Archive | Logistics | Armed with Science

They Are Listening

Filed under Cyber Security, Logistics by jtozer on May 1, 2013 at 7:54 am {no comments}

Even high in the air, they have their ears close to the ground.

Tech. Sgt. Justin Longway checks a patch panel aboard an EC-130 Compass Call March 23, 2013, at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. The 41st EECS flies nightly missions in support of troops on the ground. Longway is an airborne maintenance technician with the 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron . (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. David Dobrydney)

Linguists from the 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron, are trained in the art of employing electronic attack for the purpose of denying, degrading and disrupting enemy communications from aboard the EC-130 Compass Call.

“We’re a precision electronic attack platform,” said Tech. Sgt. Dallas Allen, a cryptologic language analyst with the 41st EECS. “We can go out and … stop (the enemy) from communicating with each other.”

When on a mission, the airmen of the Compass Call employ precision electronic attack capabilities in support of U.S. and coalition tactical air, surface and special operations forces.

“You really have to have a lot of confidence in yourself when it comes to identifying certain kinds of communications,” Allen said.

“Sometimes you’ll be listening and think ‘did I just hear him say that, or did I expect him to say that?’”

The linguists’ confidence comes from the amount of practice they go through while at home station, Allen said.

“We have to spend hours in the listening lab studying our language,” he said. “We go to simulations and that’s where we’re able to hone our skills. We listen to known communications so we can practice identifying them.”

The linguist career field is relatively small and with the group of linguists who fly, even smaller. Allen said there are probably less than 1,000.

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From Virtual Marksmanship To Waste Water Reuse

Filed under Education & Culture, Logistics by jtozer on March 11, 2013 at 7:54 am {no comments}

Army commands can start thinking now about submitting study proposals to the Army Study Program Management Office for consideration this summer.

A study is underway now, funded by the Army Study Program Management Office, to look into the incorporation of the fully burdened cost of energy into combat modeling. The fully burdened cost of energy — the cost of a gallon of fuel in theater, for instance — takes into account not just the initial cost of fuel at sale, but also the cost of transporting it to where it is needed — such as by convoy. (Photo by C. Todd Lopez)

Meghan Mariman, director of the Army Study Program Management Office, known as ASPMO, which is part of G-8 at the Pentagon, said that each year, her office pays for about 30 studies at the request of Headquarters, Department of the Army agencies and Army-level commands.

A study, she said, is a research project or an effort to make a project more efficient.

The ASPMO is funding studies this year into traumatic brain injury monitoring, risk assessment, leadership development, and cyberspace operations, for instance.

“We’re looking to make smarter decisions, to either make a process more efficient or more effective,” Mariman said.

Funded in fiscal year 2013 by ASPMO are studies on cyberspace defensive operations, the effectiveness of the Selected Reserve Incentive Program in maintaining the Reserve force, the use of locally-sourced materials for construction of facilities in theater, and something called “Neurocognitive Temporal Training and Marksmanship Performance.”

“Using a virtual environment, soldiers can become better sharpshooters,” Mariman said of the study on neurocognitive training. “And they can use a virtual environment, which saves money; the Office of the Surgeon General has some brilliant work going on.”

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Tactical-Biological Detector

Filed under Logistics, STEM by jtozer on August 20, 2012 at 7:57 am {no comments}

Bad things can come in tiny packages.

The post- 9/11 anthrax mailings drove that point home in a dramatic manner. Fortunately, America has a new sentinel on duty – the Tactical Biological Detector (TAC-BIO), an aerosol biological detector that has redefined the state-of-the-art with its small, low-cost, low-power design.

The TAC-BIO team started with a well-known detection principle – namely, that airborne biological agents excited by certain ultraviolet light will fluoresce and scatter light in a specific and identifiable manner – and then improved nearly every element of the long-standing detection technique.

TAC-BIO is a truly man-portable unit.

Compared to competing technologies, TAC-BIO has a 50% smaller footprint, weighs 80% less, consumes only 4% as much power, and manages all of this in a cost-effective platform. Previous fluorescent detection systems required expensive, high-powered ultraviolet lasers.

