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Technology Investment Strategy
[Table of Contents] [Activities 19-21 »»]
R&D Activities
Precision Weapons
Definition
Precision Weapons provide the capability of accurately and rapidly engaging (high-value) targets with reliability, from short and long stand-off distances for mission accomplishment, while at the same time minimizing collateral damage. The R&D concentrates on the technologies to assess and improve the effectiveness of precision weapons and to determine the CF’s vulnerabilities to such weapons.
Trends, Threats and Opportunities
Technological advances will continue the trend towards weapons having increased range, autonomy, precision and lethality, and a wide range of delivery systems. More precisely, weapons will fly at longer ranges and at higher velocities (in the hypervelocity regime), where novel propulsion technologies will be needed. Automatic target acquisition and recognition capabilities will be aboard the missiles and they will be equipped with communication links and integrated to the battlespace for battle damage information and assessment. Autonomous unmanned vehicles (for the air, land as well as underwater environments) will be used as precision weapons for future missions deemed too dangerous for conventional systems.
It is expected that in 2020, the CF will make increasing use of a long-range, precision strike capability. This will require R&D in sensors, processing technologies, propulsion and guidance and control. Innovative technologies like pulse detonation engines need to be investigated because of their potential important pay-off in effectiveness as compared to more conventional propulsion means. New aerodynamic phenomena peculiar to very high and very low velocities will have to be understood. Non-traditional configurations such as waveriders, non-circular cross sections, lifting bodies and stealth shapes will need to be looked at for the upper velocity regime. MEMS for air vehicle drag reduction and aerodynamic control offer interesting possibilities and will be investigated.
Launch, guidance and control development for this new class of weapons will have to be paced with parallel advances in electronics, information processing techniques and other related fields. Smaller and more integrated sensors will be required for target acquisition and discrimination under all environments, and they will ensure that the best performances can be achieved day and night for all target types. Because a weapons system builds on a wide range of technologies, it is essential that these developments be properly integrated to make these platforms capable of delivering – very precisely and with minimal collateral damage – a wide range of payloads against rapidly moving time critical targets located at very long range.
To analyze and optimize the precision and performance of weapon systems, M&S will be essential to evaluate the performance of each sub-component, their interaction when integrated in the overall system, their mission effectiveness, as well as their linkage to other sets of data (geo-spatial, operational scenario) and to the integrated battlespace.
Strategic Objectives
(A) Propulsion technologies for optimum energy management of low observable air vehicle systems: Develop innovative propulsion devices for small payload and short-range applications, and more efficient, more energetic propulsors and propellants for hypersonic and long stand-off applications. Emerging propulsion technologies include liquid/solid fuel ramjets, variable flow ducted rockets, scramjets, pulse detonation engine high-density fuels, endothermic fuels, composite motor cases, rocket motor energy management and low observables.
(B) Delivery control techniques and systems for improved weapon system performance: Develop advanced trajectory control systems such as reaction jets, lattice fins for improved maneuverability and increased agility of air vehicles. Non-traditional weapon configurations such as waveriders, non-circular cross sections, lifting bodies and stealth shapes will be investigated for precise delivery of payloads.
(C) Target acquisition and discrimination for improved weapon effectiveness against time critical targets: Develop multi/hyperspectral sensors, coupled with sensor fusion, to ensure a superior capability for target recognition, discrimination and acquisition. Also, techniques will be developed for the integration of artificial intelligence for autonomous target acquisition by missiles and for on-board processing of data for battle damage information and assessment into seeker and guidance and control subsystems of precision weapons.
(D) M&S to improve the effectiveness of weapons system platforms: Develop M&S techniques to optimize the precision and performance of weapon systems, by analyzing the integration of each sub-component into the overall system, and evaluating their mission effectiveness by allowing the selection of options in a realistic environment. M&S will also be used to plan, train and rehearse for future joint and combined (international) operations in a virtual interoperable environment.
Weapons Performance and Countermeasures
Definition
Weapons Performance and Countermeasures focuses on the phenomena taking place when a weapon interacts with a target. These effects can be examined from a weapon perspective (lethality), from a target or platform perspective (vulnerability) and from the standpoint of weapon system detection.
