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About Carla Voorhees

Carla Voorhees has always been interested in science, from the time she grew string beans under varying conditions for the science fair (3rd grade) to the time she took every math and science class she could during high school. As her path during college and beyond took her somewhat away from the hard sciences, she is thrilled to be a part of the Armed With Science team. Carla holds a B.S. in Electronic Media, Arts, and Communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2007), and an M.B.A. in Design Strategy from the California College of the Arts (2010). She works as a Web Strategist at DOD Public Web.
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Carla Voorhees has written 141 articles so far, you can find them below.

SPAWAR’s First MUOS Satellite Taking Off

Filed under Space, STEM, Technology by Carla Voorhees on February 17, 2012 at 9:33 am {no comments}

The U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command is planning to launch the first satellite in the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) constellation tonight at 5:42 p.m. EST. (Yesterday’s attempt was scrubbed due to weather.) You can watch the live stream of the launch hosted by ULA Launch Alliance.

The first Mobile User Objective System satellite is fully integrated and ready to be transferred to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to prepare for liftoff aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle on Feb. 16, 2012. (Photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin)

This is a rare event as the Navy doesn’t often have a significant role in space. Typically satellite launches are handled by the Air Force, however the Navy is responsible for all of DOD’s Ultra High Frequency (UHF) narrowband satellite communications acquisition. The UHF radio frequency spectrum is the military’s most effective band for penetrating jungle foliage, bad weather, and urban settings. All U.S. military forces and many of our allies rely upon Navy satellites for these communications.

MUOS combines commericial third generation (3G) Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) cellular technology with geosychronous satellites to provide a more capable communications network for our warfighters. When complete, the constellation will include four operational satellites with an additional on-orbit spare, a ground control system, and a network management system. Flying the satellites and controlling access to users’ communications can all be managed from the ground.

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Army Brings Prototype Scout Vehicle to Chicago Auto Show

Filed under Energy, Technology by Carla Voorhees on February 16, 2012 at 9:09 am {no comments}

By Sue Meade

CHICAGO (Army News Service, Feb. 14, 2012) — Military vehicles are not the first image that comes to mind when thinking of an auto show, but the U.S. Army’s newest concept models are among about 1,000 vehicles on display at the 2012 Chicago Auto Show.

The U.S. Army Detroit Arsenal sent a collection of today's military fleet for display at the 2012 Chicago Auto Show. (U.S. Army Photo)

The U.S. Army Detroit Arsenal sent a collection of today’s military fleet, as well as two new concept hybrid models from its research, development and engineering center, to showcase some of the latest efforts to produce energy efficiency, save dollars, evaluate environmental concerns and save Soldier’s lives.

The two Clandestine Extended Range Vehicles, or CERVs, are light-weight, diesel-electric hybrid prototypes that have been engineered for reconnaissance, targeting and rescue missions. With a top speed of 80 mph, the CERVs have a “silent run” capability of eight miles, can ascend a 60-percent grade, have a torque rating of 5,000 pounds and have a decreased fuel consumption of 25 percent over conventional models.

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Aid Missions Get Cutting-Edge Assistance from ONR

Filed under Logistics, STEM, Technology by Carla Voorhees on February 15, 2012 at 9:38 am {no comments}

By Katherine H. Crawford, Office of Naval Research

ARLINGTON, Va.—A Web-based tool suite that helps first responders rapidly coordinate resources during disasters, co-sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), is being introduced at a University of Connecticut panel Feb. 8-11 as part of a month-long rollout.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are first responders to international crises, which often include humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR), such as Japan’s March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake.

The Resiliency Assessment and Coordination System (TRACS) tool takes data from the United Nations’ ReliefWeb and Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and displays it on a map-based diagram showing the locations of various resources, such as food, shelter, sanitation and health supplies. It also provides a checklist to help first responders with initial planning, as well as a medical “common operating picture” for all critical players in HA/DR operations—a big-picture view of relevant assets.

“The idea is to provide rapid information on a nation’s resiliency to a particular disaster,” said Dr. Rebecca Goolsby, a program officer in ONR’s Warfighter Performance and Protection department. “By having information about the whole system—health, food, economics, transportation, etc.—the first responders will know how to prepare and what to bring.”

TRACS is being developed through a partnership between ONR and the Center of Excellence in Disaster Management & Humanitarian Assistance (COE-DMHA) to satisfy U.S. combatant command and military component requirements for HA/DR, including rapid HA/DR diagnosis, planning, coordination and operational assessment. ONR and COE-DMHA hope to transition the TRACS technology into wider use at the United States Pacific Command.

