December 7-December 20, 1909/Page 19

By Susan Kellam
STAFF WRITER

T

he Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory sits between Baltimore and Washington, where it has straddled both government and academia for nearly half a century, balancing work for Navy weapons systems and NASA space missions with biomedical breakthroughs and new energy initiatives.

But APL is single-mindedly approaching the 1990s-the decade top officials there feel will be the most important yet for technology. For the first time since the start of World War II, scientific forces are being shifted away from arms buildup. And this Laurel, Md.-based lab, the largest of the Navy's university-run R&D facilities, is girding itself for these "tumultuous peace" years ahead.

"And we don't know how it's going to turn out," admits APL Director Dr. Carl Bostrom. "I would hope that the emphasis on R&D won't suffer."

Despite the Pentagon's current retrenchment in the field, Bostrom says: "(The US] must be prepared with new technology even if the forces are being

cut

Peacetime is posing new challenges for the R&D community. "How do you take a generation of people who understand one set of problems and ask them to suddenly face another?," asks Dr. James Colvard, APL's associate director. "But as the public need changes, we're ready to change," he adds.

"APL is in an ideal position to be the prototypical change agent, Colvard explains. "We're not market-based and we're not an internal component of the Defense Department APL, without stockholders and profits to maintain, can gear itself to becoming an instrument of change.

As the country disarms, for example, APL can focus its talent-2,800 of the country's top scientists and engineers on helping upgrade the nation's airports, which require extensive modernization to meet the needs of an increasingly sophisticated air traffic control system.

APL can position itself at the forefront of dual-use technologies. The lab has already performed critical experiments on the National Aerospace Plane (NASP).

The goal of this multibillion dollar program, funded by NASA and DoD, is the construction of a vehicle capable of taking off at conventional aircraft runways and of cruising at fast enough speeds to fly directly into low-Earth orbit.

And as a pioneer in the field of artificial Earth satellites, APL developed the Navy Navigation Satellite System known as Transit, which is now used extensively by the commercial shipping industry to pinpoint the ships' positions.

Colvard, as a young engineer at APL in the early 1960s, recalls working on the carly Transit system as a means of tracking the Soviets' Sputnik satellite. "We put it on a nuclear submarine and I went back to China Lake [Naval Weapons Center in California). My work was done."

Perils of a Navy Contractor

When Colvard returned to APL as second-in-command in early 1988, he found the lab had changed considerably over the past 25 years. As a prime Navy contractor, APL hasn't been spared from the tightening of accounting procedures that stem from the 1984 Competition in Contracting Act (CICA).

Although APL is a major division of the Johns Hopkins University, governed by the school's board of trustees, the lab's main sponsor has been the Navy since it was created in 1942 for the sole purpose of developing the Radio Proximity Puze capable of detonating shells that come within the "proximity" of a target-a weapon given credit for playing a major role in turning the tide for the United States in WWII.

Between CICA and the increased oversight of DoD contractor operations resulting from the III Wind procurement inves tigation, APL's "original goals are croded somewhat," Colvard says. When a nonprofit, private facility begins being treated more like a managed institution, it loses some flexibility, according to Colvard, who has spent the majority of his career working within the federal lab network at China Lake and at the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

"We're in a restrictive environment; and the high-technology world needs freedom," Colvard says.

Bostrom, who has been APL director since 1980, echoes Colvard's concerns. Both were scientists on APL's space program nearly 30 years ago and have watched as the oversight suddenly became

more stringent in recent years. "It happens a little bit at a time We acquiesce to each new rule, saying: it's not much of a burden. Then suddenly it is." Bostrom says.

To account for DoD-appropriated funds, which totalled $358 million in 1989 and are expected to grow to $400 million in 1990, APL must carefully break down and document each program, adding to "the administrative burden of doing business," Bostrom says.

"We can't always predict what we will learn from a program. We can lay out our approach, but we can't always estimate schedule and cost, not with R&D," he says.

