Range Innovation Team and 'Innovation Makerspace'

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, CA, UNITED STATES

12.12.2018

Courtesy Story

412th Test Wing   

Innovation starts with individuals who strive to make a difference.

Greg Myers led the Range Innovation Team, tracking all active innovation efforts in addition to pursuing his personal innovation project, the "Innovation Makerspace.” His efforts as an individual and team leader were recognized through 412th Test Wing quarterly award wins as the Innovator of the Quarter in 2017 and Team of the Quarter in 2018 for the Range Engineering Innovation Labs.

The Innovation Makerspace is a laboratory environment available for 412th TW personnel to experiment, create, test and develop technical solutions in a collaborative setting. Myers managed the Innovation Makerspace task by designing a layout and procuring workbenches at no cost to the range, creating a new innovation capability for the test community. He also facilitated the 70th Anniversary of Supersonic Flight’s virtual reality goggle demo where hundreds in the Edwards community were introduced to this emerging technology.

Expanding on his successes, Myers worked to create a virtualized mission control system to run on a single computer potentially saving $1.32 million through the virtualization of over 11 mission control rooms.

Additionally, the MCR virtualization team wrote custom inter-range instrumentation group software with varying bit rates and created custom mission load files for software telemetry encryption allowing the immediate performance test of next generation technologies in addition to lowering the risk of mission impact.

Myers also directed the URC 200 General Dynamics transceiver air-to-ground radio control software team to develop custom software that replaces the old inoperable system with government-owned equipment saving $500,000 per year.

Finally, the 412th TW Range Team was the driver behind radio frequency identification software in range logistics, a game changing technology for Air Force logistics. The team’s new efforts include pursuing autonomous vehicles for the 412th Range Squadron’s Precision Impact Range Area to provide day and night automated ground targets, reducing required man-hours from 80 to 20 per mission

Myers’ efforts demonstrate how an innovative individual can accelerate innovation and increase accomplishment by connecting with creative teams.

“Surely it’s obvious I didn’t accomplish any of these things alone, we have a solid team of driven individuals in the range squadron that step up when their skills are needed,” said Myers.

By Dacia Sexton, 412th Test Wing Hustle Squad Innovation Team

• Date Taken: 12.12.2018
• Date Posted: 12.13.2018 16:42
• Story ID: 303514
• Location: EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, CA, US