Trends, Threats and Opportunities
Future combat platforms/systems will be light, highly maneuverable, potentially uninhabited and will require weapon systems to match the needs of the 2020s. They will have to operate in a variety of combat environments, including urban operations, which is likely to be amongst the most demanding in terms of finding the targets and of reducing collateral damage. On the other hand, the improved lethality of future weapon systems will increase the vulnerability of our own soldiers and platforms (air, naval and land).
In recent years, significant progress has been made in material science and synthesis as they relate to energetic materials. New more powerful highly energetic crystals, energetic binders, nanoparticles, doped particles, polymorphic additives, thin coatings and metastable materials, as well as heterogeneous explosive charges, have the potential to significantly increase the amount of energy delivered by energetic materials, as well as our ability to manage the delivery of that energy, be it for explosives or propellants. Highly controlled energy release processes, new materials and focusing phenomena have the potential to significantly enhance weapon effectiveness (blast, shaped charge, explosively formed projectile, etc). Volumetric weapons (including thermobaric and fuel air explosives) pose severe blast and incendiary threats to soft targets and infrastructures and will need to be understood and exploited.
As a further R&D challenge, the launch velocities of missiles and projectiles must be increased to reduce their engagement time and increase their lethality. During the next 15-20 years, advanced, more powerful High Energy LOw Vulnerability Ammunition (HELOVA) gun propellants will provide high velocity propulsion, improved ignition systems and high operating pressure rocket propellants for missiles. The development of electro-magnetic guns and full electro-thermo-chemical propulsion will continue. Directed energy weapons, including dazzling/blinding lasers, are likely to become more prominent on the future battlefield. High power microwaves may be used with great efficiency against systems with vulnerable electronic components, such as communication and computer systems, radars, imagers and guidance and control systems. Computer-based M&S will be critical for designing, assessing and optimizing the effectiveness of future weapon systems.
Concealed explosive objects such as land mines and unexploded ordnance are a constant threat to the CF, which will only increase with time. In the future, the shift in scenarios toward asymmetric warfare will expand the nature of threats to include improvised explosive devices, individual small arms and combined explosive/CBR terrorist devices. (As an associated concern, the need to exercise ongoing environmental stewardship over test and training facilities that have undergone intensive use, by both the CF and its allies, must be investigated to ensure their long-term availability for the real-time training of the CF.)
Strategic Objectives
(A) Novel materials and energy release processes to enhance the performance of weapons: Develop a thorough understanding of explosives-materials interaction phenomena to permit timely threat assessments, and develop effective countermeasures for protecting both the warfighter and equipment. The exploitation of ongoing advances in material science and technology will provide higher energy density, higher and better-controlled combustion and detonation velocity, increased blast effect etc. while retaining insensitive munitions properties of energetic materials. Research will focus on producing new types of energetic ingredients through novel manufacturing processes. Extensive use of computer-based modelling of molecular dynamics will also be made.
(B) Concepts for developing and deploying increased lethality and non-lethal weapons systems: Develop a better understanding of the physics of the various classes of warheads with enhanced destructive energy and study their effectiveness against advanced armours (e.g. passive, reactive, active) and in the urban environment for minimal collateral damage. Three classes of weapons will be investigated: chemical energy release from an energetic material directly on a target (e.g. blast, explosively formed projectile, shaped charge); chemical energy release to launch preformed projectiles (e.g. kinetic energy penetrator, fragmentation/blast devices); and emerging non-conventional weapons (e.g. non-lethal weapons, high power microwaves, electromagnetic pulse, high energy lasers, etc.).
(C) Countermeasures for improved survivability: Develop much improved protection materials and systems for personnel and both mobile and fixed platforms. Detailed vulnerability and lethality (V/L) analysis needs to be performed prior to any design of new survivability systems. To carry out this task, new V/L assessment tools for novel and enhanced threats will be developed. Passive, active and reactive protection systems that have faster response time and are more effective in defeating future munitions will be pursued. Improved sensor systems (e.g. hyperspectral imaging, nuclear methods, nuclear quadrupole resonance) will be developed for the detection and identification of area defence weapons, unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices, with special emphasis on reliability and reduced false alarm rates.
(D) Sustainable training and technologies to maintain availability of DND training facilities: Advance the current state of knowledge on the nature and extent of the residual contamination of training sites and develop solutions to ensure the sound management of these facilities as sustainable resources. The R&D will address environmental matters related to unexploded ordnance on test and training ranges and contribute to sustaining range activities while ensuring environmental stewardship and regulatory compliance.
