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Crosscutting Findings and Recommendations
KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The metrics by which the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), as a research organization, internally measures and quantifies the quality of its science and technology (S&T) research across the spectrum of its mission space were not provided to the ARL Technical Assessment Board (ARLTAB). The options could include the number and impact factor of publications or the number of transitions to operational use by the warfighter. The definition of such metrics and any relevant data could enhance the impact of the ARLTAB assessments.
While high-risk, innovative projects are rising, the mix of low-risk and high-risk research to achieve an optimal balance continues to be a crosscutting effort for all of ARL’s S&T programs. ARL indicated that 30-50 percent of Director’s Research Initiative (DRI) projects and many Director’s Strategic Initiative (DSI) projects go on to become core efforts.1 While ARL is looking for ways to encourage innovation that will impact mission-critical programs, making it safe to fail is one way to encourage innovative, high-risk projects. Strategic management discussion of the objectives and expectations for DRI and DSI projects and how these precious funds are aligned or how they feed longer-term programmatic efforts is encouraged.
ARL clearly desires to enhance its capability to innovate, and the DRI projects are a step forward with potential to shift the technical focus of ARL toward the innovative edge. Disruptive innovations with implications for military threats and capabilities appear more likely to come at the complex intersections of traditional scientific domains rather than at their center. One approach to facilitating innovation that might be considered is the formation of small interdisciplinary teams focused on addressing or defining
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1 ARL uses the DSI and DRI research projects to build new research capabilities in long-term, high-risk scientific areas with very high potential payoff for the Army mission. DSI projects are typically funded at $500,000 to $1 million per year for up to 3 years, while DRI projects are funded at $250,000 per year for up to 3 years.
high-value research challenges. Small interdisciplinary groups that work comfortably as teams are able to move past preconceived disciplinary biases and internally promote the integration of insights and the connection of ideas from diverse perspectives. Multiple disciplines looking at the same problem will benefit from alternative frameworks and approaches while interrogating the associated issues from multiple viewpoints. ARL already has the in-house intellectual assets needed to make this work. ARL’s move toward using a framework based on S&T campaign plans can enhance such collaborations.2
The visibility of ARL staff in professional technical societies and at technical conferences is not up to the level that their accomplishments and scientific expertise warrant. While it is clear that the sequestration of government funding and travel restrictions have negatively affected staff interactions with the outside R&D community, the long-term curtailment of such interactions will have an even more significant adverse impact. Lack of interactions normally fostered through conferences and professional associations will negatively impact both collaborative programmatic efforts and maintenance of an edge in ARL’s areas of expertise. This has already affected staff morale, produced opportunity costs, and will seriously impact staff retention and hiring in the future. Moreover, ARL’s strategic focus on innovation through adoption and development of scientific ideas and insights from the scientific community cannot be applied to solve Army problems if the focus is solely inward, leading to internal reinvention of wheels.
Active peer-reviewed publication systemically drives quality in S&T cultures and organizations. Engagement in the publication process subjects the research to rigorous review, generally improving it and increasing quality. Furthermore, publication encourages project completion deadlines, polished results, and thoughts about the next steps in R&D. It is also a way to increase visibility in the research community.
As the intersection of modeling and simulation with experimental measurements grows, it requires the coherent treatment of verification and validation across ARL. The majority of the projects presented did not sufficiently define or elucidate model validation. Some excellent examples of validation were shown, such as in the military operations in urban terrain (MOUT) project, but this was not seen throughout the review. Too often, a computer-based visualization of a model was presented with few or no quantitative comparisons to data. Details of complex material and structural models matter, but these, along with the basis for choosing model parameter values, were seldom discussed. When geometry or material behavior is considerably simplified, it is important to provide data justifying such simplification. The success of a model in producing a visual image of the overall phenomenology is not the same as validation. To map out regions to define and limit experiments, delineation is needed on a project by project basis as to whether validation is sought via a comparison with quantitative data or via the ability to predict trends in response or in performance. A rigorous formal internal validation program is needed within ARL to quantify whether the physics within the broad spectrum of ballistics models being developed accurately describes the operative physics. Given the importance of such models to the development of a predictive design capability in support of current Army programs and future system, platform, and equipment development, increased emphasis on validation is warranted. In addition to the need for an ARL-wide strategic approach to model validation, methods are needed to quantify the margin of uncertainty (QMU) for these models. For example, it is not clear how the operational requirements-based casualty assessment (ORCA) and MUVES-S2 models are validated. The reviews often lack sufficient details on how ARL’s models are formulated and validated; on their sensitivity, if known, to key parameters and variables; and on the statistical variations to be expected.
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2 Army Research Laboratory, 2014, Army Research Laboratory. S&T Campaign Plans. 2015-2035, Adelphi, Md.: Army Research Laboratory, September, http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?page=2401.
