Technology Horizons

A Vision for Air Force Science and Technology

2010–30

Key science and technology focus areas for the US Air Force
over the next two decades that will provide technologically
achievable capabilities enabling the Air Force to gain the
greatest US joint force effectiveness in 2030 and beyond

Office of the US Air Force Chief Scientist

Originally released 15 May 2010 by the

United States Air Force Chief Scientist (AF/ST) as
Report on Technology Horizons: A Vision for Air Force
Science & Technology during 2010–2030
Volume 1
AF/ST-TR-10-01-PR

September 2011
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Technology horizons : a vision for Air Force science and technology 2010–30.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-58566-217-3
1. Aeronautics, Military—Research—United States. 2. Astronautics, Military—Research—
United States—History. 3. Aeronautics, Military—Technological innovations—United States.
4. Military research—United States—Planning. I. United States. Air Force. Office of the Chief
Scientist. II. Title: Vision for Air Force science and technology 2010–30.
UG643.T43 2011
358.4’070973—dc23
2011037300

Disclaimer

Technology Horizons is a product of the Office of the US Air Force Chief Scientist (AF/ST).
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air Force,
the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release;
distribution unlimited.

AFRI
Air Force Research Institute

Air University Press

Air Force Research Institute
155 North Twining Street
Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6026
http://aupress.au.af.mil
 Contents
Chapter Page

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

FOREWORD BY THE SECRETARY OF
THE AIR FORCE AND CHIEF OF STAFF
OF THE AIR FORCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
PREFACE BY THE CHIEF SCIENTIST
OF THE AIR FORCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
   1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
A Vision for Air Force Science and
Technology 2010–30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Lessons Learned from Prior Air Force
Science and Technology Visions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Organization and Conduct of Technology
Horizons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Organization of Results from Technology
Horizons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   2 STRATEGIC CONTEXT FOR AIR FORCE
S&T 2010–30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Relation to National Security Objectives . . . . . . . . . 21
Technology-Derived Challenges to Air
Force Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Strategic Implications of S&T Globalization . . . . . . 38
Federal Budget Implications for Air Force
S&T Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
   3 ENDURING REALITIES FOR THE AIR
FORCE 2010–30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Ensuring Interoperability with Legacy Systems . . . . 43
Sustainment Costs for Legacy Systems . . . . . . . . . . . 43
iv │ technology Horizons

Chapter Page
Importance of Low-Observable Systems . . . . . . . . . . 44
Energy Costs and Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Growing Role of the Cyber Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Need for “Soft Power” Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Manpower Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Budget Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Effective National S&T Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Continued International S&T Cooperation . . . . . . . 46
Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics Workforce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
   4 OVERARCHING THEMES FOR AIR
FORCE S&T 2010–30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
From Platforms to Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
From Manned to Remotely Piloted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
From Fixed to Agile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
From Control to Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
From Integrated to Fractionated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
From Preplanned to Composable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
From Single Domain to Cross Domain . . . . . . . . . . . 57
From Permissive to Contested . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
From Sensor to Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
From Strike to Dissuasion/Deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . 60
From Cyber Defense to Cyber Resilience . . . . . . . . . 61
From Long System Life to Faster Refresh . . . . . . . . . 62
   5 TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED CAPABILITIES
FOR THE AIR FORCE 2010–30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Alignment of Capability Areas with Air
Force Core Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Brief Descriptions of Technology-Enabled
Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Key Potential Capability Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
From Potential Capability Areas to Key
Technology Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
   6 KEY TECHNOLOGY AREAS 2010–30 . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Key Technology Areas Supporting Potential
Capability Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
 contents │ v

