Stuart Koch
Acting Technical Manager
Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division

Established in 1918 as a naval proving ground, the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Laboratory (NSWCDL) is the headquarters for the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division.

As the premiere naval scientific and engineering institution, Dahlgren technology makes a difference in our military’s ability to fight, win, and come home safely. Dahlgren can boast that it has ‘‘sighted” and certified every gun barrel on every surface craft ever used by the U.S. Navy. With its 18-mile range along the shores of the Potomac River and Machodoc Creek, the Dahlgren test range looks to the future — its booming guns pushing the envelope of ordnance and weaponry for tomorrow’s Navy.

The Fleet of the future is being designed today and Dahlgren scientists and engineers are in the thick of it, lending their knowledge, expertise, and innovations so that our nation can never be outflanked by its adversaries. Even with brand new design concepts, current systems must be taken into account.

National attention is focused on military participation in non-traditional missions. Operations Other Than War, Homeland Defense, chemical-biological warfare protection, counter-terrorism, and counter-narcoterrorism are but a few of the examples of missions that are pressing.

NSWC Dahlgren Division is uniquely positioned to help navigate the road to transformation. Its broad spectrum of resources, including workforce, infrastructure, and relationships with industry, have already made it a premier naval scientific and engineering institution that is dedicated to solving a diverse set of complex technical problems confronting the warfighter, whether on land, in the air, on the sea or in space.

The Warfare Center spent years building, testing, and stretching a technical infrastructure that is simply not available elsewhere. The Division exists to understand technical dimensions of military problems and to know whether a responsible solution has been provided. This is accomplished by addressing three attributes of navy ownership: unimpeded access to intellectual facilities and resources, connectivity between the warfighter and the technical community, and a continuous source of competence to ensure integrity over the entire life cycle of a system. It cannot be done alone; it requires sustained relationships with the warfighter, sponsors, industry and academia.

NSWCDD developed Wolf Pack technology reviewed by NAVSEA Commander
Wolf Pack uses a modular design and open architecture and has successfully combined Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles and other ground vehicles with technologies such as remote weapons mounts, C4I systems, biometrics, acoustic shot detection, and other non-lethal equipment.

The Wolf Pack project is a Defense Department-funded capability designed to enhance small unit operations. NSWC Dahlgren developed, fabricated, and evaluated the Wolf Pack technology and software suite.

Navy - Virginia Tech Agreement to benefit students and Navy
Virginia Tech and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) signed a memorandum of understanding designed to develop and expand a framework of cooperation that will benefit the university's students and faculty in addition to Navy technology programs.

The agreement will enable a framework of cooperation between Virginia Tech and NSWCDD to develop mutually beneficial innovative research projects and activities.

Today's academic institutions are key in enabling the Navy stay abreast of technology and understand the realm of the possible for the future.

Moreover, in the current fiscally constrained environments, it is important for the Navy and academic institutions to look for more synergistic ways to continue providing cutting edge technology to the warfighter with less funding using progressive relationships and agreements.

This Virginia Tech - NSWCDD memorandum of understanding is supported by a variety of longstanding partnership programs, comprising the Educational Partnership Agreement, Naval Research Enterprise Intern Program, Summer Faculty Research Program, Work for Others, Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, as well as other contracts and grants.

Collaboration and efforts to meet objectives in the performance of mutual innovative research and activities may include joint innovative research in programs related to NSWCDD technical capabilities in dozens of areas from Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Warfare Defense Systems and Directed Energy Systems to Human Systems Integration and National Response Missions that include Homeland Security and Defense Physical and Non-Physical Vulnerability Analysis.

Warfighter prove Naval Expeditionary Overwatch collaboration is a success
Officials from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), five Navy Warfare Centers and industry collaborating on the Navy Expeditionary Overwatch (NEO) system's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) technology watched warfighters demonstrate the network at NSWC Dahlgren.

They observed Naval Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) sailors deploy an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a manned Gunslinger Humvee and an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) on a successful mission to detect and engage fictional insurgents.

