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Can the U.S. Navy’s current force structure model, which has been immensely successful since World War II, remain strong in the face of new threats—or does it require an overhaul? How can the Department of the Navy (DoN) meet future challenges and strengthen its ability to develop and adopt new capabilities?

The Office of Naval Research's Electrochemical Materials program is focused on developing a fundamental understanding of charge (electron and ion) storage, transport and transfer mechanisms, and applying that knowledge to inform the development of materials, materials architectures and devices that address Navy and Marine Corps application power and energy needs.

The goal of the Naval Cybernetics program is to develop technologies and discover methods for creating small, numerous, consumable unmanned systems for our Naval forces, providing warfighters with artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled autonomous tools to enhance their abilities to fight the-fights-tonight as well as the-fights-to-come.

The Office of Naval Research's Corrosion Science and Corrosion Control Technologies program has a primary focus to create a science-based understanding of corrosion through damage evolution mechanisms, develop corrosion-informed materials concepts, and evolve surface protection and modification sciences.

The Department of the Navy’s (DoN) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is seeking the talents of small business partners who can help provide advanced solutions as quickly as possible to the mission-critical challenges faced by Sailors and Marines. SBIR – located at the Office of Naval Research (ONR) – issued a $50 million Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for “Open” topics in areas where the DoN wants to adapt commercial products and solutions to close capability gaps, improve performance or provide technological advancements in existing capabilities. The ultimate goal is to accelerate the delivery of a prototype that has been tested and is ready for transition to the forces and fleets. The BAA, titled 23.4, is open to proposal submission from July 13 to Aug.15. Topics include mission critical needs in the areas of Operations and Logistics in a Contested Environment and Holistic Common Operational Picture (COP).

For excellence in research areas such as robotics and machine learning, the Department of the Navy’s (DoN) Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institutions (HBCU/MI) Program recently presented $15,000 scholarship awards to five students competing in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Dallas, Texas. Anthony C. Smith Sr., director of the DoN HBCU/MI Program, which is located at ONR, presented the CNR Scholarship Awards, which honors students in grades nine through 12 for producing and presenting quality science and engineering projects. The honors were distributed at ISEF — one of the world’s largest science and engineering competitions for high schoolers — as part of the Naval Science Awards Program (NSAP), a Navy and Marine Corps program encouraging American students to develop and retain an interest in science and engineering. NSAP celebrates the accomplishments of eligible students at regional and state science and engineering fairs, as well as large ones such as ISEF.

When in Rome, as the saying goes, do as the Romans do. So, when in Britain, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Global does what the British do – take tea at least once a month with potential industry partners. Jeffrey Brewer, co-director, ONR Global London Tech Bridge (LTB), said the Tea and Tech engagement is more than just a fun event. Its aim is to find solutions to problems that have been identified by U.S. Navy and Marine personnel or by the Royal Navy. Most of the companies that are invited are based in the U.K., although other European-based companies as well as U.S. companies may be approached. “We meet with several innovative companies in a rapid-fire format,” said Brewer. “Companies have a limited time to make their pitches, and we have subject matter experts from both navies on hand to ask questions and provide feedback. It’s almost a “Shark Tank” format.”

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsored a project at Virginia Tech University nearly 20 years ago that is now growing in influence across the world for measuring aerospace and aeronautical acoustics. Since noise reverberates against solid surfaces, such as the walls of a wind tunnel where acoustical testing takes place, collecting accurate sound data had been nearly impossible at the time. Researchers were also struggling to discern the sound of the wind tunnel’s air flow from the noise of the object traveling through it. After learning about some experiments on Kevlar as a wind screen, William Devenport, an engineering professor and director of Virginia Tech’s Stability Wind Tunnel, said he and a colleague wrote a proposal to then-ONR program officer Ron Joslin to try adding Kevlar to their wind tunnel walls. Devenport submitted the original grant proposal (N00014–04–1–04933) through the FY 2004 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) for alterations to Virginia Tech’s existing Stability Wind Tunnel that would allow it to measure flow-induced noise of relevance to Navy applications.

Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus will moderate a panel of industry leaders at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition, April 8-10, at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

Assessing surf zone conditions has never been an exact science for the Department of the Navy. That’s about to change thanks to a recent request to TechSolutions, which has resulted in new surf observation (SUROB) technology to make operational forecasts more precise. For the past six months, a team of scientists and engineers from the Naval Research Lab (NRL) and the U.S. Army’s Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) have been developing the technological tools needed to create a more precise surf observation report. In order to gain greater insight into how the surf observation tool may improve warfighter operations, NavalX recently organized a workshop that brought together the science and engineering developers with the Sailors and Marines who would use it. TechSolutions received the request less than a year ago for a technology-driven solution for surf observation from Maj. Zachary Taylor, a technology officer with the Marines’ Warfighting Lab. Within weeks, TechSolutions began working with the development team at NRL and ERDC to come up with a prototype.