U. S. Naval and Army Research Laboratories Foster Collaboration through Lab Visit

Photo By Gabrielle Gibert | An ARL tour attendee observes an example of NRL’s 1.5 to 3 kilowatt fuels cells for unmanned aerial vehicles.  

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES

05.31.2018

Story by Gabrielle Gibert 

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

Working together across Department of Defense research laboratories, particularly those geared towards the military, ensures not only the safety of our warfighter but helps make our armed forces the most technologically advanced in the world. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) built upon this relationship by inviting the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s (ARL) Vehicle Technology Directorate onto the laboratory for a tour of its facilities.

The mission of ARL’s Vehicle Technology Directorate is to discover, innovate, and transition cutting-edge technologies within autonomy, mechanics, propulsion, and reliability sciences to enhance existing and revolutionize future Army vehicles. Multiple divisions at NRL support this same mission to upgrade and elevate the Navy’s vehicle capabilities. The stops along the tour highlighted research that directly aligns with these mission goals.

“It is really interesting because sometimes when we visit other organizations, synergy is not always readily apparent,” said Dr. Jaret C. Riddick, Director of ARL’s Vehicle Technology Directorate. “But here, there are opportunities to work on common technologies in a complimentary fashion.”

Riddick, who has been a part of ARL for 16 years, was excited to visit NRL. “We had been planning this for months, but for me it’s been years in the making because I have never been here before.”

Throughout the tour, ARL’s researchers were shown NRL efforts in additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, UAV fuel cells, and all-terrain mobility vehicles. Riddick was particularly impressed with NRL’s MeRLIn, a quadruped reconnaissance tool able to maneuver difficult terrains and tight spaces that might be too challenging for other wheeled robotics.

“We have a significant effort in robotics, specifically legged mobility…in quadrupeds,” said Riddick. “It was quite a find to realize that the Navy was performing complementary research in the area of quadruped robots; there is an immediate opportunity for collaboration between our two organizations.”

Riddick is looking forward to working with NRL, and will reciprocate by hosting NRL at ARL. “There are numerous challenging DoD specific research areas that are mutually beneficial between our two organizations, where we share a similar goal to discover and transition technology to the warfighter to ensure multi-domain dominance.”

Riddick emphasized the importance of collaboration in laboratories across the Department of Defense, stressing that technological advances will be important to the future warfighter in maintaining a tactical advantage.

“It is important to collaborate across the different services on technologies during the discovery phase to ensure the development of leap-ahead capabilities for the Department of Defense,” said Riddick. “More and more across the Department of Defense, S&T organizations are being faced with the question of how we can get technology into the hands of the warfighter faster. We will be challenged by our adversaries in the future, so in order to maintain a technological advantage, breakthroughs in S&T will be necessary.”

• Date Taken: 05.31.2018
• Date Posted: 05.31.2018 12:21
• Story ID: 279032
• Location: WASHINGTON, DC, US
• Hometown: ADELPHI, MD, US