US Army Research Laboratory power sources R&D programs

: The variable pulse width laser at the US Army Research Laboratory can output a maximum of more than 5 J per pulse at pulse widths between 50 s to 10 ms. Maximum energy output is only achieved by proper alignment and laser operation. This report provides tips for safe operation to avoid damage to parts within the laser and provides details of a technique to align the variable pulse width laser that are not included in the operators manual.

This article deals with an investigation to determine the root cause of the differences noted in the fatigue test data of main rotor spindle assembly retaining rods fabricated from three different materials. The US Army Research Laboratory - Materials Directorate (ARL) subjected the failed tie rods to visual examination and light optical microscopy and then performed dimensional verification and measured the respective surface roughness of the rods in an effort to identify any discrepancies. Next, mechanical testing (hardness, fatigue, and tensile) was performed, followed by metallography, and chemical analysis. Finally, the ARL performed laboratory heat treatments at the required aging temperature. The results suggested that the difference in performance could not be directly linked to chemical composition, dimensional intolerance, surface roughness or any metallographic variance and that the likely explanation for the difference observed in the mechanical performance of materials lies within a variation of the heat treatment.

In September 2009 the Fort Leonard Wood Field Element of the US Army Research Laboratory - Human Research and Engineering Directorate, in conjunction with Polaris Sensor Technologies and Concurrent Technologies Corporation, evaluated the objective performance benefits of Polaris' 3D vision upgrade kit for the TALON small unmanned ground vehicle (SUGV). This upgrade kit is a field-upgradable set of two stereo-cameras and a flat panel display, using only standard hardware, data and electrical connections existing on the TALON robot. Using both the 3D vision system and a standard 2D camera and display, ten active-duty Army Soldiers completed seven scenarios designed to be representative of missions performed by military SUGV operators. Mission time savings (6.5% to 32%) were found for six of the seven scenarios when using the 3D vision system. Operators were not only able to complete tasks quicker but, for six of seven scenarios, made fewer mistakes in their task execution. Subjective Soldier feedback was overwhelmingly in support of pursuing 3D vision systems, such as the one evaluated, for fielding to combat units.

: Tetranitroglycoluril (TNGU) was prepared according to the US Army Research Laboratory s (ARL s) method by the nitration of imidazo-[4,5-d]-imidazole nitrate using trifluoroacetic anhydride and 100% nitric acid. This resulting material was then subjected to hydrolytic stability studies in which it was placed into a temperature and humidity chamber set to 23 C and 85% relative humidity and the change in concentration of TNGU was measured over time through the use of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) started several corporate initiatives to benchmark and improve upon strategic areas of the laboratory. These initiatives, designed to investigate a critical interest area, each began with a study led by a senior leader. The intent was to propose recommendations and an

: This endeavor addressed 2 efforts: 1) to determine if the materials of construction of the current plywood ballistic mannequin (or manikin) should be more closely controlled and 2) to revise the US Army Ballistic Research Laboratory plywood ballistic mannequin to more closely reflect the current US Army male population. Despite the changeability of materials of construction and design of the plywood ballistic mannequin, no previous US Army effort has ever been made to quantify this variability and its possible effect on live-fire testing analyses. The US Army Research Laboratory s Survivability/Lethality Analysis Directorate recommends a revised plywood ballistic mannequin be employed in future live-fire testing when US Army personnel vulnerability is to be assessed.

: While human tutoring and mentoring are common teaching tools, current US Army standards for training and education are group instruction and classroom training, also known as ???one-to-many??? instruction. Recently, the US Army has placed significant emphasis on self-regulated learning \201SRL\202 methods to augment institutional training where Soldiers will be largely responsible for managing their own learning. In support of the US Army Learning Model \201ALM\202 and to provide affordable, tailored SRL training and educational capabilities for the US Army, the US Army Research Laboratory \201ARL\202 is investigating and developing adaptive tools and methods to largely automate the authoring \201creation\202, delivery of instruction, and evaluation of computer-regulated training and education capabilities. A major goal within this research program is to reduce the time and skill required to author, deliver, and evaluate adaptive technologies to make them usable by a larger segment of the training and educational community. This research includes 6 interdependent research vectors: individual learner and unit modeling, instructional management principles, domain modeling, authoring tools and methods, and evaluation tools and methods. This report \2011 of 6 interdependent research outlines\202 focuses on domain modeling research for adaptive training and education with the goal of guiding learning in militarily relevant training and educational domains.