The NEO suite of technologies underscores ONR and NSWC Dahlgren's collaboration to produce real technology solutions for U.S. warfighters.

NEO is the collection, integration and demonstration of manned and unmanned engagement systems, platforms and integrated sensors to enable tactical decision making by agile expeditionary units such as NECC, Special Operations Command, and the Marine Corps who conduct distributed operations in both ground and littoral environments.

The NEO system enables 10 sailors - four in the Gunslinger Humvee (GS-3) and a maximum of six in the Land Based Control Station (LBCS) - to continuously monitor, detect and engage hostile forces over 10 square miles of territory inland, on marshy terrain, along a river or near a coastline. The range of NEO - developed entirely with existing technologies - may increase to about 20 square miles as the program develops.

The unmanned boat and the “Scan Eagle“ UAV sent video and data throughout the event to a Land Based Control Station (LBCS) where sailors directed vehicles, including the Humvee armed with a Gunslinger to observe and attack throughout the test scenario.

NSWC Dahlgren and four other Navy Warfare Center Divisions partnered with ONR and industry to integrate NEO with technology leveraging commercial and government off-the-shelf products combined with small business innovation research investments.

Additional information on the NEO program is available at http:⁄⁄ www.nswc.navy.mil⁄

Injured veteran inspires civilians to connect with the warfighter
An NSWC Dahlgren Division Technical Specialist impacted the audience at a National Disability Employment Awareness Month event with his riveting account of Iraq after military duty in the war torn country.

Sean Locker – wounded while on duty as a Marine in Iraq – spoke about his injury, rehabilitation and transition to federal service where his knowledge and experience as a warfighter is crucial to the development of technological solutions for today’s warfighters.

Locker thanked Dahlgren leadership ‘‘for being so proactive” in hiring wounded veterans. He also thanked the military for his rehabilitation and the advanced prosthetic devices he utilizes.

The archery, hunting, and fishing enthusiast uses a special prosthetic for bow hunting.

As he convalesced at Walter Reed hospital, Locker entered the Operation Warfighter program, reporting to NSWCDD’s Asymmetric Defense Department with another injured warrior – Army Medic Tony Mervyn – in 2006.

Locker informed the audience about programs such as: Project Healing Waters, which provides opportunities for disabled vets to go fly fishing; the Yellow Ribbon Fund that offers wounded veterans a variety of services from mentoring and internship opportunities to hunting and fishing treks; and the Wounded Warrior Project that features skiing and rock climbing trips as well as innovative new approaches to helping our wounded warriors.

Since he was medically retired from active duty, Locker provided technical support and operational expertise to the Joint Counter Radio Controlled IED Electronic Warfare (JCREW) program and to efforts to develop improved tactical communications capabilities for Marines on the battlefield.

Operation Warfighter is a temporary assignment and internship program for service members that are undergoing therapy at military treatment facilities in the United States. The program is designed to provide recuperating Service members with meaningful activity outside of the hospital environment that assists in their wellness and offers a formal means of transition back to the military or civilian workforce.

NSWC Dahlgren, along with other Warfare Centers, is determined to identify meaningful work opportunities for service members receiving medical care or on medical hold at Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital. The talent, dedication, and military skills of recuperating service members helps the Warfare Center prepare for the future by closing the gap between abstract technological development and the real needs of warfighters.

Construction begins on R&D facility envisioned as exceptional resource for Navy scientists and engineers
A research and development facility designed to support combat system certification of aircraft carriers and amphibious ships was brought a step closer to reality at a groundbreaking ceremony in Dahlgren.

‘‘This groundbreaking demonstrates our commitment to provide leading edge technology to our warfighters,” said Capt. Sheila Patterson, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) Commander at the event. ‘‘It represents our role in serving as the lead technical resource for land-based testing and performance characterization of combat and warfare systems for the Surface Navy.”

The Dahlgren Research Development and Acquisition and Test and Evaluation Consolidation Facility is scheduled to open in June 2010.

The facility is designed to be an exceptional resource for Navy scientists and engineers and features a state-of-the-art system test bed to support the combat system certifications. It will be connected to all key test facilities throughout the nation to allow robust, land-based battle group interoperability testing.