World-Class Work

Although the Navy maintains R&D facilities at Penn State, the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of Washington-Seattle, APL is larger than the other three combined. And being attached to a prestigious, private university has catapulted APL into the position of being world class in the work it performs.

A team of APL scientists were on hand at Cape Canaveral when the Galileo spacecraft was launched from the shuttle Atlantis Oct 18. The APL-built Energetic Particle Detector, one of the nine experiment instruments aboard Galileo, will be used to measure the distribution and intensities of electron charged particles in Jupiter's magnetosphere, an area comprised of the planet's magnetic field.

APL's R&D for the Navy has included fleet air defense, missile systems perfor

and strategic assessment, and work on Navy command, control, and communica uons techniques and systems APL was instrumental in development, design and construction of the sophisticated. shipboard Acgis Weapons System, which can keep track of hundreds of aircraft in a

combat environment.

APL often collaborates with the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Balumore. Early joint efforts included work in nuclear medicine, particularly in tumor detecuon. In 1965, with the approval of thenJHU president Milton Eisenhower, a formal program in biomedical engineering was fused between the two divisions. The collaboration has led to a number of products for clinical use.

APL boasts of many "satellite firsts" while pursuing R&D for the advancement of space science and technology Those include: the first Doppler precision tracking of a satellite-Sputnik 1957-58-and subsequent development of standard Doppler tracking systems; the first use of the gravity gradient method to lock the antenna face of a satellite toward Earth in 1961; and, in 1972, the first satellite to employ a satellite disturbance compensation device to offset radiation pressure and atmospheric drag on a satellite.

Research on ocean thermal energy systems, arcing fault prevention, high tem perature materials, mine safety, lasers, gas detection and analysis, fuels, fundamentals of fluid dynamics and combustion, internal combustion engines, automated controls, advanced instrumentation and

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continued from previous page electric heaters have also been investigated at APL.

Serving Two Masters

In some ways, APL is a facility serving two masters: Johns Hopkins University and the Navy. The lab files extensive reports twice a year with the university's trusices at biannual meetings also atiended by Navy officials. JHU, in turn, signs an omnibus contract with the Navy each year for the work to be performed. Other federal agencies, including NASA and the Energy Department, then contract through the Navy for APL performed work. NonDoD work accounts for about 10 percent of that contract.

The majority of APL's budget is derived from the Navy contract. The university's major investment in its research facility is through the donation of the land and buildings, worth about $150 million.

"There is an understanding (with the Navy) on what work is appropriate for a university lab to undertake," Bostrom says JHU President Steven Muller has asked that no university employee become involved in covert intelligence gathering activities and that APL not become involved with any Navy "black contracts-highly classified projects-in peacetime. "The president (Muller) does n't want to be put in a position of having to lie, Bostrom says.

"We really look at any project before we take it on," Colvard says. There are

conducted at the facility, mostly chosen because the work is "demanding of our level of talent," he adds.

Unlike the personnel problem facing federal labs, where young scientists are becoming a precious commodity, APL can attract graduates with high grade points from the top institutions. "It's one of the facts of life here. We're connected to a world-renowned university and starting salaries are higher here (than in government), but not by much," Colvard says.

APL began offering graduate courses in electrical engineering in 1964. The educational program quickly expanded to include applied math, space technology. applied physics, computer science, and technical management.

Currently, 150 APL staff are teaching courses to 2,200 students, according to Bostrom

"We see ourselves directly involved in leadership, training people for the future," Colvard says. He expects the next ten years, while transitioning into the next century, to be "the most turbulent in the history of DoD. Suddenly, there is the disappearance of a "monolithic enemy." But with the growth of terrorism, the threat becomes "more diffused and more difficult," he says.

"When countries as small as Libya have high-tech weapons, the role of the Navy becomes more prominent," Colvard explains.

And even APL was created to

Just because the invention represents a scientific breakthrough, it has no guarantee of success in the marketplace.