Chapter Page
Alignment of Key Technology Areas with
Overarching Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Summary of Key Technology Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
   7 GRAND CHALLENGES FOR AIR FORCE
S&T 2010–30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Challenge #1: Inherently Intrusion-Resilient
Cyber Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Challenge #2: Trusted, Highly Autonomous
Decision-Making Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Challenge #3: Fractionated, Composable,
Survivable, Autonomous Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Challenge #4: Hyperprecision Aerial Delivery
in Difficult Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
   8 SUMMARY OF TECHNOLOGY HORIZONS
VISION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Broad Range of Inputs to Technology Horizons . . . . 127
Elements of the S&T Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Essential Focus Areas for Air Force S&T
Investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
   9 IMPLEMENTATION PLAN AND
RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Recommendation #1: Communicate Results
from Technology Horizons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Recommendation #2: Assess Alignment of
S&T Portfolio with Technology Horizons . . . . . . . 138
Recommendation #3: Adjust S&T Portfolio
Balance As Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Recommendation #4: Initiate Focused Research
on “Grand Challenge” Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Recommendation #5: Improve Aspects of the
Air Force S&T Management Process . . . . . . . . . . . 142
vi │ technology Horizons

Appendix Page

   A Proposed Study for SECAF/CSAF Approval . . . . . . . . 145

   B SECAF/CSAF Tasking Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
   C Chief Scientist of the Air Force Transmittal Letter . . . 153
   D SECAF/CSAF Cover Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
   E Working Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Role of the Working Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Composition of the Working Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Air Domain Working Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Space Domain Working Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Cyber Domain Working Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Cross-Domain Working Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Working Group Participant Biographies . . . . . . . . . . 169
ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Studies, Reports, and Other Documents . . . . . . . . . . 193
Site Visits, Briefings, and Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
 Illustrations

Figure Page

   1 Headquarters Air Force studies to produce Air

Force S&T visions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   2 10+10 Technology-to-Capability process . . . . . . . . . . . 9
   3 Technology Horizons phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   4 Major elements of vision for Air Force S&T . . . . . . . . 14
   5 Supporting US joint force operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   6 F-22 supports Air Force air dominance . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   7 Russian/Indian T-50 PAK FA could pose
challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   8 MDNA Meteor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
   9 Python-5 AAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
   10 SPYDER advanced SAM system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
   11 B-52s and B-2s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   12 AGM-129A advanced nuclear cruise missile . . . . . . . . 31
   13 Aerial refueling and airdrop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
   14 Remotely piloted aircraft and directed-energy
systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   15 World regional research and development
expenditures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
   16 Overarching themes for Air Force S&T 2010–30 . . . . 50
   17 Notional process for identifying PCAs and KTAs
for air, space, and cyber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
   18 Mapping of potential capability areas across Air
Force service core functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
viii │ technology Horizons

Figure Page

   19 Technologies to augment human performance

and cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
   20 Virtual and constructive technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
   21 Manpower-intensive Air Force functions using
trusted autonomous systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
   22 Chip-scale atomic clocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
   23 Cold-atom devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
   24 Persistent near-space systems in the form of
ultra-long-endurance airships or autonomous
flight vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
   25 High-altitude, long-endurance intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance airship . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
   26 Single-stage ISR/strike vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
   27 Hybrid airship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
   28 Hybrid wing-body aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
   29 Highly efficient embedded turbine engine . . . . . . . . . . 88
   30 X-51 demonstrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
   31 BrahMos supersonic cruise missile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
   32 Laser directed-energy systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
   33 Small satellites composed from standardized
modular elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
   34 Improved space surveillance capability . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
   35 Superconducting artificial atom structures
visualized via amplitude spectroscopy and
metamaterials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
 Foreword
Technology Horizons is our vision for key Air Force science and tech-
nology investments over the next decade that will provide us with truly
game-changing capabilities to meet our strategic and joint force re-
sponsibilities. The coming decades hold high promise for amazing new
capabilities across the air, space, and cyber domains. Yet the Air Force
and our nation will also be confronted with substantial strategic, tech-
nology, and budget challenges. Our greatest advances will come with a
focused investment of resources in the most promising technologies.
The vision in Technology Horizons provides the shared awareness of the
challenges and opportunities that will enable us to achieve this focus.
Technology Horizons presents a clearly articulated and credible as-
sessment of the strategic environment and enduring realities we face. It
outlines a set of overarching themes that defines attributes our future
Air Force systems will need to prevail. New technology-enabled capa-
bilities are envisioned that meet key needs, including long-range strike,
deterrence tools, cyber resilience, energy efficiency, and automation
and enhanced human-machine interfaces, to help our most valuable
asset—our Airmen—be even more effective than today. We believe the
Air Force must boldly move forward to advance these technologies
through the dedicated, creative, and focused efforts of our science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce. The future is
ours to shape.
To implement this vision, we are concentrating a meaningful por-
tion of our Air Force Research Laboratory effort on the identified key
technologies. We will move forward in pursuing “grand challenges”
that will help achieve militarily useful capabilities. We will work
closely with our partners across the Department of Defense, govern-
ment, industry, academia, and allied nations to leverage the best in-
tellectual capital and facilities in pursuit of the most promising ideas.
And we will sustain our focus on these science and technology efforts
to maximize their likelihood of being transitioned into operational
capabilities meeting Air Force needs. We firmly believe that main-
taining our technical and operational superiority in this manner is
both necessary and attainable.
x │ technology Horizons

