So gigantic are some of these facilities, that full sized U.S. Navy guided missile cruisers, destroyers and even nuclear submarines can approach secret ocean entry points, slide gently onto massive rails, and be gently transported over a hundred miles under dry land, through gigantic tunnels to half a mile underground, or coming to rest in water-filled underground “docks.”

The planning and sophistication of these government bases is almost unfathomable, but they exist. The government refers to these facilities as DUMBS Deep Underground Military Bases & Structures.

Army Releases Top 10 List Of Coolest Science, Technology Advances

Number 10: Artificial muscles made from plastic

Future Army robots will be the strongest in the world, if visionary researchers have their way. Robots could be armed with artificial muscles made from plastic.

Army researchers collaborated with a visiting professor from Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering to study how plastic fibers respond when they are twisted and coiled into a spring. Different stimuli cause the spring to contract and expand, mimicking natural muscles.

The team’s expertise in polymer science and chemical engineering helped to identify optimal material property values to achieve the desired artificial muscle performance targets, and helped develop and implement techniques to measure those material properties.

Artificial muscles could potentially augment robot performance, allowing our future mechanical partners to buff up, and pump more iron.

Number 9: Monitoring Soldier health and performance with biorecognition receptors

Army and academic researchers are looking at how to monitor Soldier health and performance in real-time, by developing unique biorecognition receptors. These future bioreceptors are small, simple to produce, inexpensive, and robust to environmental stresses.

Credit: U.S. Army Research Laboratory

Once integrated into wearable biosensors, data can be selectively captured from a complex mixture of sources in theater, like blood, sweat or saliva.

“The Army will need to be more adaptive, more expeditionary and have a near-zero logistic demand while optimizing individual to squad execution in multifaceted operational environments,” said Dr. Matt Coppock, chemist and team lead. “It can be envisioned that real-time health and performance monitoring, as well as sensing current and emerging environmental threats, could be a key set of tools to make this possible.”

The Army of the future may use these wearable sensors to monitor environmental biothreats and health diagnostics, all with great benefits to the Soldier. Chemical Reviews published this research (see Related Links below).

Number 8: A water-based, fire-proof battery

Army researchers and their partners at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have developed a new, water-based and fire-proof battery.

“Our project addresses the risk by allowing high-energy or high-power batteries to be put on the Soldier with no risk of the batteries catching on fire,” said Dr. Arthur von Wald Cresce, an Army materials engineer. “We’re hoping that by designing safety into the battery, this concern goes away and Soldiers can use their batteries as they please.”

These aqueous lithium-ion batteries replace the highly flammable electrolyte in lithium-ion batteries, using a nonflammable, water-based solvent–and also using a lithium salt that is not heat-sensitive, allowing for batteries to be stored and used at a much broader range of temperatures.

Cresce and the team first collaborated with scientists at the University of Maryland to study the properties of a new class of aqueous electrolytes known as water-in-salt electrolytes and published their findings in the journal Science (see Related Links below).

Number 7: Generating power on-demand with hydrogen

Imagine if you could generate power on-demand, using just a tablet and some water.

Army researchers are exploring potential applications for a structurally-stable, aluminum-based nanogalvonic alloy that reacts with any water-based liquid to produce on-demand hydrogen–generating power without a catalyst.

“Imagine a squad of future Soldiers on a long-range patrol far from base with dead batteries and a desperate need to fire up their radio,” said Dr. Kris Darling, Army materials scientist. “One of the Soldiers reaches for a metal tablet and drops it into a container and adds water or some fluid that contains water such as urine, immediately the tablet dissolves and hydrogen is released into a fuel cell, providing instant power for the radio.”

Number 6: 3-D printing ultra-strong steel

A team of Army researchers have developed a way to 3-D print ultra-strong metal parts, by adapting an alloy originally developed by the Air Force into powder form.

With a method called Powder Bed Fusion, a 3-D printer’s laser selectively melts the powder into a pattern. The printer then coats the build plate with additional layers of powder until the part is complete.

The end result is a piece of steel that feels like it was forged traditionally, but has intricate design features that no mold could create, and is about 50% stronger than anything commercially available.

“I think it’s going to really revolutionize logistics,” said Dr. Brandon McWilliams, an Army team lead. “Additive manufacturing is going to have a huge impact on sustainment…instead of worrying about carrying a whole truckload, or convoys loads of spares, as long as you have raw materials and a printer, you can potentially make anything you need.”

Researchers say this capability has the potential to replace parts of today’s tanks, or support future, state-of-the-art systems.

Number 5: Human interest detector

Have you ever wanted to get inside a Soldier’s head? Army researchers have developed a human interest detector that can determine where people are looking and decode their brain activity.

By monitoring brainwaves, researchers track neural responses and assess what captures a Soldier’s attention among a myriad of stimuli in threat environments.