Emerging Materials and Biotechnology
Definition
This R&D Activity reflects the increasing importance of advanced or novel materials, both organic and inorganic, to military and civilian systems. Advances in materials technology and biotechnology have become technology drivers, rather than responses to requirements. R&D will concentrate on applied research in materials, biotechnology and advanced power sources, including some technology demonstration of applications in these areas.
Trends, Threats and Opportunities
Commonly, materials are regarded as merely the fabric of structural systems, and have been all too often selected as an afterthought, or in response to a loading requirement.
“Functional materials” are those materials that have performance characteristics additional to their load-bearing capability, such as piezo-electric, magneto-strictive and semi-conducting materials. For some time, advances in functional materials have inspired design changes in acoustic transducers; recent advances in materials technology has encouraged investigation of materials-driven design in an expanded range of applications. New high-strain functional materials (such as di-electric polymers) will rival the performance of animal muscle tissue, revolutionizing the capability of transducers and actuators.
Successful laboratory-scale demonstrations of “smart materials” that adapt, or respond to their environments create an opportunity for large-scale development: smart sensors and actuators, adaptive control systems and smart structures.
Imagine an adaptive aircraft wing that alters its shape in response to flight conditions, replacing hinged flight control surfaces. Combat uniforms made of smart fabrics (with a biotechnology component) would satisfy traditional comfort and durability requirements, and also would have inherent resistance to chemical and biological threats with an adaptive camouflage capability.
Molecular manufacturing – the ability to design devices that are only tens to hundreds of atoms in dimension, and to manufacture them one atom at a time – promises rich rewards in electronics, sensors and tailored materials. Military applications include massive computing capacity, active/passive structural damping and signature control in military platforms, life cycle health monitoring, smart protective clothing, embedded warfare sensors, biological detectors and variable camouflage. This R&D Activity includes the application of bio-molecular self-assembly (how nature produces a substance with unusual properties) to the controlled synthesis of materials.
Biotechnology presents both threats and opportunities. Adversaries will be able to modify or mask threat agents with ease, making them more infectious, more damaging, harder to prevent, more difficult to detect and more difficult to treat. It will be possible to produce significant quantities of toxins and bio-regulators as non-lethal military weapons. To counter the new threats, biotechnology will allow production of new treatments and will accelerate production of improved vaccines and preventatives. Developments in biomedical engineering will combine advances in information processing, miniaturization and biotechnology to provide real-time monitoring of health status indicators, automated treatment delivery, field-tolerant diagnostic devices and triage aids.
Military operations are becoming increasingly dependent upon electrical propulsion, electronic systems and wireless communications, leading to a growing demand for electrical power. No technology can satisfy all the needs, but the number of power source variants must be minimized. The answer lies in developing electro-chemical, electro-mechanical and renewable power sources with an eye towards combining the best properties of each in hybrid power sources and improving power delivery components.
Strategic Objectives
(A) Functional materials for transducers, actuators and smart structures: Develop controls and structures capable of optimal response to external loads to overcome the constraint of the performance of functional materials on the performance of transducers, actuators and control devices. The introduction of high-strain functional materials promises greater benefits than re-shaping existing designs.
(B) Substitution of conventional materials for improved mechanical and chemical performance of materials: Investigate tailored polymers as substitute materials by careful selection and formulation of materials and re-examination of design parameters for optimal exploitation of material capabilities. Develop advanced modelling techniques to predict mechanical and chemical performance, and to perform feasibility studies. Develop design capabilities, micro-structural characterization methods and qualification testing processes for environmentally compliant coatings systems.
(C) Synthesis of materials by molecular manufacturing techniques for high performance military applications: Develop and apply techniques for the synthesis of high-performance materials for tribological or combustion applications technology as traditional metallurgical techniques cannot yield the necessary combination of material toughness and hardness required for military systems. Molecular-level material assembly provides some promise, as R&D will initially focus on aeronautical applications, with spin-off to other applications and problems as experience develops.
(D) Biotechnology for the environmental protection of CF personnel: Develop coatings and materials with improved characteristics and performance to protect personnel in adverse environments using Biotechnology applied to material sciences.