Therefore, we encourage all Airmen—indeed all warriors and our

other national and international partners—to read Technology Hori-
zons and seriously contemplate the transformative opportunities that
technology can enable in the coming decades. We call on you as Air-
men to contribute your intellectual energy to developing new frame-
works and novel concepts of operations to take maximum advantage
of these coming technologies. These are challenging times, but we
have no doubt that America’s Airmen will overcome the challenges
we face to provide the critical capability advances needed to ensure
the United States Air Force remains the world’s premier air force
through 2030 and beyond.

Michael B. Donley Norton A. Schwartz

Secretary of the Air Force General, USAF
Chief of Staff
 Preface
The proud heritage of the United States Air Force is closely inter-
twined with the advancement of science and technology (S&T), begin-
ning with the invention of mechanical flight. In 1945, two years before
the Air Force became a separate service, the world-renowned aero­
dynamicist Theodore von Kármán led our very first S&T vision, “To-
wards New Horizons,” for Army Air Force general Henry “Hap” Arnold.
Hap Arnold knew that “any air force which does not keep its doctrines
ahead of its equipment, and its vision far into the future, can only de-
lude the nation into a false sense of security.” Von Kármán noted that
“only a constant inquisitive attitude toward science and a ceaseless and
swift adaptation to new developments can maintain the security of this
nation.” In “Towards New Horizons” he advocated new developments
such as supersonic aircraft, air defense systems, and unpiloted vehicles,
better known as the ballistic missiles that helped win the Cold War.
Moreover, this groundbreaking work was the impetus for building the
Air Force scientific laboratory system and test infrastructure without
which today’s capabilities could not have been realized. Compared to
our adversaries at the start of World War II, the Air Force was trans-
formed from a technologically inferior force to the world’s most tech-
nologically advanced and formidable airpower within merely a decade.
Over a half century later, during the Gulf War, the Department of
Defense (DOD) and the Air Force experienced the benefits of contin-
ued shaping of the future through applied S&T developments. A swift
victory for the allied force with very limited civilian and coalition casu-
alties was made possible by precision-guided munitions (“smart bombs”)
enabled by the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS), en-
hanced situational awareness enabled by the Joint Surveillance and
Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), superior command and control
enabled by the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), air
superiority provided by F-117A Stealth aircraft, and air defense pro-
vided by Patriot missiles.
Today, in America’s efforts to provide stability, security, and pros-
perity to weakened or failing states, the center of gravity has transi-
tioned from military systems to civilian populations. Operational success
is once again enabled by previous S&T investments and innovations.
xii │ technology Horizons