Researchers say this will lead to better situational awareness on the battlefield, enable commanders to make better decisions and ultimately improve the ability of the Soldier to team with future AI agents.

Number 4: AI to identify fuel-efficient materials

A new system of algorithmic bots could tackle the most complex challenges beyond human experimental capabilities.

Building on amazing successes in artificial intelligence, which can even win a game like Jeopardy, Army-funded researchers at Cornell University developed a system called CRYSTAL to explore new materials for long-lasting power for Soldiers. CRYSTAL relies on a collective of algorithmic bots that sift through hundreds of thousands of combinations and elements–a number so vast that it’s inaccessible through traditional experimentation.

The system is able to obey the laws of physics and chemistry–where existing machine learning approaches fail–and could identify the next generation of material breakthroughs that will equip Soldiers on the future battlefield.

“The exciting part about basic science research is you can’t always predict where the results will lead,” said Dr. Purush Iyer, division chief, network sciences at Army Research Office. “We funded this research to better understand collective intelligence (wisdom of crowds). While material science application, such as design of novel alloys, were always on the cards, the serendipitous nature of the eventual outcome, that of a catalyst to aid in designing better fuel cells, is solving a problem of immense importance for the Army–battery power in the field–shows the importance of investing in basic research.”

The Materials Research Society Communications published an article (see Related Links below).

Number 3: Robotic arrays for directional communication

An Army team has developed a new way to send directional radio signals in physically complex environments. The team designed small robotic platforms with compact, low frequency antennas and AI to create a system which adaptively self-organizes into a directional antenna array.

Although multi-directional radiation is not possible in low-frequency, this array is configured to emit an omni-directional radiation pattern, creating a directional link on-demand.

A robot with a compact, low-frequency antenna coordinates with other robotic teammates having passive unpowered antennas which help focus the electromagnetic field in a desired direction. Add more robots and the array becomes more focused and has increased range and reliability.

This enables robust and targeted wireless communication at increased ranges through buildings and in challenging urban and subterranean environments.

Number 2: Self-healing material

Imagine a synthetic material that could heal itself when damaged.

Army researchers and their partners at Texas A&M have developed a reversible cross-linking epoxy that is 3-D-printable and is self-healing at room temperature without any additional stimulus or healing agent. The unique chemistry of the material even enables it to be programmed to morph shape when stimulated with temperature.

Army researchers are exploring whether these materials could create reconfigurable Army platforms of the future that could morph shapes on-demand.

Number 1: Soldier-robot teams

How do you train a robot how to think in unknown scenarios–when you don’t know what the future battlefield will look like, and you have no control to modify the environment to meet the robot’s abilities?

Army researchers have been developing new algorithms and capabilities that are unseen in industry–enabling autonomous agents such as robots to operate in these unknown environments such as future battlefields.

These algorithms are creating the brain of robots, to equip them to interact with unforeseen objects and in unknown scenarios, ultimately preparing them to partner with Soldiers on the future battlefield, whatever it might look like.

The CCDC Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. As the Army’s corporate research laboratory, ARL discovers, innovates and transitions science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power. Through collaboration across the command’s core technical competencies, CCDC leads in the discovery, development and delivery of the technology-based capabilities required to make Soldiers more lethal to win our Nation’s wars and come home safely. CCDC is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Futures Command.

Contacts and sources:

• Patricia RiippaU.S. Army Research Laboratory

“Chaos Theory: The Real Butterfly Effect”

By youngneill

Mandelbrot analyzed not only cotton prices, but many other phenomena as well. At one point, he was wondering about the length of a coastline. A map of a coastline will show many bays. However, measuring the length of a coastline off a map will miss minor bays that were too small to show on the map. Likewise, walking along the coastline misses microscopic bays in between grains of sand. No matter how much a coastline is magnified, there will be more bays visible if it is magnified more.
One mathematician, Helge von Koch, captured this idea in a mathematical construction called the Koch curve. To create a Koch curve, imagine an equilateral triangle. To the middle third of each side, add another equilateral triangle. Keep on adding new triangles to the middle part of each side, and the result is a Koch curve. A magnification of the Koch curve looks exactly the same as the original. It is another self-similar figure:

The Koch curve brings up an interesting paradox. Each time new triangles are added to the figure, the length of the line gets longer. However, the inner area of the Koch curve remains less than the area of a circle drawn around the original triangle. Essentially, it is a line of infinite length surrounding a finite area. To get around this difficulty, mathematicians invented fractal dimensions. Fractal comes from the word fractional. The fractal dimension of the Koch curve is somewhere around 1.26. A fractional dimension is impossible to conceive, but it does make sense. The Koch curve is rougher than a smooth curve or line, which has one dimension. Since it is rougher and more crinkly, it is better at taking up space. However, it’s not as good at filling up space as a square with two dimensions is, since it doesn’t really have any area. So it makes sense that the dimension of the Koch curve is somewhere in between the two. Fractal has come to mean any image that displays the attribute of self-similarity. The bifurcation diagram of the population equation is fractal. The Lorenz Attractor is fractal. The Koch curve is fractal.
During this time, scientists found it very difficult to get work published about chaos. Since they had not yet shown the relevance to real-world situations, most scientists did not think the results of experiments in chaos were important. As a result, even though chaos is a mathematical phenomenon, most of the research into chaos was done by people in other areas, such as meteorology and ecology. The field of chaos sprouted up as a hobby for scientists working on problems that maybe had something to do with it.
Later, a scientist by the name of Feigenbaum was looking at the bifurcation diagram again. He was looking at how fast the bifurcations come. He discovered that they come at a constant rate. He calculated it as 4.669. In other words, he discovered the exact scale at which it was self-similar. Make the diagram 4.669 times smaller, and it looks like the next region of bifurcations. He decided to look at other equations to see if it was possible to determine a scaling factor for them as well. Much to his surprise, the scaling factor was exactly the same. Not only was this complicated equation displaying regularity, the regularity was exactly the same as a much simpler equation. He tried many other functions, and they all produced the same scaling factor, 4.669.
This was a revolutionary discovery. He had found that a whole class of mathematical functions behaved in the same, predictable way. This universality would help other scientists easily analyze chaotic equations. Universality gave scientists the first tools to analyze a chaotic system. Now they could use a simple equation to predict the outcome of a more complex equation.
Many scientists were exploring equations that created fractal equations. The most famous fractal image is also one of the most simple. It is known as the Mandelbrot set. The equation is simple: z=z2+c. To see if a point is part of the Mandelbrot set, just take a complex number z. Square it, then add the original number. Square the result, then add the original number. Repeat that ad infinitum, and if the number keeps on going up to infinity, it is not part of the Mandelbrot set. If it stays down below a certain level, it is part of the Mandelbrot set. The Mandelbrot set is the innermost section of the picture, and each different shade of gray represents how far out that particular point is. One interesting feature of the Mandelbrot set is that the circular humps match up to the bifurcation graph. The Mandelbrot fractal has the same self-similarity seen in the other equations. In fact, zooming in deep enough on a Mandelbrot fractal will eventually reveal an exact replica of the Mandelbrot set, perfect in every detail.
Fractal structures have been noticed in many real-world areas, as well as in mathematician’s minds. Blood vessels branching out further and further, the branches of a tree, the internal structure of the lungs, graphs of stock market data, and many other real-world systems all have something in common: they are all self-similar.
Scientists at UC Santa Cruz found chaos in a dripping water faucet. By recording a dripping faucet and recording the periods of time, they discovered that at a certain flow velocity, the dripping no longer occurred at even times. When they graphed the data, they found that the dripping did indeed follow a pattern. The human heart also has a chaotic pattern. The time between beats does not remain constant; it depends on how much activity a person is doing, among other things. Under certain conditions, the heartbeat can speed up. Under different conditions, the heart beats erratically. It might even be called a chaotic heartbeat. The analysis of a heartbeat can help medical researchers find ways to put an abnormal heartbeat back into a steady state, instead of uncontrolled chaos.
Researchers discovered a simple set of three equations that graphed a fern. This started a new idea – perhaps DNA encodes not exactly where the leaves grow, but a formula that controls their distribution. DNA, even though it holds an amazing amount of data, could not hold all of the data necessary to determine where every cell of the human body goes. However, by using fractal formulas to control how the blood vessels branch out and the nerve fibers get created, DNA has more than enough information. It has even been speculated that the brain itself might be organized somehow according to the laws of chaos.
Chaos even has applications outside of science. Computer art has become more realistic through the use of chaos and fractals. Now, with a simple formula, a computer can create a beautiful, and realistic tree. Instead of following a regular pattern, the bark of a tree can be created according to a formula that almost, but not quite, repeats itself.
Music can be created using fractals as well. Using the Lorenz attractor, Diana S. Dabby, a graduate student in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has created variations of musical themes. (“Bach to Chaos: Chaotic Variations on a Classical Theme”, “Science News,” Dec. 24, 1994) By associating the musical notes of a piece of music like Bach’s “Prelude in C” with the x coordinates of the Lorenz attractor, and running a computer program, she has created variations of the theme of the song. Most musicians who hear the new sounds believe that the variations are very musical and creative.
Chaos has already had a lasting effect on science, yet there is much still left to be discovered. Many scientists believe that twentieth century science will be known for only three theories: relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos. Aspects of chaos show up everywhere around the world, from the currents of the ocean and the flow of blood through fractal blood vessels to the branches of trees and the effects of turbulence. Chaos has inescapably become part of modern science. As chaos changed from a little-known theory to a full science of its own, it has received widespread publicity. Chaos theory has changed the direction of science: in the eyes of the general public, physics is no longer simply the study of subatomic particles in a billion-dollar particle accelerator, but the study of chaotic systems and how they work.”