AFRL gains High Power Microwave Institute

  • Published
  • By Jeanne D. Dailey
  • Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate
As part of the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program, the Office of the Secretary of Defense awarded a High-Power Microwave Institute to the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate here.

High-Power Microwave technology can selectively degrade, disrupt or destroy electronic systems, disperse aggressive crowds, and defeat improvised explosive devices at the speed of light, with little or no collateral effects.

The Department of Defense desires systems that render the enemy inoperative while minimizing collateral damage. HPM systems are being developed to do just that. DoD needs systems that negate enemy command, control, communications and information, as well as protect troops and civilians against a wide variety of hostile threats. In addition, national security requires protective techniques for U.S. systems against HPM attacks.

The HPM Institute will provide the ability to virtually design these state-of-the-art weapons using high-performance computing hardware in weeks to months, versus the many-year effort traditionally encountered. This dramatic time savings is accomplished through advanced modeling techniques, automated design and optimization tools using massively parallel computing resources. These optimization tools take an engineering concept and refine it to the highest level of performance achievable, allowing the scientist to provide the inspiration while the computer provides the perspiration.

In addition to the astronomical savings in time and money, the HPM Institute provides users a variety of benefits, such as consistent data for predicting military utility, a simplified mechanism for designing integrated systems, and an increased ability to assess foreign threats.

The HPM Institute's software also supports industrial and academic radio-frequency vacuum-device development efforts by providing validated physics-based modeling tools, device-optimization tools, and an improved development workflow. These vacuum devices are required for many defense, space communications and medical electronic systems applications - including the common microwave oven.

The Air Force has only three High Performance Computing Center institutes and two reside within AFRL's Directed Energy Directorate. The other Directed Energy institute is the High-Performance Computing Software Applications Institute for Space Situational Awareness in Maui, Hawaii, established in 2004. This institute is collocated with the directorate's Maui Space Surveillance Site.

The HSAI-SSA works directly with research, acquisition and operations communities developing and implementing high-performance computing software for space situational awareness and protection research. It is one of the original institutes established by the High-Performance Computing Modernization Program and is the only one focused specifically on space applications.

Both institutes attest to the Air Force Research Laboratory's capability to lead the discovery, development and delivery of directed-energy science and technology for the nation's security.