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Improving The Hand Grenade

Filed under Logistics by jtozer on June 28, 2012 at 7:04 am {one comment}

Soldiers engage in grenade training. The hand grenade is familiar to the general public by virtue of its frequent appearance in countless war movies. Yet the basic technology is almost 100 years old. A Picatinny arsenal engineer wants to give a modern face-lift to the warhorse of warfare. (By U.S. Army photo)

As far as the design of the basic hand grenade goes, essentially it has been frozen in time.

The first pull-pin design with a lever and delayed fuze dates back to May 1915 and is often referred to as the grandfather to the current variation.

“The basic technology is almost 100 years old,” said Richard Lauch, a Picatinny Arsenal engineer, referring to the Mills Bomb No. 5.

The Mills bomb is the popular name for a series of prominent British hand grenades. They were the first modern fragmentation grenades and named after William Mills, a hand grenade designer.

Lauch, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, has been on a mission to modernize the hand grenade so that it is safer as well as easier to use and cheaper to produce.

During the last year and half of his Marine service, Lauch was primary marksmanship instructor in the Weapons Training Battalion at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, Calif.

While he was assisting in training recruits on the proper use of the M67 hand grenade, Lauch became intimately familiar with what he saw as the grenade’s deficiencies.
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Beyond Passwords Or: How I Learned To Stop Hating And Worked Without Forced Authentication

Filed under Logistics, STEM, Technology by jtozer on June 19, 2012 at 7:13 am {one comment}

“Everyone knows there is a problem with passwords. What I would like to do is I’d like to move us to a world where you sit down at a console, identify yourself, and you just start working. The authentication happens in the background – invisible to you – while you continue doing your work without interruptions.” - Mr. Richard Guidorizzi, DARPA Program Manager, Beyond Passwords

The current standard method for validating a user’s identity for authentication on an information system requires humans to do something that is inherently unnatural: create, remember, and manage long, complex passwords.

Moreover, as long as the session remains active, typical systems incorporate no mechanisms to verify that the user originally authenticated is the user still in control of the keyboard.

Thus unauthorized individuals may improperly obtain extended access to information system resources if a password is compromised or if a user does not exercise adequate vigilance after initially authenticating at the console.

The Active Authentication program seeks to address this problem by developing novel ways of validating the identity of the person at the console that focus on the unique aspects of the individual through the use of software based biometrics. Biometrics are defined as the characteristics used to uniquely recognize humans based on one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits.

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Passing The Cold Weather Test

Filed under Logistics, STEM, Technology by glenn.selby on April 7, 2012 at 8:39 am {no comments}

An operator wearing the Army-issued Extended Cold Weather Clothing Systems works with a Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T, Increment 2 Tactical Communications Node, Jan. 13, 2012, during the two-week WIN-T Increment 2 Cold Weather Natural Environments Testing at Fort Greely, Alaska. (U.S. Army photo)

By Amy Walker, PEO C3T

Even after being frozen overnight at negative 35-degree temperatures in the severe winter conditions of Alaska, the elements of the Army’s second-generation tactical communications network backbone were up and running.

Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T, Increment 2, successfully completed its Cold Weather Natural Environments Testing in January at Fort Greely, Alaska, receiving positive test results in the execution and in its recently released test report from the Army’s Aberdeen Test Center. The data will be used to support a Full-Rate Production, or FRP, decision for WIN-T Increment 2, with a successful FRP decision providing the green light for the network’s fielding in Fiscal Year 2013.

“This was a very successful test and all of the equipment performed as we would have expected in extreme arctic conditions,” said Lt. Col. Robert Collins, product manager for WIN-T Increments 2 and 3. “Whether in the desert or in adverse cold environments, WIN-T Increment 2 will provide the needed on-the-move tactical network communications for maneuver elements on the battlefield all the way down the company level.”

The cold weather test sets the stage for WIN-T Increment 2′s formal operational test, which is the system’s final assessment prior to the full rate production decision.

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Gas ‘Plume’ Detection System to Protect Soldiers, First Responders

Filed under Logistics, STEM, Technology by glenn.selby on April 6, 2012 at 9:00 am {no comments}

The Local-Rapid Evaluation of Atmospheric Conditions uses both weather data and 3D terrain and building information to generate it's wind model. The model display how air flows around terrain and buildings so first responders can have a better idea how to approach or manage a site where an airborne hazard is present. Army Research Laboratory graphic

By John Andrew Hamilton, U.S Army Test and Evaluation Command

A wind monitoring and modeling system being developed by the Army Research Laboratory’s, or ARL, White Sands Missile Range, or WSMR, division could one day protect soldiers and civilians alike from weapons of mass destruction.