That's the tough lesson being learned by Bernard Korenblit, director of technology transfer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "We're dealing in the world of economics and some of these devices are just too expensive," says Korenblit

When the World Health Organization asked biomedical researchers at APL to develop a single-use syringe to help curb the spread of infectious diseases like AIDS being transmitted through the shared use of needles, the lab developed the product. They did so by inserting an invisible polymer disk into the syringe that closes the flow hole after the first injection.

"You think they would beating a path to our door for it," Korenblit says.

But with no government rule requiring the use of the single-use syringe, there have been few takers for the product, which costs at least as much as a syringe that can be used many times. "We only hope some United Nations organization will pick up on it and give it to India or Pakistan," he says.

A similar scenario followed the development of the Intracranial Pressure Pill-a disk the size of a dime to be inserted right below the skull for sensing any dangerous pressure on the brain.

"It's a tough world out there, particularly for biomedical products which require FDA (Food and Drug Administra tion) approval," he says. A Search and Rescue Beacon developed at APL for use on commercial boats also floundered when few investors saw it as a viable

This single-use syringe developed at
APL is still looking for lakers.

But Korenblit and others at APL haven't given up. They've become heartened most recently by the QUEN Proces sor, a desktop supercomputer named after Dr. Quentin Dolecek, the APL scientist who designed this parallel processing supercomputer. APL recently signed an agreement to market and manufacture this product with Numerix Federal Systems Inc., McLean, Va.

APL has a patent office to review any inventions, looking to see whether it belongs to the government or whether it remains the property of APL "If it has civilian or commercial application, we look for a licensee. We very rarely do things here ready-for-manufacture." Korenblit says. Under APL's royalty-sharing agreement, the inventor receives 25 percent of any monies received from the

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By Carolyn Duffy STAFF WRITER

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lem-solving focus by developing close relationships with soldiers in the field. Engineers test their systems as far away as West Germany and Korea to understand the conditions under which their products operate and to get feedback from the ultimate users.

"It's just not good enough to build our little gee-whiz stuff," Reed says. "We have to get the soldier involved.... We're very hands-on people. That's historically been the culture here."

At a time when the military laboratories are under fire in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill for having poor facilities, outdated equipment, low pay and low morale, Harry Diamond is taking a positive approach. Reed says having a close relationship with soldiers in the field is helping him recruit top-quality engineers.

"Recruiting people isn't a problem," he says. "It's keeping them after five or seven years that's the problem. Our people will stay if the work is exciting and if they feel highly connected to the customer."

"The nature of the work that goes on at [Harry Diamond] is a strong factor in recruiting people," former director Don Dinger agrees. "It can be very sterile working...on theory and not getting to see the theory applied. Carrying ideas through to development creates and maintains a vitality in a laboratory that you see miss ing in labs that don't have that capability."

Solving the Army's Problems

that helps soldiers determine their location on a battlefield without receiving computer or satellite information. Over flat terrain, the engineers say, the system is 97 percent accurate. They are working to improve the accuracy for hilly terrain.

Another group of engineers has developed a hand-held listening device manually powered by an air pump similar to a blood-pressure gauge-rather than using electronics or batteries. As a passive system, no signals are emitted for detection, and fewer moving parts result in greater reliability.

A third Harry Diamond group built a mobile battlefield information processor, using commercially available hardware, an open system architecture and software developed at other Army laboratories. The processor collects, processes and disseminates combat information and allows the operator to track tactical situations at near real-time speeds.

Former director Dinger says the laboratory is particularly valuable to the Army because of this unique ability to transform an idea from chalkboard to prototype.

"[Harry Diamond) has not limited itself to science and technology. It has carried things through to assisting in the develop ment of systems," Dinger says. "It's important that a lab have that kind of balance, which makes it perhaps a better lab than some of the others."

From Fuzes to Nuclear Blasts

hile Harry Diamond engineers develop a wide range of military equipment, the laboratory's main focus is developing fuzes-small radar systems that detonate weapons when they near a target.

