Robotic sea creatures designed to spy on potential threats and sniper bullets that change direction in midflight were among the futuristic weapons systems that helped to merge science fiction with unconventional warfare in 2014.
The U.S. government has spent billions on warfare initiatives over the past five decades, and only last year began to see some of its most intriguing technological investments overcome testing hurdles.
The innovations came as outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel issued an all-hands-on-deck call for new and creative ways to expand the growth of U.S. military technology as a means to advance and expand “American dominance.”
Mr. Hagel said in a Nov. 15 memorandum that identifying and developing breakthrough technology is also key to preventing the Pentagon’s weapons capabilities from eroding “at a time of constrained and uncertain budgets.”
To maintain superiority in a competitive security environment, the U.S. military has poured money into research and development companies like Boston Engineering, which created the “GhostSwimmer” about six years ago.
But it was only last month that the Navy was able to take the 5-foot-long drone, which weighs 100 pounds and mimics the movements of a shark, for a spin off the coast of Virginia Beach in Virginia.
The drone, which offers a glimpse of where the service will be headed, integrates the biotechnology of whale fins with the rudders on naval ships, said Michael Rufo, the director of Boston Engineering’s Advanced Systems Group. Under the Navy’s direction, company engineers have been designing biological bumps for ship rudders that are akin to whale fins and will “make vehicles turn more quickly and quietly,” Mr. Rufo said.
“Mother Nature has been at this quite longer than we have and, frankly, perfected the design,” he said.
Boston Engineering hopes to make GhostSwimmer available to the Navy in 2016 so that it can use the technology to surveil the ocean for potential threats, Mr. Rufo said.
“The way that we look at it on our end is that we’re developing a pickup truck,” he said. “So whatever our friends in the Navy would want to use it for is entirely up to them. There are all sorts of things that you can use it for.”
Not only are Navy officials capitalizing on biotechnology, but they also made history this year when they tested a high-energy laser weapon system aboard a ship in the Persian Gulf. Navy officials used the electrically charged weapon to destroy speedboats and small drones during a demonstration phase that began in September.
The revolutionary technology is expected to eventually reduce the cost of firing at incoming threats to “less than a dollar per shot,” said Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, chief of naval research.
Meanwhile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which develops new military technologies on behalf of the Defense Department, conducted the first live-fire tests of guided .50-caliber bullets in February and April.
DARPA has made public on its website a video of those demonstrations, which show that the ammunition is capable of weaving away from the projected target of a sniper rifle and striking a target off to the side.
The government agency also made progress with its high-energy technology this summer when it strapped a 360-degree turret system designed to hold a laser weapon onto military aircraft.
Defense contractor Lockheed Martin touted the incremental progress that its engineers were making with the technology in a Sept. 15 statement. The company expects to conduct subsequent flight tests this year that “will demonstrate the turret in increasingly complex operations,” according to the statement.
Mr. Hagel pointed to the technology as a way to stay ahead militarily of any international threat.
“We have always lived in an inherently competitive security environment, and the past decade has proven no different,” he said. “While we have been engaged in two large landmass wars over the last 13 years, potential adversaries have been modernizing their militaries, developing and proliferating disruptive capabilities across the spectrum of conflict. This represents a clear and growing challenge to our military power.”
• Maggie Ybarra can be reached at mybarra@washingtontimes.com.
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