AFRL to showcase tech that ‘drives the future fight’ at AFA Warfare Symposium

It’s almost time for the Air and Space Forces Association’s Warfare Symposium, taking place from Feb. 12-14 in Aurora, Colorado, and our team has been hard at work to ready AFRL’s booth. This edition of our newsletter provides a preview of what to expect from the lab at this year’s event.?

The event’s theme is “Preparing for Great Power Conflict,” and AFRL’s booth will highlight nine technologies that showcase how the lab drives the future fight through science and technology.?

AFWERX, the innovation arm of the Department of the Air Force and a directorate within AFRL, will also have a presence at the adjacent booth with displays from each of its divisions – AFVentures, Prime, Spark and SpaceWERX.?

If you’re attending in person, stop by booths 603 and 703 to learn more about our tech, speak with our subject matter experts andinteract with Airmen and Guardians from the top six projects selected as Spark Tank 2024 finalists.

Warfighting technologies and programs that emphasize AFRL’s technological superiority will be on display at booth 603. As a preview, we highlight some of the exciting programs you can expect to see including AERRES, HMTE and Global Lightning. For more information visit our website.

App Enabled Rapidly Reprogrammable EW/EMS Systems

In the age of digital processing and software defined radios, electronic warfare threats are increasingly evolving, making it more challenging to defeat them. To keep pace with our adversaries, the United States Air Force electronic warfare (EW) systems need more processing power and new algorithms to help identify and defeat those threats. As new or different solutions are required, the USAF also must be able to quickly modify these systems without adding significant times to acquisition, regression testing or fielding.

The App Enabled Rapidly Reprogrammable EW/EMS Systems (AERRES) experiment focuses on enhancing electronic warfare capabilities to make them more flexible and adaptable against modern threats. The campaign assesses open architectures for rapid deployment or upgrade of electronic warfare software in platform-agnostic ways.?

Through numerous successful flight tests of the capability in partnership with the operational and acquisition communities, AFRL demonstrated the utility of an open architecture approach to electronic warfare. AERRES also illustrates AFRL’s ability to take strategic demand signals and use them to influence design methods that deliver relevant capabilities rapidly to drive change with speed and dominate the electromagnetic spectrum.

Learn more.

High Mach Turbine Engines

High Mach Turbine Engines (HMTE) work by employing advanced aerodynamic design and high temperature materials to enable optimized cycle performance across a wide speed range.??

HMTEs are compact and have higher propulsive efficacy, which is optimal for supersonic application. These attributes enable weapon systems with greater range and greater payload flexibility for a given weapon system size. HMTE is applied to standoff missiles in the near term, and as part of the integrated solution for reusable hypersonic platforms long term.

Technology and manufacturing advancements allow HMTEs to be produced affordably in a compact form factor that is suitable for volumetrically constrained munitions and unmanned air-vehicles.

Learn more.

Agile Combat Employment Enablers

Global Lightning is a prototyping and experimentation campaign to provide reliable, secure satellite communications to both stationary and mobile users.?

The effort started in 2018 by testing communications through prototype satellites launched by

emerging commercial space internet vendors, including SpaceX, Starlink (precursor to Starshield), OneWeb, and Telesat. As the commercial networks rapidly evolved, AFRL’s Global Lightning team worked with partners from across the Air Force, Navy, Army, Coast Guard and Marines to achieve communications to several hundred ground users, ships, military vehicles and multiple aircraft types, including AC-130, KC-135 and others.

The focus of the Global Lightning program has now advanced to the creation of multi-constellation systems capable of communicating with five to 10 commercial and military satellite communications systems in low-, medium- and geostationary orbits (LEO, MEO and GEO) across multiple frequency bands, referred to as Hybrid SATCOM.

Learn more.

The theme of this year’s conference, “Preparing for Great Power Conflict,” is what AFWERX is all about. Visitors will be able to learn about several new AFWERX programs including recent advancements in technology and weapon systems.?

Plus, representatives from the six Spark Tank finalists will also be on-hand to discuss their proposals. Championed by the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force Management and AFWERX, Spark Tank is an annual competition where innovators from across the Department of the Air Force make a pitch to a panel of top leadership and industry experts in pursuit of sponsorship to realize their idea. The finalist teams joining the AFWERX booth include:

• F-16 Cockpit Collapsible ACE Ladder is a collapsible ladder that can be stored inside the F-16’s unused cockpit map case. This development increases flexibility, saves time and is 65% less expensive than a legacy ladder.
• Flyways Defender for Airspace Awareness and Defense’s platform would streamline decisions to detect, assess and alert threats, which reduces the decision-making timeline and expedites Homeland Defense protection measures.
• LoadPlan+ is an automated digital load plan application that would allow patients and cargo to be loaded more quickly, allowing flight medics to increase focus on patient assessments and treating life-threatening injuries.
• Autonomous Flightline Resupply Vehicles would leverage commercially proven available technology to build autonomous supply vehicles for maintainers, which would save time, ensure safety and ultimately get more planes in the air.
• Project Lavoy would equip medics with comprehensive training, supplies, and sustainment for whole blood transfusions in the field, increasing life-saving capabilities.?
• CyberAssess is a cloud-based workflow application that would simplify complex data-gathering needed for an Authorization to Operate, which would reduce the prep time from 18-24 months to as little as six months while boosting the productivity of cybersecurity staff.

If you’re attending in person, you’ll be able to vote for your fan favorite in real-time.

The Hypersonics Weapons Fight

Feb. 13 at 3:35 p.m. (MT) | Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center’s Adams B

AFRL commander Maj. Gen. Scott A. Cain will participate in a panel discussion on hypersonics with Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander, U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Dr. Mark Lewis, who served as the Air Force chief scientist from 2004 to 2008 and is currently the CEO of Purdue Applied Research Institute, will moderate the discussion.

See the full 2024 AFA Warfare Symposium agenda here.

Thank you for reading this edition of the Linked Into AFRL newsletter. Stop by the AFRL booth 603 and AFWERX booth 703 to learn more about our programs and our mission.?