AFRL Commander Keynote Speaker at EUCOM i3T Conference in Berlin

  • Published
  • By Major Terry Thiem
  • HQ AFRL, Commander's Action Group
BERLIN, GERMANY --   Major General Ellen Pawlikowski, Commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), was an invited keynote speaker at the recent US European Command's i3T (Information, Innovation, Integration and Technology) conference in Berlin, Germany.

The event brought together military and civilian professionals, directorates, service components, academia and private industry to build relationships, discuss future competencies and focus on global security, stability and teamwork for such events as disaster response.

General Pawlikowski briefed an audience of over 300 international participants, providing an overview of the latest technologies being developed and employed by the Air Force and other military organizations to meet the immediate needs faced by personnel responding into a disaster area.

General Pawlikowski highlighted the multitude of new technologies employed last year in support of Joint Task Force Haiti. These included application of precision air drop to safely provide critically needed supplies to areas most needing them, the employment of Global Hawk to track the migration of people as they dispersed from the epicenter to outlying tent camps and improving runway safety through the application of the environmentally friendly detergent developed by the AFRL Materials & Manufacturing Directorate to help removing the excess tire rubber from runway surfaces at the Port-au-prince' s Toussaint Louverture International Airport as the number of flights increased nearly twenty fold to support disaster relief operations.

 AFRL has also used its material science expertise to significantly reduce the weight load for the disaster responder by developing a portable satellite communications dish using an advanced nickel nanostrand composite technology that is 40% lighter than aluminum. In addition, AFRL's 711 Human Performance Wing is adapting technologies currently used to transmit information for close air support to transmit a patient's vital signs and other medical data as well as utilizing a live streaming video to give medical professionals "eyes on" a situation where a patient's condition demands attention beyond the medic's realm of expertise.

General Pawlikowski stressed that "technology doesn't know its application until we tell it" meaning that many of the newest technologies being developed will have multiple applications, many of which both the inventor and the warfighter have yet to discover.