These include remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), air/spaceborne multi-

intelligence sensing (radar, infrared, signals intelligence), distributed
command, control, and intelligence (e.g., distributed common ground
system), micromunitions, directed energy, and human terrain model-
ing. Collectively, these have enabled conducting persistent surveillance
(and thus have led to tactical patience), novel sensing of improvised
explosive devices, tracking of deceptive adversaries who hide in plain
sight, and protecting civilian populations, crucial in the battle for hearts
and minds.
In spite of these breathtaking advances, change continues to acceler-
ate. Last year alone, the Air Force added new career fields for cyber and
RPA operators, driving new requirements for technology advances.
What will determine success in future operational engagements re-
mains unknown, but it will most certainly involve S&T. In the words of
Air Force chief of staff Gen Norton A. Schwartz, “We cannot know
what the future holds, so in order to realize my vision of a consistently
powerful, capable Air Force, we will almost certainly need to pursue
initiatives not yet fully imagined.”
Today’s multipolar, fiscally constrained, and technology-filled world
demands vigorous and properly focused S&T investments to advance
the capabilities that the Air Force will need to fulfill its mission in an
uncertain future. Accordingly, the secretary of the Air Force and chief
of staff of the Air Force requested that the Office of the Chief Scientist
craft Technology Horizons. The former chief scientist of the US Air
Force, Dr. Werner J. A. Dahm (October 2008 to September 2010), skill-
fully responded by orchestrating expert insights from a wide range of
organizations, including the Air Force Research Laboratory, MAJCOMs,
Air Staff, operational squadrons, sister services, DOD agencies, other
federal agencies, federally funded research and development centers,
national laboratories, industry, and academia.
Technology Horizons begins by characterizing the strategic context,
noting today’s contested, congested, and competitive multipolar environ-
ment and underscoring technology-derived challenges to Air Force ca-
pabilities in air, space, and cyber, including new threats in areas such as
electronic warfare, directed energy, and GPS denial. Several enduring re-
alities that shape what we can do as an Air Force are then expressed.
These include not only budgetary constraints driven by growing human,
 preface │ xiii

sustainment, and energy costs but also opportunities to build upon

legacy systems as well as strong partnerships with our sister services,
DOD agencies, national laboratories, industry, and inter­national part-
ners. Technology Horizons next presents key overarching themes to help
guide and focus S&T efforts. These include, for example, fundamental
shifts toward agile, fractionated, and cross-domain systems operating in
increasingly autonomous fashion in contested environments.
Recognizing the intimate link between capability and technology,
Technology Horizons employed a unique methodology to chart the
most productive technology pathways toward the highest value capa-
bilities, including a focus on Air Force service core functions. The re-
sulting potential capability and key technology areas allow both our
operators and technologists to glimpse the art of the possible. More-
over, Technology Horizons provides an actionable plan to move forward
toward that future. Technologists have in hand an expert assessment of
those most promising areas in which to concentrate effort and a num-
ber of grand challenges that provide a context for beginning to inte-
grate diverse technologies. Operators have a roadmap with which to
begin considering future strategy, organization, and employment of
these advanced capabilities and to influence the direction of technology
development as it unfolds. For example, Technology Horizons identifies
“disproportionately valuable” technology areas suited to the strategic,
technological, and budget environments of 2010–30, such as flexible
autonomy, human cognitive augmentation, cyber and spectrum resiliency,
energy efficiency, and long-range strike.
The Air Force is at a pivotal time in its history. The confluence of stra-
tegic change, global technological advancement, and fiscal and natural
resource constraints causes some to wonder how we will maintain our
technological advantage. The importance of our technological advantage
goes well beyond national security, as noted recently by Pres. Barack
Obama: “Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our
health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been.”
The Technology Horizons vision enables the Air Force to vector its S&T
investments over the coming decade to enable technologically achievable
capabilities that can provide it with the greatest US joint force effective-
ness by 2030. As Air Force secretary Michael B. Donley observes, “Tech-
nology Horizons will shape our future Air Force research and develop-
xiv │ technology Horizons

