanned packages at the scene for explosive devices. Two homemade pressure cooker bombs had killed three people...

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INSIDER
Photonics/Optics

Shrinking the Inside of an Explosion

Testing explosions is epic science. The most detailed studies of explosive charges have been conducted at national laboratories using a gun as big as a room to fire a flat bullet – the flyer plate,...

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Articles
Photonics/Optics

Seeing the Light

In order to meet the requirements of current-generation military ruggedized displays and monitors, various technology innovations have been developed that allow for an enhanced user experience. Accommodating all of these needs...

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Articles
Imaging

Next Generation FPGAs for Electronic Warfare Systems

Designers of virtually all electronic warfare system applications exploit CPUs and FPGAs, each offering unique strengths and advantages for handling a wide range of tasks. This diversity...

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INSIDER
Aerospace

Tests Show How Plastic Parts Deform During Flight

Scientists have conducted flights using a measurement configuration based on fiber optics to accurately verify the degree to which carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) parts deform during...

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News
Defense

Airbus Streamlines Fiber Optic Cable Repair Process

Airbus put together what it describes as a transnational, transfunctional team to develop an efficient new method to repair fiber optic cables.

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INSIDER
Defense

Armor Plating Has Built-In Transparent Ceramic Eyes

Protecting yourself usually involves a tradeoff. If you want maximum physical protection, whether from biting predators or exploding artillery shells, it generally compromises your ability to...

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Briefs
Materials

Structural Composites with Tuned EM Chirality

Work on structural composites with tunable chiral elements has produced electronically tunable overall chiral composites, mechanically tunable chiral composites, flat lenses with soft hyperbolic...

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NASA Spinoff
RF & Microwave Electronics

Radio Relays Improve Wireless Products

In order to transmit communications through Earth’s atmosphere, satellites and space vehicles need radio equipment that can operate at higher frequencies than on Earth. These higher frequencies, until...

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Application Briefs
Data Acquisition

Embedded Computing Subsystems

GE Intelligent Platforms Huntsville, AL 1-800-433-2682 www.geautomation.com GE’s Intelligent Platforms division recently secured orders from General Dynamics UK valued at £64 million (~$100 million) to provide a...

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Articles
Photonics/Optics

Stand-Off Scanning and Pointing with Risley Prisms

With the ever increasing threat of improvised explosive devices, both in the military arena and the civilian realm, there is a growing demand for technologies with the ability to detect...

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Technology Update
Photonics/Optics

EOS and MTU Advance Quality Measures for Metal-Based Additive Manufacturing

EOS and MTU Aero Engines have partnered to develop quality-assurance measures for metal engine components using additive manufacturing (AM), signing a framework...

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INSIDER
Medical

Quantum Radar Detects “Invisible” Objects

A prototype quantum radar has the potential to detect objects that are invisible to conventional systems. The new breed of radar is a hybrid system that uses quantum correlation between microwave...

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INSIDER
Electronics & Computers

New Serenity Payload Detects Hostile Fire

Two government-developed sensors are working together to increase the security of deployed soldiers. The Firefly and Serenity sensors employ government developed algorithms, software, and hardware to...

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Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

RF Photonics for Avionics Signal Processing

The maturity of RF photonic components has reached the point where fiber optic links are being system-tested to replace traditional copper coax links on avionic platforms. Many demonstrations of RF...

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INSIDER
Defense

Adaptive Zoom Riflescope Prototype Has Push-Button Magnification

When an Army Special Forces officer‑turned engineer puts his mind to designing a military riflescope, he doesn’t forget the importance of creating something for the soldiers...

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Articles
Defense

Using Forensic Lasers in Modern Warfare

In the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy’s guerilla tactics have muddled the distinction between terrorism and warfare. To deal with the challenges of this new type of combat, the military...

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