(E) Advanced power sources to meet the demands of future military platforms and personnel: Improve electrical sources needed to meet the growing power demands in the platforms and equipment considered high priority by the CF. Work in this area will include R&D in:
1) novel materials and microfabrication techniques for electrochemical power sources;
2) storage and production of hydrogen and the reforming of logistic fuels for fuel cells; and
3) pulse power and platform integration technologies.
Signature Management
Definition
R&D in Signature Management addresses an ensemble of technologies related to the reduction of detectable emissions and fields (signatures) and the management of risk of detection, classification and targeting of assets by opposing forces. (This R&D Activity does not consider counter-detection and communication emission management, which are covered in other R&D Activities.) The technology is aimed at arranging the signatures of our military assets to be undetectable against the background, to the greatest degree possible. The object of Signature Management is to make operational commanders aware of signatures and the effects of their actions and decisions on vulnerability.
Trends, Threats and Opportunities
Military forces already employ stealth to their advantage, but must continually upgrade their capability to counter the ever-increasing variety and sophistication of opposed sensor systems. Passive signatures (acoustic target strength, static electric and magnetic fields, radar cross section, optical retroreflectivity, etc.) can be reduced by applying novel materials, design, construction or shaping. Active signatures (radiated acoustic noise, low frequency electromagnetic, infrared plume, etc.) primarily require source level reductions and appropriate shielding and shaping. Both can be reduced by development of specific countermeasures.
CF assets are at risk from illumination by opposing forces, or from emissions from our own platform systems, including our active sensor equipment. Important signatures to be managed include acoustic, static and low frequency electric and magnetic fields, RF (radar, communication) and EO (in the visible, IR and UV bands). The threat comes from the increased sophistication of sensors, analysis afforded by computer processing and the potential for an adversary to exploit any possible emission. At present, the warfighter has an inadequate understanding of the risk to his operations, posed by his own signature, and the effects of his signature on his own sensors.
Signature reduction technologies increase survivability by reducing the enemy’s ability to target our forces. They enhance our ability to engage adversaries anywhere in the battlespace, and they enhance CF sensor performance.
Strategic Objectives
(A) Underwater signature prediction and reduction for improved survivability and sensor effectiveness: Investigate marine platform acoustics, electromagnetics and wake characteristics to assess potential solutions to current and future signature problems. The program will develop analysis, modelling and countermeasure capabilities, perform full-scale measurements, provide independent technical advice to DND, preserve the knowledge base required for major acquisitions and solve in-service problems.
(B) Surface and air signature prediction and reduction for improved survivability and sensor effectiveness: Investigate EO/IR, radar and RF signatures of vehicles and platforms to assess potential solutions to current and future signature problems. These include the development of adaptive materials and techniques for camouflage, the modelling of EO/IR camouflage, the investigation of monostatic and bistatic Radar Cross-Section (RCS) of Radar Absorbent Material (RAM)-covered platforms, the development of techniques for reducing RCS by shaping, the improvement of RCS measurement and modelling techniques (in particular for locating RCS “hot” spots), the investigation of multispectral and hyperspectral EO/IR signatures and the modelling of IR and UV signatures of platforms.
(C) Methods to integrate and optimize total platform Signature Management: Develop an integrated approach to Signature Management to ensure that improvements made to a signature, associated with one sub-system, do not have an adverse effect on another. The approach aims to optimize Signature Management across the whole platform and signature domain, and it applies to naval platforms, land vehicles and air assets. Develop Signature Management tools and methodologies to provide a commander and his combat control system with real-time information about the signatures being emitted by his platforms and their relative importance. Signature information will be integrated into a single user-friendly threat assessment and vulnerability evaluation tool for each platform and provide guidance for signature reduction.
(D) Susceptibility assessment and mitigation for effective deployment of countermeasures: Improve warfighter understanding of his susceptibility to being targeted and what platform and Signature Management can accomplish in minimizing this susceptibility. As well, the warfighter must understand the operational effectiveness of deception and affordable countermeasures. While the ideal situation might be to find technical solutions to make all platforms or other assets invisible, such a goal is not affordable or realistic. The objective addresses how to use countermeasures effectively, not their development, and how best to employ coordinated tactics and appropriate countermeasures with respect to all relevant signature dimensions during an engagement.