Harry Diamond Laboratories was formed in 1953 as an outgrowth of work in weapons development by the National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute for Standards and Technology. The new laboratory was named the Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratory after the inventor of the radio proximity fuze in

World War II. It was renamed Harry Diamond Laboratories in 1962 because the lab's interest was expanding beyond electronic fuzes into radar and nuclear testing.

Harry Diamond is

lead laboratory for the development of mulustatic, netted and millimeter-wave radars. Scientists also study battlefield information processing, acousto-optic signal processing and aided target recogni

tion.

Harry Diamond operates the world's largest gamma radiation sinulator, Aurora, for the Defense Nuclear Agency. Aurora simulates nuclear radiation, allowing scientists and engineers to test the surviv ability of both tactical and strategic military electronic systems. Harry Diamond, the lead DoD lab for anti-radiation study. also operates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) testing facility in Woodbridge, Va.. which employs 150 people.

Harry Diamond researchers conduct basic research, in such areas as photo lithography and fluidics, the use of liquid pressure to drive a device rather than electronics or mechanics. In fact, more than 1,000 patents have gone to lab employees.

Harry Diamond is one of seven lochnology-base laboratories in the Army's Laboratory Command, whose headquar ters is also located at the Adelphi facility. Formed in October, 1985, Labcom is part of the Army Matenel Command and has a $1 billion budget. Harry Diamond's bud get in 1989 was about $200 million.

"In a number of studies of military laboratories, Harry Diamond has been mentioned along with labs like the Naval Research Lab for technological excellence," says Cliff Lanham, who was in charge of technology transfer at Harry Diamond for 15 years. Lanham now manages the Army's domestic technology transfer program and says that both Harry Diamond Laboratories and the Electronics Technology and Devices Laboratory in Fort Monmouth, NJ. stand out among the Army's laboratories and research, development and engineering centers.

Lanham says the problem-solving attitude of Harry Diamond researchers does not mean "they are purveyors of old, mundane technologies," but that they use technologically sophisticated solutions only when needed.

"We're not going to come out with some wild technology and say to the soldier, 'You're going to love this," Lanham explains. "The idea is to get people to come to us with real problems for us to solve... We have to be problem solvers for the soldiers in the field or we wouldn't be an Army lab, we'd just be a lab."

A

fuze for the Patriot AntiTactical Missile, an air defense system that intercepts incoming tactical ballistic missiles. Now the lab monitors a contract with Bendix Corp., Towson, Md., which makes the fuzes. Building upon its experience in fuzing. Harry Diamond is the Army's

s policy makers study how the military laboratory system should be reformed and which facilities to consolidate or close, Harry Diamond officials say they expect their lab to emerge largely intact from any reorganizational effort. The reason, they say, is that the lab provides unique capabilities to both the Army and DoD in areas like nuclear survivability and high-power microwaves.

"HDL works in a number of unique areas where the Army has to have a strong in-house capability," Dinger says. "Its value was proven...during both the Korean and Vietnam wars when the laboratory was called upon to provide innovative solutions to problems that the Army had." "I think HDL would survive (a reorga continued on next page

Using a series of Apple Macintosh-based computer screens with color-coded symbols, FAAD sensors tell soldiers where the aircraft are, which ones are friendly or hostile, and can give information about the area's terrain, transportation routes, weather, and more. From the Macintosh, a gunner also can arm and fire eight pedestalmounted Stinger missiles.

The FAAD contractor designed a system that does everything the Army wanted it to do, says human factors engineer Dr. James Walrath, but the format was so cluttered no soldier on any battlefield could use it effectively.

"That's when the human factors guys took over," Walrath adds, designing readouts and controls a Spec-4 or -5 gunner could understand and use." It took four HEL human factors engineers two months to design the FAAD screen and symbols.

Eventually, HEL will send the improved equipment back to the Army Air Defense Artillery School in FL Bliss, Texas, which ordered the system built, and let the gunners play with it before it becomes an official battlefield tool.

Jack the Human Model