The Local-Rapid Evaluation of Atmospheric Conditions, or L-REAC, system is a computerized weather sensor system under development at ARL intended to help predict the flow of gasses and fumes, or “plumes,” produced by things such as gas leaks and chemical weapons.

Being able to identify how an airborne hazard will behave is a vital ability for first responders to have in order for them to know how to approach or evacuate an affected area.

“If you are a dispatch person and you have to direct first responders to the site, you can look at the wind field and see what the safest approach would be,” said Gail Vaucher, a research meteorologist with ARL at WSMR.

There are other systems available that can predict the plume with some accuracy. Such systems use things like wind speed, air pressure, temperature, and humidity in their calculations. But L-REAC system adds a new layer that previous systems didn’t have. Using terrain data, building plans and dimensions, L-REAC can model and display not only the plume, but the actual airflow around buildings and terrain features.

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Army’s Newest Laboratory Complex to Open April 11

Filed under Energy, Logistics, STEM, Technology by glenn.selby on April 1, 2012 at 8:29 am {no comments}

The Army's new Ground Systems Power and Energy Lab opens April 11, 2012, just north of Detroit. (Courtesy graphic)

The U.S. Army will open its new complex, the Ground Systems Power and Energy Laboratory, during a grand opening ceremony at the Detroit Arsenal at 10 a.m., April 11, 2012.

The eight-labs-in-one Ground Systems Power and Energy Laboratory, or GSPEL, facility offers numerous testing capabilities and an unmatched combination of resources in a single lab. The GSPEL is part of the Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center’s, or TARDEC’s, laboratory system.

While closed to the public, the grand opening is expected to draw top government and industry leaders — many of whom are or will soon be GSPEL’s collaborative partners. GSPEL offers shared access to industry and academia to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas to develop emerging energy technologies and validate ground vehicle systems — research that could help the nation achieve energy security goals.

“GSPEL gives the Army overarching, full-spectrum testing and evaluation capability,” said TARDEC Interim Director Jennifer Hitchcock. “The GSPEL’s unique facilities will allow the Army to drive innovation for tomorrow’s energy solutions.”

TARDEC research scientists, engineers and technicians are already moving into the 30,000-square-foot facility. The eight individual labs are:

– Power and Energy Vehicle Environmental Lab, the centerpiece lab featuring one of the world’s largest environmental chambers for testing at temperatures from minus 60°F to 160°F, relative humidity levels from 0 to 95 percent, and winds up to 60 mph. The lab’s dynamometer and environmental chamber combination allows for full mission profile testing of every ground vehicle platform in the military inventory in any environmental condition.

– Air Filtration Lab is capable of testing the air flow characteristics of various-sized media at four different flow benches using varying flows up to 12,000 standard cubic feet per minute. Each flow stream is equipped with an automated dust feeder enabling simulations from zero visibility to four times zero visibility for evaluation of air filters, cleaners and other components.

– Calorimeter Lab is the world’s largest and is capable of testing radiators, charge air coolers, oil coolers individually or all three simultaneously.

– Thermal Management Lab tests thermally-managed mechanical and electrical components in varying environments. A variety of chiller and heat systems for use with test bench heat exchanges are used to evaluate components and systems.

– Power Lab evaluates major vehicle electrical systems including: charging systems, air conditioning systems, hydraulic systems and associated components. The lab’s two explosion-proof environmental chambers allow for expanded technical research.

– Fuel Cell lab tests future fuel cell capabilities for tactical vehicles. The lab enables the development and evaluation of fuel cell components and systems, including systems to reform JP-8 fuel, various fuel cell media and power conditioning, helping vehicles become quieter and more efficient.

– Hybrid Electric Components evaluate hybrid electric powertrains with the emphasis on developing hybrid motor technology and increased electrification of vehicles. Equipment used in this lab will potentially regenerate 80 percent power back into the building, making it possible to re-use the electricity.

– Energy Storage Lab makes it possible to safely test and evaluate advanced chemistry battery vehicle modules. Explosion-proof battery test chambers enable safe testing of 10-60 kW advanced chemistry battery packs.