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...

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...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

Collapsing and Closing Unmanned Air Vehicle Swarms

AFRL researchers are exploring an adaptive and reconfigurable unmanned air vehicle (UAV) swarm configuration known as "collapsing and closing UAV swarms." This approach to developing UAV...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

Eddy Current Inspection System

AFRL manufacturing technology engineers, working with personnel from the 76th Maintenance Wing's Software and Propulsion Maintenance Groups at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (OC-ALC) and Wyle...

Briefs: Materials

Super-High-Strength Aluminum Alloy

AFRL researchers developed a super-high-strength aluminum alloy that engineers can use to improve the capability and performance of aerospace components—cryogenic rocket engine components, in particular....

Briefs: Materials

Recent Advances in Insensitive Munitions

AFRL scientists from the High Explosives Research and Development facility successfully developed, demonstrated, and transitioned a next-generation melt-castable explosive formulation. The new...

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: Materials

Composites Affordability Initiative

AFRL and Boeing have developed an innovative structural inspection technique for testing bonded structures. This technique provides materials engineers a first-time, validated, nondestructive capability to...

Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

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...

Briefs: Materials

Dielectric Coolants

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the Department of Defense's affordable next-generation strike aircraft designed to meet the needs of the Air Force (AF), Navy, Marines, and US allies. Currently in development by Lockheed...

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...

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: 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: 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...

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: 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: 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: 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: Medical

Scientists Create Optically Equivalent Synthetic Human Tissue

Lasers are an integral part of the modern battlefield, used for applications as diverse as point-to-point communications and ballistic missile defense. Their widespread use...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

Weapon Data Link Demonstration

One of the US Air Force's goals is to reduce the time needed to strike timesensitive targets, thus minimizing the adversary's perceived mobility advantage and leaving concealment as that enemy's primary...

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—...

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: 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: 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

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...

Briefs: Information Technology

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: Photonics/Optics

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: 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...