The collocation of this facility with similar facilities for cruisers and destroyers will allow NSWC Dahlgren Division and the greater enterprise test and evaluation community, to achieve efficiencies in testing processes, while improving the quality and affordability of testing conducted for all ship classes. With its flexible design, the lab will allow for rapid development of emerging systems to directly support the warfighter both at sea and ashore.

The flexible facility design will allow for rapid development of emerging systems to directly support the warfighter afloat and ashore as well as systems to enhance Maritime Domain Awareness.

Within its 58,800 square footage, the two-deck building will house 130 personnel with offices, labs, and an anechoic chamber.

The facility will serve as the Navy's lead technical resource for land based laboratory test and performance characterization of combat and warfare systems for the Surface Navy. It will also provide combat and warfare system engineering, operations and interoperability expertise for integration of combat and warfare systems.

High Energy Laser Profile Innovation to impact Navy and DoD
A device created by a Navy scientist to measure laser beams faster and more accurately will significantly impact the realm of Directed Energy and High Energy Lasers.

The device - invented by NSWC Dahlgren scientist Dr. Peter Wick – features significant measurement capability gains and changes the way high energy laser (HEL) profiles will be conducted in the future.

Dr. Pete Wick’s innovative work is ensuring that NSWC Dahlgren maintains a technical edge. The innovation enables Electromagnetic and Sensor Systems Department’s High Energy Laser Team to improve measurement fidelity, simplicity, and speed of laser beam profiles – all with a simpler instrumentation setup.

Wick’s invention provides improved signal to noise ratio, increased effective damage threshold, and simplicity in instrumental setup. Through the use of target motion, the reduction of measured target structure has increased the signal to noise ratio for the resultant data by orders of magnitude.

Navy infrastructure analysts impact relief efforts in record setting response to hurricans
Navy analysts and engineers set a record by providing infrastructure analysis support to assist U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) operations in response to two hurricanes and a tropical storm in September 2008.

NSWC Dahlgren Mission Assurance Division personnel provided predictive and infrastructure analysis to NORTHCOM for Ike, Hannah, and Gustav. They identified DoD bases, assets and supporting infrastructure potentially affected by the hurricanes.

The DCIP team - 40 NSWC Dahlgren employees, including a full-time liaison and four analysts who deployed to NORTHCOM headquarters - helped ensure DoD assets were available to support hurricane relief efforts.

DoD was better able to prepare for and respond to a series of natural hazards threatening the United States homeland as a result of the timely and accurate data and analysis provided by the Defense Critical Infrastructure Program (DCIP) Crisis Support Team.

In addition to DoD resources, the team analyzed commercial infrastructure that included electric power, telecommunications, water supplies, transportation, oil and natural gas.

The information was used by NORTHCOM Action Officers to brief senior DoD leadership. Dahlgren personnel provided infrastructure and impact analysis for base support installations tasked with pre-positioning supplies for hurricane relief and information on identified infrastructure outage areas.

Military responders also relied on geospatial systems - TRITON and the Homeland Defense-Mission Assurance Portal (HD-MAP) - developed by NSWC Dahlgren to monitor hurricane relief efforts and identify DoD assets affected by the hurricanes. The responders also used the geospatial systems in their efforts to identify commercial infrastructure assets potentially affected by the hurricanes.

DoD commands and agencies employing TRITON and HD-MAP include USNORTHCOM, OASD-HD&ASA, Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, Defense Information Systems Agency, the Joint Staff National Military Command Center, and the National Guard Bureau.

Students get excited about math and science as Navy expands Virginia Demonstration Project paradigm nationwide
Over 90 middle school students built, programmed and deployed robots on fictional missions to save lives, deliver humanitarian aid and construct sea bases at the Virginia Demonstration Project (VDP) summer camp.

Thousands of students may be engaged in similar scenarios - designed to mimic real engineering challenges - as the program expands nation-wide in the future, according to NAVSEA officials.

