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Rose-Hulman Assists in Design of High-Tech Military System
Defense Budget Includes $2 Million For Project Support
American Navy personnel will be safer
and able to identify enemy targets faster as the result of project involving Rose-Hulman
Institute of Technology faculty and students, and technical staff at the Naval Surface
Warfare Center at Crane, Ind.
The joint project is creating a
prototype that would use cutting-edge optical technologies to process information at the
speed of light via a fiber-optic network so military personnel can perform high-resolution
target identification.
In January, Indiana Eighth District
Congressman John Hostettler announced that the new Department of Defense budget will
include $2 million to continue support of the project.
“Crane and Rose-Hulman are a
powerful team given their expertise and their commitment to make our U.S. Navy the best
equipped, best trained, and best led into the 21st century and beyond,”
said Hostettler, who received a mechanical engineering degree from Rose-Hulman in 1983,
and an honorary degree in 1999. “I’m
confident this project will reap handsome
dividends for both sailors and freedom-loving Americans on the home front.”
Telecom technologies are being used to
develop a wideband optically multiplexed beamforming architecture (WOMBAt) according to
Azad Siahmakoun, professor of physics and applied optics, and project coordinator at Rose-Hulman.
"This matured fiber-optic telecom
technology will be scalable to a large system that will reduce size and weight of present
Navy radars. Furthermore, WOMBAt is capable of simultaneously processing several forms of
information (such as radar, communication, surveillance, missile tracking, etc.) and thus
reducing the number of antenna and apertures on a Navy ship,” Siahmakoun explained.
"Research partnerships between
Crane and universities such as Rose-Hulman on critical components and technologies such as
wideband optically multiplexed arrays are important to meeting our war-fighting
requirements," stated Duane Embree, executive director of the Naval Surface Warfare
Center at Crane.
"They combine Crane's deep
product and application expertise and expert academics to speed delivery of advanced
technology to our nation's war fighters," he added.
The project, which began in 1999 with
a $4 million appropriation from the Department of Defense, has enabled Rose-Hulman faculty
and students to conduct research using some of the newest optical engineering equipment
available, stated Rose-Hulman President Samuel Hulbert.
“New information about optical
technology is being discovered during this project that will lead to improved defense
systems to protect American military personnel, " he said. "We're grateful to Congressman Hostettler and
officials at the Naval Surface Warfare Center for creating the opportunity for our faculty
and students to do research that is truly on the cutting edge," Hulbert said.
Phase one of the three-phase project,
the construction of a Receive Beamformer prototype system, has been completed, he said. "This year, we will build a Transmit
Beamformer while the newest federal funding will move the program to a multi-function
Receive/Transmit Beamformer prototype,” Siahmakoun stated.
The project has created research
opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students that are not common especially at
the undergraduate level, he explained.
"The federal funding has enabled
us to equip the lab with the latest fiber-optic and RF-Photonics instrumentation available
on only a few other college campuses," he said.
"Over the last 18 months, 25
undergraduates and 16 graduate students from six academic departments have been involved
with the project. Faculty expertise comes
from three different academic areas," Siahmakoun stated.
Also
advising the project are officials from the Naval Research Laboratory and the Office of
Naval Research.
 
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