Office of Naval Research Naval Science & Technology Strategic Plan
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ONR Priorities
Others are “leap-ahead” technologies that ONR wants to accelerate. “We are absolutely committed to prototypes to get capabilities out to the fleet more quickly,” Klunder says. “We feel confident, in a tougher budget, that we have [up to] three leap-ahead technologies that will get into the fleet.”
Examples include the electromagnetic rail gun. The Navy was aiming for a weapon with a muzzle energy of 64 megajoules (MJ), an exit velocity of Mach 7.5 and a range greater than 200 nm, for fielding by 2025. Now the program is focused on a smaller, 32-MJ, 100-nm weapon that can be delivered sooner and integrated more easily onto existing ships such as the DDG-51.
BAE Systems and General Atomics have delivered 32-MJ tactical prototypes for test firings. Now they are developing pulsed-power and thermal-management systems. They plan to deliver prototype multi-shot, actively cooled rail guns for firing tests in 2017, leading to a multi-mission weapon.
The free electron laser (FEL) program has also been restructured. Plans to develop a 100-kw prototype as a step toward the envisioned megawatt-class weapon have been put on the back burner. Instead, ONR will mature solid-state laser technology, already being pursued by the Army and Air Force. A solid-state laser would be less powerful, but smaller and could be adapted more quickly for shipboard use.
The Navy continues to believe FEL is the best solution for a naval directed-energy weapon, as its beam is tunable to minimize atmospheric absorption and distortion in a maritime environment, but “[we] also realize that some of the technologies still have a ways to go,” Klunder told Congress last month.
ONR’s two newest prototype programs, meanwhile, have an aviation focus. The Variable-Cycle Advanced Technology (VCAT) effort will take the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology (Advent) demonstration and apply it to propulsion systems for next-generation manned and unmanned carrier-based strike and surveillance aircraft. Under Advent, Rolls-Royce and General Electric will test variable-cycle engines combining high thrust for supersonic speed with low fuel burn for subsonic endurance.
The Autonomous Aerial Cargo/Utility System (Aacus) program will enable unmanned vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft to drop off and pick up loads in adverse weather and harsh terrain. The “platform-agnostic” system will allow the aircraft to autonomously avoid obstacles, select an unprepared landing site and touch down precisely, with the ability to react to unplanned events.
Aacus and VCAT support the newest of ONR’s five “national naval responsibilities” (NNR)—sea-based aviation. NNRs are “areas where the other services, the federal research establishment and the private sector may not have the incentive to investigate, [so] the sole responsibility rests with the Navy,” says Klunder. Aviation NNRs focus on challenges associated with launch, recovery and deck operations of manned/unmanned aircraft on carriers and other air-capable ships
Others are “leap-ahead” technologies that ONR wants to accelerate. “We are absolutely committed to prototypes to get capabilities out to the fleet more quickly,” Klunder says. “We feel confident, in a tougher budget, that we have [up to] three leap-ahead technologies that will get into the fleet.”
Examples include the electromagnetic rail gun. The Navy was aiming for a weapon with a muzzle energy of 64 megajoules (MJ), an exit velocity of Mach 7.5 and a range greater than 200 nm, for fielding by 2025. Now the program is focused on a smaller, 32-MJ, 100-nm weapon that can be delivered sooner and integrated more easily onto existing ships such as the DDG-51.
BAE Systems and General Atomics have delivered 32-MJ tactical prototypes for test firings. Now they are developing pulsed-power and thermal-management systems. They plan to deliver prototype multi-shot, actively cooled rail guns for firing tests in 2017, leading to a multi-mission weapon.
The free electron laser (FEL) program has also been restructured. Plans to develop a 100-kw prototype as a step toward the envisioned megawatt-class weapon have been put on the back burner. Instead, ONR will mature solid-state laser technology, already being pursued by the Army and Air Force. A solid-state laser would be less powerful, but smaller and could be adapted more quickly for shipboard use.
The Navy continues to believe FEL is the best solution for a naval directed-energy weapon, as its beam is tunable to minimize atmospheric absorption and distortion in a maritime environment, but “[we] also realize that some of the technologies still have a ways to go,” Klunder told Congress last month.
ONR’s two newest prototype programs, meanwhile, have an aviation focus. The Variable-Cycle Advanced Technology (VCAT) effort will take the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology (Advent) demonstration and apply it to propulsion systems for next-generation manned and unmanned carrier-based strike and surveillance aircraft. Under Advent, Rolls-Royce and General Electric will test variable-cycle engines combining high thrust for supersonic speed with low fuel burn for subsonic endurance.
The Autonomous Aerial Cargo/Utility System (Aacus) program will enable unmanned vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft to drop off and pick up loads in adverse weather and harsh terrain. The “platform-agnostic” system will allow the aircraft to autonomously avoid obstacles, select an unprepared landing site and touch down precisely, with the ability to react to unplanned events.
Aacus and VCAT support the newest of ONR’s five “national naval responsibilities” (NNR)—sea-based aviation. NNRs are “areas where the other services, the federal research establishment and the private sector may not have the incentive to investigate, [so] the sole responsibility rests with the Navy,” says Klunder. Aviation NNRs focus on challenges associated with launch, recovery and deck operations of manned/unmanned aircraft on carriers and other air-capable ships
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