COE-DMHA is led by its director, retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Goodman, and retired Navy Rear Adm. Thomas Cullison, formerly Navy deputy surgeon general and vice chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. The center aids military and non-military international disaster management and humanitarian assistance, and it partners with various national and international governmental and non-governmental organizations to provide education, training, coordination and research.

TRACS is able to digest a vast amount of information—social media, images, analytics, etc.—being broadcast from the crisis and display it in various formats to provide users with a dashboard-like “at a glance” view of all the functional status of numerous assets, such as public health and water systems. A chart displays the items in green (good), yellow (fair) and red (needs help).

Future iterations will show what needs to be fixed and in what order to turn a “red” item to “green.” Also planned is inclusion of a suite of social media analysis tools in development by ONR, which will reduce the initial footprint of first responders by allowing them to arrive with only the items that are actually needed for a particular event and location.

One ONR objective is for TRACS to become a key HA/DR widget, or application, that is accessible on Navy command and control networks. It will run on ONR’s Command and Control Rapid Prototyping Capability (C2RPC), which pulls together large amounts of data from disparate sources, sifts it for relevancy and validates it, helping decision makers get information quickly and coordinate with partners.

“A lot of times when we use naval forces to perform humanitarian assistance to areas that have just experienced some type of disaster, we spend a lot of time and resources just communicating what is needed and when it’s needed,” said Gary Toth, who spearheaded C2RPC as ONR’s program manager for Command and Control. “C2RPC offers visibility into where we have available resources—whether it’s blood supplies, fresh water, diapers or food—and it minimizes the amount of time spent in information gathering and coordination. As a result, you spend that time actually making decisions and executing a variety of mission outcomes.”

C2RPC operates on a cloud computing framework, named “OZONE,” so various applications can interact. OZONE is a standards-based widget technology that enables information sharing from unclassified to classified platforms—essentially, feeding information from the ground up. C2RPC can flow information from new knowledge sources, models and visualization technologies and to improve information sharing with potential partners, such as the United States Agency for International Development, host nations, non-governmental organizations, allied nations and local authorities. The idea is to create standards-based widgets with rules to foster global coordination and collaboration while retaining information that is sensitive or classified.

Water: to Drink or Charge Your Phone

Filed under Energy, STEM, Technology by Carla Voorhees on February 14, 2012 at 7:14 am {3 comments}

By Lance Cpl. Chelsea Flowers, Marines Magazine

Need energy to charge your phone or Unmanned Aircraft System? Just add water.

The AEROPAK is a new technological advancement allowing water to power electronic devices such as cell phones and unmanned aircraft systems. While still being tested, the system could increase surveillance and flight hours in combat zones as well as lower operation costs and downtime for battery charging. (Image courtesy of Horizon Energy Systems)

Horizon Energy Systems has developed a new type of process that produces electricity by mixing water with the chemical, hydride. The electrochemical reaction between the hydride and the hydrogen and oxygen in water produces hydrogen, which powers their AEROPAK fuel-cell system.

Showcased at the 2011 Marine Corps Expo in Quantico, Va., the AEROPAK is comparable to a battery, but offers three times more energy than the lithium-polymer batteries currently in use. Designed as a drop-in replacement for battery packs, the system is ideal for use in Unmanned Aircraft Systems by providing longer flight hours, increased surveillance, lower operational costs and minimal downtime for battery charging. While lithium batteries last for about two hours, the AEROPAK will power the UAS for eight hours, increasing the possibility of 24-hour surveillance for increased security in deployed environments.

The AEROPAK is also a compact, ultra-lightweight, extremely reliable, and safe energy source for more than just unmanned aircraft. The system can power other electronic devices such as phones, ipods and radios.

Similar fuel-cell systems are being developed and tested for use in wider field and equipment applications.

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DOD Working Toward Fully Functional Prosthetic Arms

Filed under Life Sciences, STEM by Carla Voorhees on February 13, 2012 at 9:27 am {no comments}

By Rob McIlvaine

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (Army News Service, Feb. 1, 2012) — A robotic arm, dubbed “Luke,” after the Jedi with the mechanical hand, served as the centerpiece for a Jan. 31 discussion here regarding advancements in prosthetics.

Air Force Tech Sgt. Joe Deslauriers, stationed at Hurlburt Field in Florida, is currently at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he's been learning the intricacies of his new arm. Deslauriers was injured in Helmund Province, Afghanistan on Sept. 23, 2011. (Photo by Rob McIlvaine)

The robotic arm is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-funded project, in partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs. The goal of the project is to restore functionality for individuals with upper extremity amputations. The project is still in development.

“The original goal for the program, back when we got started in 2005, was to create, within this decade, a fully functional motor and sensory upper limb that responds to direct neural control,” said Dr. Stewart Coulter, during the 2012 Military Health System Conference at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center, from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2.