The details of how ARL is leveraging the Army Research Office’s (ARO’s) 6.1 investment in support of the near-term and long-term Army strategic vision was not always clearly presented to the ARLTAB panels. Examples of how individual ARO projects fit into Army overall goals and relate to one another and to other ARL projects would facilitate the ARLTAB’s tasking—namely, to assess the quality of ARL’s S&T.
Recommendations to improve the overall ARL research enterprise are:
Recommendation 1. ARL should require researchers to clearly articulate the existing technical challenges in their research as well-posed problems, to formulate key questions, to identify approaches and tools, and to set out an assessment strategy. Concept maps, research baselines, and milestones that characterize the research are recommended.
Recommendation 2. To optimize the progress of their research and to set a path forward for each project, researchers should consistently analyze data and contemplate the theories that are behind the observed physical phenomena, test data, and modeling systems.
Recommendation 3. ARL should continue its efforts to be a key source of disruptive technology options for the Army of the future. Toward this end, it should balance short-term customer-driven work with innovative R&D that goes beyond current requirements.
Recommendation 4. ARL should develop a laboratory-wide verification and validation methodology, formalism, and implementation program. This program should be applied to support connectivity between theory, modeling, and experiments; refine underlying assumptions and approximations; encourage sensitivity studies, including how systems can fail; quantify margins and uncertainty; and inform small-scale to system-level experiments.
Recommendation 5. ARL should encourage a systems integration approach across its research enterprise to engender interconnectivity between ARL’s science and technology campaign plans.
Recommendation 6. ARL should consider including in assessment agendas selected presentations related to new or recent starts to maximize the benefits of early feedback from ARLTAB across all disciplines.
Recommendation 7. ARL should look for additional ways to increase interaction between its researchers and leaders in industry and academia, given that limitations on travel have restricted this important professional development avenue.
Recommendation 8. ARL should encourage and incentivize publication of research in peer-reviewed journals.
Recommendation 9. As ARL continues to build its research staff, it should give attention to bringing in mid-career and senior personnel to mentor the outstanding early-career scientists who have been recruited. Effective mentoring should include engagement in selecting research directions, facilitating communication with research peers, guidance on service and committee assignments in technical societies, and enhancing career development.
Recommendation 10. ARL should convene a strategic planning group to formulate and plan research facility needs to support Army research and development objectives for the next 10-20 years.
Recommendation 11. To narrow the distance between the science and Army end-use applications, ARL should continue efforts to assure that researchers across all ARL disciplines understand future needs of the Army.
The open campus initiative3 is a strategy intended to widen ARL’s presence in the broader community and to elevate ARL’s national and international stature. This laudable initiative serves to facilitate interaction and enhance collaboration with the scientific community; spark new ideas through the influx of information from the scientific community; attract and retain high-caliber scientists and engineers; offer students research opportunities with the possibility of future employment; energize ARL researchers by providing new research opportunities in other laboratories; and nurture a technology transfer environment where researchers can directly or indirectly transition research to useful products.
Addressing associated potential challenges and issues will help assure the success of the open campus initiative. Increasing numbers and types of collaboration are not without cost. It is important to consider the staff time necessary to establish and maintain such collaborations, and there is a risk that such interactions can become an end unto themselves. In response to their perceptions of management’s encouragement of this openness, some staff may see collaboration as a contest to amass numbers rather than decide analytically that a particular collaboration will enhance effectiveness. As the open campus initiative matures, management will need to continue to refine expectations beyond a general improvement in working conditions and atmosphere. In the early days of implementation, one can make a case for experimentation with a variety of bottom-up collaborations based somewhat on serendipity, but the measure of success is always whether mission effectiveness is enhanced by these interactions. ARL needs to continue to develop a shared understanding of measures of success by which individual interactions and the entire open campus concept will be judged, to provide guidance to the staff on the essential nature of successful collaborations.
It is also important that the open campus be a bilateral implementation; that is, in addition to hosting researchers at ARL, ARL staff need to take on temporary assignments at leading academic and industrial research institutions. Implementing an open campus as a means to increase utilization of facilities is commendable, but the sharing of facilities could crowd out collaboration and place a burden on ARL to provide administrative and low-level support to outside users. Dedicated use by outside users for technical or proprietary reasons and scheduling and priority conflicts could also diminish effective collaboration. There is also a risk that this open campus use of ARL facilities could become focused on improving capacity utilization of ARL capital assets.
