For those of you who might not have what it takes to make it on American Idol, the Navy has stepped in to help make your dreams come true.
The Chief of Naval Research has $1 million in cold hard cash to dole out to companies who have new and actionable ideas in certain areas of naval technology that can help boost the effectiveness of the force.
Companies with ideas the Navy can use will be offered the opportunity to meet face-to-face with Navy officials during a technology conference in Washington, D.C., that kicks off July 30.
The Navy is interested in the following technology areas:
Power and Energy
Operational Environments
Maritime Domain Awareness
Asymmetric and Irregular Warfare
Information, Analysis, and Communication
Power Projection
Assure Access and Hold at Risk
Distributed Operations
Naval Warfighter Performance and Protection
Survivability and SelfDefense
Platform Mobility
Fleet/Force Sustainment
Affordability, Maintainability, and Reliability
Last year, the Navy garnered over 50 CNR Challenge submissions, awarding research money to five of them.
A representative project is the Pegasus self-charging unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) for persistent littoral antisubmarine warfare from Nekton Research LLC. The Pegasus concept is an autonomous self-recharging underwater vehicle with capabilities for persistent wide-area surveillance that can operate against currents and in very shallow and riverine environments. It recharges itself by
extracting energy from microbially active sediments on the sea bottom. This enables it to act as a recharging station for other unmanned underwater vehicles or to rise again into the water column to conduct surveillancePresented by the National Defense Industrial Association with technical support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the 2007 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference will provide key insights into the Navy and Marine Corps drive to enable revolutionary Naval operational concepts that meet the challenges of the 21st Century through strategic investment in science and technology. Special emphasis will be placed on power and energy for the fleet and force. Attendees from industry, academia, and government will be informed of the direction, emphasis, and scope of the Department of the Navys investment in science and technology and how to conduct business activities with the Naval Research Enterprise.
So, shipmates, do you have what it takes to meet the CNR Challenge?
-- Christian