The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has recently developed the Spectrally Agile Frequency-Incrementing Reconfigurable (SAFIRE) radar system during its ongoing research to provide ground vehicular standoff detection and classification of obscured and/or buried explosive hazards. The system is a stepped-frequency radar (SFR) that can be reconfigured to omit operation within specific sub-bands of its 1700 MHz operating band (300 MHz to 2000 MHz). It employs two transmit antennas and an array of 16 receive antennas; the antenna types are quad-ridged horn and Vivaldi, respectively. The system is vehicle-mounted and can be interchanged between forward- or side-looking configurations. In order to assess and evaluate the performance of the SAFIRE radar system in a realistic deployment scenario, ARL has collected SAFIRE data using militarily-relevant threats at an arid US Army test site. This paper presents an examination of radar imagery from these data collection campaigns. A discussion on the image formation techniques is presented and recently processed radar imagery is provided. A summary of the radars performance is presented and recommendations for further improvements are discussed.

: The advancement of the Army's electronic lethality and survivability programs require energy dense capacitors that are capable of being discharged at a rate greater than 20 kA/microsecond and handle a voltage reversal of 20% of the rated charge voltage. The electrical and mechanical stresses of these requirements inherently cause capacitance loss during the discharge of the capacitor under test. The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL), in conjunction with General Atomics (GA), has been working to develop state of the art metalized polypropylene (MPP) capacitors that can withstand the stresses of operating in pulse power systems. This report discusses the pulse power test results of various MPP capacitors developed by GA and evaluated by ARL with the goal of maintaining 90% capacitance after enduring 10 charge and discharge cycles where the discharge occurs within tens of microseconds and the peak currents exceed 100 kA. Over the past decade, design advancements have been made that yield MPP capacitors with long DC life and high energy density but are also capable of discharge currents and rise times typically reserved for discrete foil capacitors.

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is the premier laboratory for land forces in the United States. A young organization that in 2017 celebrates 25 years of discovery, innovation, and transition of science and technology, ARL has already contributed significantly to several disciplines in optical sciences.

: The US Army Research Laboratory s Human Research and Engineering Directorate assesses crewstation design for new and upgraded US Army Aviation aircraft during simulations and operational testing. The assessments are conducted to identify and eliminate human factors design problems. As part of these evaluations, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter has been a primary focus with respect to crewstation design changes. One of the significant design changes for the Apache crewstation is the integration of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) control. This study investigates the feasibility of controlling multiple UASs from the cockpit of an AH-64 Apache helicopter by examining scientific studies conducted on multi-UAS control that relate to operator and pilot mental workload.

In May 2006, the US Army Research Laboratory and UK Ministry of Defense created the international technology alliance. The consortium of 26 partners including the ARL and MoD offers an open research environment in which leading US and UK companies and universities can collaborate (see table 1). It will also fuse the best aspects of the US Army's Collaborative Technology Alliances and UK MoD's Defense Technology Centers on an international scale. The ITA aims to develop flexible, distributed, and secure decision-making procedures to improve networked coalition operations. Network science is a young discipline we have limited information models and network theories to describe the behavior and scaling of large, complex mobile ad hoc networks.1 moreover, you can't understand a coalition network's performance without understanding its cognitive and sociocultural aspects and physical characteristics. A key ITA goal is to perform basic research in network-centric coalition decision making across four technical areas: network theory, security across a system of systems, sensor information processing and delivery, and distributed coalition planning and decision making, 2. we focus on the last area because this is where intelligent systems will play the biggest role.

US Army lab awards MTI Micro DMFC contract

This report summarizes our observations using the longwave infrared (LWIR) hyperspectral data subset of the Spectral and Polarimetric Imagery Collection Experiment (SPICE) dataset, which emphasizes the inherent challenges associated with applying autonomous spectral pattern recognition methods to LWIR hyperspectral imagery, as well as data quality and qualitative validation of expected atmospheric spectral features. SPICE is a collaborative effort between the US Army Research Laboratory, US Army Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center, and the US Air Force Institute of Technology. It focused on the long-term LWIR hyperspectral and polarimetric data collection of a target site, under various weather and non-ideal conditions, and exploitation of this dataset for pattern recognition tasks. We concluded from this effort that the quality of SPICE hyperspectral LWIR data is categorically comparable to other datasets recorded by a different sensor of similar specifications and is adequate for algorithmic research. The vast dataset and associated ground-truth information are a great asset for research.

Unlike chemists who make drugs, fragrances, and agrochemicals, chemists who make energetic materials, like explosives and propellants, don’t spend much time worrying about stereo- and regiochemistry. Their thinking is that the precise arrangement of substituents on a compound doesn’t really matter if they’re going to blow it up or burn it. But that logic is all wrong, say researchers at CCDC US Army Research Laboratory and Scripps Research in California. They report that differences in stereo- and regiochemistry can result in energetic molecules with vastly different physical properties (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b06961). The group, led by the Army Research Lab’s Jesse J. Sabatini and Scripps’s Phil S. Baran, synthesized all six stereo- and regioisomers of a cyclobutyl compound with four nitrate ester substituents (shown). Computations suggested that the compounds’ explosive properties would be similar to one another and just a little better than the explosive TNT. From