Laboratory Research
As the Department of Navy’s Corporate Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory conducts a broadly-based in-house S&T Program. Under the auspices of the Office of Naval Research, NRL conducts a Base Program, which is an integrated effort comprising both 6.1 Basic Research and 6.2 Applied Research. The Basic Research focuses on scientific study and experimentation directed towards increasing knowledge and understanding in broad fields directly related to long-term DON needs. The Applied Research efforts are directed towards the solution of specific Naval problems, short of major development projects.
The role of this program is to ensure that, as technological advances appear, they are investigated for possible development/exploration to determine application to future Naval Programs.
The NRL Base Program is organized into seven Focus Areas. These Focus Areas are defined such that one would expect long term stable investments when viewed at the aggregate focus area level. A coordinator has been assigned to each focus area and given the task of developing a proposed program for review by NRL management.
The NRL Base Program focus areas are:
Battlespace Environments
The Battlespace Environments Focus Area seeks to maximize the capability of Naval and Joint Forces to project power anywhere/anytime by the application of relevant operational battlespace environmental knowledge across the full spectrum of warfare missions. Through superior understanding/mastery of the environment, U.S. Forces may gain tactical advantage in the ocean, air, littoral, and riverine environments. This area encompasses the measurement, analysis, modeling, prediction, and simulation from the ocean to upper atmosphere and near space environments, including the ocean bottom and subbottom, for the purposes of understanding and exploiting their impact on Naval personnel, platforms, sensors, weapon systems, tactics and doctrine.
Electronics
The Electronics Focus Area seeks to supply to the Navy new, affordable, and highly innovative electronic technologies, not creatable by any other means, that will enable superior performance of electronic systems necessary to meet traditional, irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges for the war-fighter. To avoid technology surprise and to respond to current critical needs.
Electromagnetic Warfare
The purpose of the Electromagnetic Warfare Focus Area is to conduct scientific research and new technology development for Radar, EW and Optics that enables the Department of the Navy to exploit the use of the electromagnetic spectrum and gain the knowledge to defeat the enemy, while denying the enemy the effective use of the spectrum. The objectives of the research are: CONTROL THE SPECTRUM, SEE WITHOUT BEING SEEN, and ENGAGE WITHOUT BEING ENGAGED.
Information Technology
The Information Technology Focus Area conducts research in computer science, networking, and communications to develop those technologies necessary to implement the Department of the Navy’s Science and Technology Strategic Plan with particular emphasis on the requirements of FORCENet, as articulated in Sea Power 2, and Distributed and Networked Operations (DNO), as articulated in the Navy’s Strategic Plan. By providing flexibility, affordability, information superiority, and distributed networked force capabilities, IT is a pervasive technology that underlies all three Navy warfare missions: GWOT/irregular warfare, homeland defense, and conventional campaign.
Materials & Chemistry
The Materials and Chemistry Focus Area conducts basic and applied research to generate new and improved materials with emphases on affordability, performance, survivability, soldier’s protection, CBRE detection and life extension, consistent with the principal focus areas of the Naval Science and Technology Strategic Plan and naval capabilities. Design of advanced devices and systems critically depends on the development of improved materials.
Space Research & Space Technology
The purpose of the Space Research & Space Technology Focus Area is to advance understanding and predictive capability of the space domain in order to exploit the extended operational environment and its impact on Navy and DoD activities, and to develop advanced space technologies. The Space Research and Space Technology science and technology is important to C4ISR, precision navigation and timing, orbital tracking, space situational awareness, maritime domain awareness, and the fundamental understanding of geophysical phenomena and natural radiation sources as pertain to space-based and complementary terrestrial systems.
Undersea Warfare
The Undersea Warfare Focus Area conducts an integrated science and technology program to enable Naval forces to exploit acoustics, non-acoustics, and environmental knowledge in the design, development, improvement, and operation of undersea warfare systems for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Mine Warfare (MIW).