The VDP summer camp enabled students from five schools to work in teams at Dahlgren as Navy scientists and engineers - adept at solving similar real-world problems - provided technical guidance, ensuring the campers. LEGO robots cleared mines, recovered ships and transported troops to provide relief operations.

VDP is part of N-STAR (Naval Research - Science and Technology for America's Readiness), a science and technology workforce development program launched in 2004 by the Office of Naval Research. The program was initiated to show a diversity of pre-teens and teens that math, science and engineering are fascinating, fun and socially relevant.

One way VDP generates the interest of students in math and science is through their teachers. The program provides middle school teachers with opportunities to team with practicing scientists and engineers from the mentor-rich environment at the Naval Warfare Centers.

The VDP process is more than students learning how to program robots or build, assemble, and demonstrate the projects. It is also about team building.

Teachers and engineers organized the student teams to ensure that students from various schools, diverse backgrounds and achievement levels are teamed together, thereby teaching them to work together much like they would in real work environments.

The initiative could eventually expand beyond the Navy and evolve into a national demonstration project encompassing all Department of Defense laboratories in a sustained effort to secure the long-term competitiveness of America's science and technology workforce by hooking more kids on math and science at an earlier age. As a result, the number of students earning university degrees in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology is expected to exponentially increase.

NSWC Dahlgren employees join visitors and VIPs to watch LCS Gun System demonstrated on test range
The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Surface Warfare Mission Package (SUW MP) unveiled at an NSWC Dahlgren ceremony is designed to provide the Navy with warfighting capability against small boats.

Dahlgren Lab engineers briefed over 280 visitors and demonstrated how SUW MP will integrate with LCS to rapidly detect, track and prosecute small-boat threats. This capability will enable on-scene commanders to protect local assets and move a force quickly through a strategic waterway.

The SUW Mission Module “rollout“ highlight was the firing of the Mk 46 30mm gun. Civilian engineers fired 30 rounds on the Potomac River Test Range to demonstrate the capabilities of the modularized system. With its standardized networking interfaces, the Mk 46 30mm gun saves the Navy more than $4 million per platform in re-engineering costs.

The SUW MP is one of three interchangeable modules - anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare and mine warfare - designed to provide warfighting capability in specific mission areas.

Capabilities of SUW MP will include two 30mm Gun Mission Modules and Non Line of Sight - Launch System Mission Modules. The SUW MPs also include two Vertical Takeoff and Landing Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and a MH-60R helicopter.

The SUW MP demonstrates the Navy's commitment to design ships and systems that are more modular, affordable and adaptive to a future Navy with ship classes that deliver effective capability to fight in blue, green and brown water environments.

SUW MP is on schedule and budget for delivery to the U.S. Navy. The next phase commences with software integration from the gun to the Mission Package Computing Environment (MPCE) and includes land based end-to-end testing of the gun at NSWC Dahlgren.

LCS is a fast, agile, focused-mission platform designed for operation in near-shore environments yet capable of open-ocean operation. It is designed to defeat asymmetric “anti-access“ threats such as mines, quiet diesel submarines and fast surface craft. The first LCS, USS Freedom, was commissioned in 2008.

Mission and Purpose
The Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division is the Navy’s technical institution that translates warfighters’ needs into technical solutions within an operational context for the nation. In basic terms, our purpose is to make a difference in our military’s ability to fight, win, and come home safely.

The Division provides research, development, test and evaluation, analysis, systems engineering, integration and certification of complex naval warfare systems related to surface warfare, strategic systems, combat and weapons systems. NSWCDD also provides system integration and certification for weapons, combat systems and warfare systems in addition to executing other responsibilities as assigned by the Commander, Naval Surface Warfare Center.

The Division’s strategic direction is to provide the full spectrum of science and engineering capabilities for surface ship weapons systems integration up to and including the force level, missile defense, strategic systems and related areas of Joint and Homeland defense.

NSWCDL's vision is:
To become the Department of the Navy’s leading warfare system architect and system engineer, recognized as the technical leader in delivering innovative, affordable, and effective solutions for the Navy, Joint Forces and the Nation.