ment priorities.” Because of its clarity and focus, Technology Horizons will
enable the Air Force to support the current fight and be responsive to Air
Force service core functions while at the same time advancing break-
through S&T for tomorrow’s dominant war-fighting capabilities.
Our potential adversaries have not missed the powerful lessons of
technological transformation and the advantages that accrue to an air
force that embraces this mind-set. We must remain as committed as we
were in 1945 to pursuing the most promising technological opportuni-
ties for our times, to employing the scientific and engineering savvy to
bring them to reality, and to having the wisdom to transition them into
the next generation of capabilities that will allow us to maintain our
edge. In the words of General Schwartz, “Even as we focus on winning
today’s war, we should also keep a watchful eye on the evolving 21st
century security environment. We must take steps today that will allow
future generations to meet—and shape—the challenges of tomorrow.
That will not be easy.” While we face substantial strategic, operational,
and economic challenges in the coming decade, Technology Horizons
has laid out a perspicuous vision to guide the scientific and technological
advancements necessary to sustain the operational superiority of our
Air Force into the horizon and beyond.

Dr. Mark T. Maybury

Chief Scientist of the US Air Force
Pentagon
 Acknowledgments
Technology Horizons was a major undertaking, and many people
made important contributions to it. It is apparent that an effort of this
scope, involving such a large number of people from so many different
organizations for nearly a year, can only be undertaken about once every
decade or so. With the process now completed and the final product
delivered, it is appropriate to call out some of the key individuals who
made among the greatest contributions to it.
Perhaps most noteworthy among these was Col Eric Silkowski, PhD.
In addition to serving as my military assistant in AF/ST, he was a full
participant in the fact-finding visits, briefings, and discussions involved
in this effort. He also served as a member of all four of the Technology
Horizons working groups and gave essential assistance with the writing
and editing of the final report volumes. His technical background in
engineering physics and his experience in numerous Air Force science
and technology roles and relevant management positions were immea-
surably important to this effort.
The MAJCOMs and product centers provided key inputs through-
out this effort. Several individuals in those organizations made espe-
cially important contributions, particularly Gen Donald Hoffman and
his staff in Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), Gen Robert Kehler
and his staff in Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), Gen Raymond
Johns and his staff in Air Mobility Command (AMC), and Lt Gen Ted
Bowlds and his staff at the Electronic Systems Center (ESC).
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) was an essential and
highly active contributor. Maj Gen Curt Bedke and later Maj Gen Ellen
Pawlikowski served as AFRL/CC during the course of the effort, and
they made the staff in Headquarters AFRL and across the laboratory
available to support the project in every way. Dr. Mike Kuliasha, AFRL’s
chief technologist at the time, was on all four working groups and made
key contributions throughout the effort. Many individuals from AFRL’s
technical directorates served on the working groups; among these, Dr.
Bill Baker, Dr. Alok Das, Mr. Jeff Hughes, Dr. Kamal Jabbour, Dr. Brian
Kent, and Dr. Jim Riker must be given special mention. They and oth-
ers across AFRL provided important background information and
fact-finding materials. Technology Horizons would not have been pos-
sible without the strong contributions that AFRL made to it.
xvi │ technology Horizons

