Air Force Research Laboratory AFRL Sensors Directorate Overview 24 July 2012 Integrity Service Excellence Dr Kenneth L Schepler Senior International Focal Point Sensors Directorate Air Force Research Laboratory 1
Outline AFRL RY Overview Vision Organization BRAC Sensors Core Technical Competencies New FY13 Business Reality 2
AFRL Mission Leading the discovery, development, and integration of affordable warfighting technologies for our air, space, and cyberspace force. 3
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DIRECTOR Dr. Michael Deis, SES DEPUTY DIRECTOR Col Adam Remaly CHIEF SCIENTIST SENIOR SCIENTISTS Rapid Innovation Low Observable/EW ATR/TPED (Joint RY/RI) Senior Planner CHIEF ENGINEER FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT (RYF) INTEGRATION & OPERATIONS (RYO) CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT (RYN) CONTRACTING (PKS) AEROSPACE COMPONENTS & SUBSYSTEMS (RYD) LAYERED SENSING EXPLOITATION (RYA) MULTISPECTRAL SENSING & DETECTION (RYM) ELECTROMAGNETICS TECHNOLOGY (RYH) INTEGRATED ELECTRONIC & NET- CENTRIC WARFARE (RYW) SENSORS PLANS & ADVANCED PROGRAMS (RYZ) SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY OFFICE (RYS) 3 Feb 12 5
Sensors Directorate Educational Demographics 133; 22% 146; 24% 73; 12% 30; 5% 49; 8% 328; 54% 455; 75% Doctorate Masters Bachelor Based on 607 S&Es assigned (mil & civ) 25 April 2011 Engineers Physics Others Computer Science 6
Sensors Directorate - Now a Single Location - Rome Research Site Rome, NY BRAC 2011 (Sensors) Wright Research Site Wright-Patterson AFB, OH Hanscom Research Site Hanscom AFB, MA 7
Sensors Directorate BRAC MILCON Completed 2011 New Construction (91,000 ft 2 ) Renovates 56,000 ft 2 of Existing Complex $ 60M+ MILCON including anechoic chamber equipment Indoor/Outdoor Range Office Complex Office space for Sensors Directorate scientists and engineering staff relocated from Hanscom AFB & Rome, NY and staff relocated due to converting offices to labs - Consolidate anechoic chambers at HRS and outdoor radar range facilities at RRS to Wright- Patterson. - Relocate radar missions from RRS & HRS - Maintain capability for multiple sensor research experiments in antenna technology development, radio frequency tomographic imaging, near-field bistatic radar cross section, and electronic warfare systems - Indoor Range equipment option provides for absorber, reflector, and gantry; assures integrated design. 8
Sensing Challenges Small targets, Tracking, Dismounts Electronic/Cyber Threats to Sensing Shrinking Spectrum Irregular, Asymmetric Targets Difficult Environments, All- Weather, Time-Sensitive Advanced Threats Catastrophic CBRNE Threats This Slide; DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for Public Release Distribution Unlimited (88 ABW PA 12-2370) 9
Selected Technologies to Re-enable Operations in Contested Environments S&T advances are needed in three key areas to enable increased freedom of operations in contested or denied domain environments Technologies for increased cyber resilience e.g., massive virtualization, highly polymorphic networks, agile hypervisors Technologies to augment or supplant PNT in GPS-denied environments e.g., cold-atom (Bose-Einstein condensate) INS systems, chip-scale atomic clocks Technologies to support dominance in electromagnetic spectrum warfare e.g., dynamic & cognitive spectrum access, spectral mutability, advanced RF apertures Basic and early applied research are needed to support long term development of future A2-AD capabilities not just a few S&T quick fixes 26 August 2010 10 10
Radio Frequency Sensing Legacy FOPEN Radar TIMEX Geodesic Dome Phased Array Technical Challenges Passive RF sensing for congested & contested environments Robust GPS & alternative position / navigation / timing technologies Persistent RF sensing in contested, high clutter environments Exploiting & countering diverse RF waveforms Open architectures for RF systems Sensing + EW/EA/EP 11
Electro-Optical Sensing Legacy Technical Challenges Passive IR/EO IR/EO Ladar Long-Range EO/IR detection and identification Missile Warning Detection Compensation for laser and EO/IR atmospheric scattering, turbulence, absorption Tunable midwave IR coherent laser sources for Active LADAR sensing Sensors to distinguish with high accuracy between natural and man-made materials Angel Fire/Blue Devil Blk 1 12
Layered Sensing Exploitation Legacy TACSAT-3 CAD Build Data Synthesis Signature Validation Technical Challenges Processing, Exploitation, Dissemination (PED) process improvement Detecting, identifying and tracking targets in large, populated, denied areas, spatially & spectrally diverse environments High Performance Computing improvements to allow real-time exploitation of computationally intensive data sets Focus on acquisition of Capability versus Platforms (Performance Driven Sensing) Apply Autonomy and Automation to our PED processes to improve human operator effectiveness Develop Tools that can exploit huge datasets from wide area RF/EO Sensing Systems of the future 13
A New FY13 Business Reality DoD Shifting National Defense focus to Anti- Access/Area Denial operations Rapid Budget Changes unlike previous S&T planning cycles put-backs are directive Large increases in some areas Large decreases/elimination of other areas Zero sum game or less Sequestration???? 15