Critical & Emerging Technologies

A fuel cell is a device that generates electricity by a chemical reaction. It converts hydrogen and oxygen into water, and in the process also creates electricity. Fuel cells provide many advantages, they are environment friendly as they don’t produce pollutants or greenhouse gasses, significantly improving our environment, high energy efficiency ( …

The need for more energy-efficient computers is urgent. The Department of Energy projects that, with the computer chip industry expected to expand to several trillion dollars in the next few decades, energy use by computers could skyrocket from 3 percent of all U.S. energy consumption today to 20 percent, nearly …

Sensors allow humans to feel and understand their world, and their development lays the foundation for the fulfillment of information society and has formed a huge industry. Photonic sensors are defined as sensors that sense, emit, receive and convert the light energy into electrical signals. Photonics sensors deal with the …

Sensors allow humans to feel and understand their world, and their development lays the foundation for the fulfillment of information society and has formed a huge industry. For its implementation the Internet of Things relies heavily on sensor technology.In the grand world of the “internet of things” (IoT), there are …

From an engineering perspective, computing is the systematized and mechanized manipulation of patterns.  A representation is a pattern in some physical medium, for example, the configuration of ONs and OFFs on a set of switches. The algorithm then tells us how to change these patterns—how to set the switches from …

Open source software is free to license, the preferred choice of geeks everywhere, for rapid development for instance impromptu mapping projects to help victims of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake where open source delivered results much faster than traditional methods. “It probably would have taken a year to come up with …

A high-powered microwave weapon (HPM) is type of Directed Energy Weapon (DEW)  for employing radio frequency energy against a variety of targets. They are principally counterelectronic weapons and could be used to destroy any enemy electronic systems, including radars, computer systems and communications infrastructures. Electromagnetic weapons can destroy, intercept or jam …

The rapid pace of new commercial satellite constellation launches has led to a corresponding increase in the amount and availability of geospatial data. While these constellations largely focus on non-military uses, their data has numerous military applications. For example, the new constellations provide optical, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and Radio Frequency …

A directed-energy weapons (DEW) are ranged weapon systems that inflicts damage at a target by emission of highly focused energy, including laser, microwaves and particle beams. Potential applications of this technology include anti-personnel weapon systems, missile defense system, and the disabling of lightly armored vehicles or mounted optical devices   …

One of the most challenging tasks in any aerial combat situation is to determine which assets on the ground should be targeted and which ones should be avoided. This is particularly challenging in the situation where enemy assets are camouflaged or hidden amongst civilian assets. Because of this a practice …