Many of the principal investigators of research projects at ARL have praiseworthy working relationships with universities, industry, and national laboratories. The open campus initiative will provide a vehicle to expand these interactions. Beyond that, there are opportunities to enrich the experience of the principal investigators by establishing further collaborations and short sabbaticals where they could become involved directly in cooperative research at allied institutions. This two-way-street aspect of the
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3 Army Research Laboratory, 2014, ARL Open Campus Opportunities, Adelphi, Md.: Army Research Laboratory, http://www.arl.army.mil/www/pages/2357/ARL_Open_Campus_Opportunities.pdf.
developing open campus is critical to both staff development and mentoring. One-to-one interactions on a daily basis would almost certainly enhance productivity and possibly generate new ideas for further productive research. With respect to the duration of such a sabbatical, one to two weeks every year might be a good starting point. Of course, a reverse arrangement could also benefit the visiting researcher.
OUTSTANDING AND EXCEPTIONAL AREAS
The following are outstanding and exceptional areas evinced by the competency disciplines.
Materials Sciences
Critically important to the Army’s night vision, its large area surveillance, and its navigation in degraded vision environments, work on the electromagnetic modeling of quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) is exceptionally valuable. Affordable, high-speed, high-resolution, long-wavelength infrared cameras will be one of fruits of this project. ARL is the world leader in QWIP technology.
To support development of lightweight, quiet, efficient, and reliable power sources for Army applications to enhance soldier combat capability, the project on fuel cells for military applications tests and evaluates commercial technologies—namely, direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) and solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems. The technology reduces weight and decreases the logistic burden associated with batteries. This represents an upward potential for Army applications and an outstanding value.
The work on synthetic biomolecular materials is highly significant for the Army. The project has already shown success by developing iterative and integrated multiscale computational biology capabilities for in silico study and evolution of material interfaces. This is innovative and ingenious work.
To explore potential breakthroughs toward the emerging needs of the 2035 Army, the low-dimensionality (2D) materials program covers fundamental aspects of synthesis, characterization, device design, and manufacturing. Tuning 2D materials at the atomic scale opens enormous opportunities to design electronic properties. This is a potentially high-impact area.
To develop lightweight armor, ARL’s mechanical press capability of applying up to 700,000 lb pressure is unique. This is exceptionally enabling test equipment that facilitates materials discovery and development.
Ballistics Sciences
ARL has an unequaled record of achievement and timely support of the warfighter within the Department of Defense (DoD) in the area of ballistic science and technology through its sustained development of advanced capabilities for defeating many types of enemy targets and platforms, and the development of increasingly lethal munitions to place adversary personnel and assets at risk while meeting the spectrum of national security missions engaged by the Army.
ARL’s efforts in ballistic science address both fundamental and urgent Army warfighter needs of great importance to national security. ARL’s personnel, facilities, and programs are the clear go-to place across the DoD and defense agency enterprise in ballistic sciences and engineering.
Information Sciences
In the area of autonomous systems, the piezoMEMS research and associated small robotics effort is first rate, with elements that are at the vanguard of this field. Specifically, the work in motion generation
at the microelectromechanical system (MEMS) scale is seminal. Large-amplitude motions are being created at the micron scale using integrated actuators, structures, and electronics, cofabricated on silicon.
In the atmospheric sciences, the development of a laser-based tool for capturing, holding, and analyzing an individual aerosol or dust particle adds a unique ability to monitor changes in particle morphology, chemical composition, and optical properties under changing atmospheric conditions. This work positions the ARL at the forefront of the atmospheric chemistry community.
In the computational sciences, the work related to multiscale modeling of materials, simulation or emulation of mobile networks, portable programing models and run-time systems for heterogeneous architectures, and tactical high-performance computations represents the state of the art.
In the area of network sciences, the work related to trust and quality of information has received broad recognition in the technical community. Similarly, the work on cybersecurity is of the highest quality and benefits from ARL access to real data.
Human Sciences
Researchers at the Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC) are pushing the state of the art of simulation in the cloud and protocols for advanced distributed simulation (ADS). The ADS group has a unique opportunity to lead future developments across the DoD in these areas. The STTC work is demonstrably significant and valuable in specific application domains (e.g., simulations of battlefield medical situations), and the design of general tools for simulation (e.g., the generalized intelligent framework for tutoring [GIFT]) makes it possible for others to rapidly create new training modules for new content areas.
The translational neuroscience (TN) program is a unique and important effort that is tackling key technology bottlenecks to moving neuroscience from the laboratory to the field. For example, it is exploring the integration of other sensing modalities into electroencephalogram (EEG)-based brain–computer interaction (BCI) applications; approaches to overcome real-world limitations for use of the electrode system; and the development of nonproprietary dry electrodes. The TN group conducts high-quality neuroscience research that is on a par with work at a good university neuroscience department. Success in this research has potential to be a game changer for research on soldier and mission effectiveness.
Mechanical Sciences
Interfacial strain energy dissipation in hybrid nanocomposite beams under axial strain is an exceptional area. Internal noise reduction, including for rotorcraft, is a potential application for damping. Increased aeroelastic stability of rotorcraft main rotor blades is also a potential application of this research.
The subsonic wind tunnel and high-altitude test chamber are high-quality facilities.