Coulter, who serves as the general manager at DEKA Research and Development Corporation in Manchester, N.H., also has the role of product manager for the revolutionizing prosthetic arm system to provide improvements in functionality and usability for wounded warriors and others.

The DEKA arm has 10 degrees of movement, and features moving fingers, wrist, elbow and shoulder. All those parts move with electric motors, which are controlled by the user with signals from a foot-based controller.

But Coulter said it’s easy to confuse the advances being made in prosthetics with science fiction.

“A lot of people have seen, for instance, the Terminator movies, and sometimes forget that those aren’t actually real,” Coulter said.

The standard for prosthetic arms up until now has been “two to three degrees of freedom,” Coulter said, which is not much different than a prosthetic arm that features a hook.

“You see the hand open and close, you’re seeing elbow flex, you might see a wrist rotate but not much more than that,” Coulter said. “You’re seeing low torque, but you’re not seeing any feedback to the user.”

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New Bioelectric Bandage Interests Army

Filed under Life Sciences, Technology by Carla Voorhees on February 10, 2012 at 8:19 am {no comments}

By Dan Kennedy, PMO Medical Devices

FORT DETRICK, Md. (Feb. 6, 2012) — The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command has initiated steps to evaluate a new bioelectric bandage

A new bioelectric bandage is being examined by the Army to see if it speeds up healing, provides greater pain control, reduces infection risk, and decreases scarring. (Courtesy image)

Small silver and zinc dots embedded into cloth create micro-currents in the presence of moisture. This may create an anti-microbial environment and provide pain reduction.

The use of silver on burns has a long history of preventing infections. The combination of silver, zinc, and moisture is purported to create pain-reducing antimicrobial micro-currents. According to literature from the manufacturer, the results of this bandage dressing include faster healing, greater pain control, reduced incidence of infection, and decreased scarring.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the device for antimicrobial wound care, which is the primary reason for the Army’s genuine interest in the product. The bandage is currently being used on hard-to-heal wounds, with multiple research studies underway. Anecdotal results are promising, especially with regard to pain control. In some cases, wound pain is reported to be reduced dramatically.

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Clinical Trials Begin for ‘Travelers’ Diarrhea’ Vaccine

Filed under Life Sciences, STEM by Carla Voorhees on February 9, 2012 at 12:09 pm {no comments}

By Terri Moon Cronk, American Forces Press Service

SILVER SPRING, Md., Jan. 20, 2012 – Navy medical researchers have expanded the knowledge of the bacterium that causes “travelers’ diarrhea” and are in the early stages of clinical trials of a vaccine they developed for it.

Recognizing the impact of travelers’ diarrhea on military readiness, particularly when it affects deployed forces, the Defense Department is the primary sponsor of the research, with assistance from other groups, said Navy (Dr.) Capt. Stephen Savarino, and clinical trial principal investigator Navy Cdr. Mark Riddle of the Naval Medical Research Center at the Forest Glen Annex here.

The bacterium was discovered as the cause of travelers’ diarrhea in the late 1960s by other researchers, and Naval Medical Research Center researchers developed the first vaccine in 2004. After toxicology studies in 2011, they started the first phase of clinical trials in August, Riddle said. Forty volunteers ages 18 to 45 are participating.

With the trials just beginning, Savarino said, more work remains to be done before the vaccine will be available, The Food and Drug Administration requires all new drugs to be proven safe and effective before they’re administered to people, he explained, and though clinical data from this trial area is expected this year, it could be seven or eight years before the vaccine is licensed.

“We think there’s a lot of promise in this vaccine,” he said, “but we need to have the data to support it moving forward.”

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Combat Engineers Passing On Some Explosive Knowledge [VIDEO]

Filed under STEM, Technology, Videos by Carla Voorhees on February 8, 2012 at 9:40 am {no comments}

The Antipersonnel Obstacle Breaching System (APOBS) is used to conduct deliberate or hasty breaches through enemy antipersonnel minefields and multi-strand wire obstacle. It is light enough to be carried by two soldiers with backpacks and can be deployed within 30 to 120 seconds. Once set in place, the APOBS rocket is fired from a 35-meter standoff position, sending the line of charge with fragmentation grenades over the minefield and/or wire obstacle. The Grenades neutralize, or clear the mines and sever the wire, effectively clearing a footpath up to 45 meters in length for the troops. It is the lighter, more mission-capable successor to the World War II vintage Bangalore torpedo.

In the video below, soldiers from the 530th Engineer Company train soldiers of the 504th Battlefield Surveillance and 2-38 Cavalry on the APOBS system.

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