Colleagues on the Air Staff and the Air Force Secretariat provided im-
portant inputs and feedback at essential phases of the effort. Especially
noteworthy contributions were made by Lt Gen David Deptula and his
staff in AF/A2, Lt Gen Phil Breedlove and the AF/A3/5 staff, Lt Gen
Chris Miller along with his staff in AF/A8, Dr. Jacqueline Henningsen
and her staff in AF/A9, and Mr. Bruce Lemkin and his staff in SAF/IA.
Many others should also be noted for their contributions. Key among
these are Dr. Tom Ehrhard of the Chief of Staff ’s Strategic Studies
Group, Dr. Janet Fender in Air Combat Command, Dr. Don Erbschloe
in AMC, Dr. Doug Beason in AFSPC, Dr. Mark Gallagher in AF/A9,
Mr. Gary O’Connell and Ms. Betsy Witt at the National Air and Space
Intelligence Center, Maj Gen Brad Heithold and his staff at the Air
Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency, Dr. Ned
Allen from Lockheed Martin, Dr. Richard Byrne from MITRE, and Dr.
Richard Hallion. Lt Gen Bob Elder, USAF, retired, provided particu-
larly important inputs on an early draft of the report.
The four working groups listed in appendix E were essential to Tech-
nology Horizons. Members of these groups not already noted above
also deserve special mention. They include Dr. John Bay, Mr. Doug
Bowers, Dr. Chris Colliver, Dr. Gregory Crawford, Dr. Roberta Ewart,
Col Robert Fredell, PhD, Mr. Jon Goding, Mr. Jonathan Gordon, Dr.
Thomas Hamilton, Dr. David Hardy, Mr. Dewey Houck, Mr. Richard
Mesic, Dr. Lara Schmidt, Dr. Dwight Streit, Dr. Marc Zissman, and Dr.
John Zolper.
Ms. Penny Ellis in AF/ST provided expert administrative support
throughout the effort. Given the number of site visits, fact-finding trips,
working group meetings, and briefings that were involved in producing
Technology Horizons, this was no small task, but it was one that she
performed with her characteristic skill.
Without the collective contributions made by these and many others,
Technology Horizons could not have been possible and would not have
reflected the broad range of inputs needed to develop a clear vision for
the most essential Air Force science and technology focus areas.

Dr. Werner J. A. Dahm

Chief Scientist of the US Air Force (2008–10)
Pentagon
 Executive Summary
From its inception, the Air Force has conducted a major effort
roughly once every decade to articulate a vision for the science and
technology (S&T) advancements that it should undertake to achieve
over the following decade to enable the capabilities it will need to pre-
vail. Six such S&T visions have been developed, beginning with Toward
New Horizons in 1945 led by Theodore von Kármán for Gen Hap Arnold,
through New World Vistas conducted in 1995.
Since completion of the latter, 15 years have passed without an up-
dated Air Force S&T vision. Technology Horizons represents the next in
this succession of major vision efforts conducted at the Headquarters
Air Force (HAF) level. In view of the far-reaching strategic changes,
rapid global technological advances, and growing resource constraints
over the next decade, this is an overdue effort that can help guide S&T
investments to maximize their impact for maintaining Air Force tech-
nological superiority over potential adversaries.

What Is Technology Horizons?

Technology Horizons is neither a prediction of the future nor a fore-
cast of a set of likely future scenarios. It is a rational assessment of what
is credibly achievable from a technical perspective to give the Air Force
capabilities that are suited for the strategic, technology, and budget en-
vironments of 2010–30. It is visionary, but its view is informed by the
strategic context in which these technology-derived capabilities will be
used. It is an articulation of the “art of the possible” but is grounded in
the knowledge that merely being possible is only a prerequisite to being
practically useful. It considers the spectrum of technical possibilities
but acknowledges that budget constraints will limit the set of these that
can be pursued.
It recognizes that increasingly more of the science and technology
that provides the basis for future Air Force capabilities is available
worldwide to be translated into potential adversary capabilities. It thus
has sought to envision not only US joint and allied opportunities for
using technologies, but also ways that adversary capabilities could be
xviii │ technology Horizons

derived from them using entirely different concepts of operations or on

the basis of entirely different war-fighting constructs. It acknowledges
that capabilities enabled by new technologies and associated operating
concepts often introduce new vulnerabilities not envisioned in the
original capability. It thus has also considered potential vulnerabilities
and cross-domain interdependences that may be created by second-
and third-order effects of these technology-derived capabilities.

Sources of Inputs
Technology Horizons received inputs from a wide range of organiza-
tions and sources. These included four working groups—one each in
the air, space, and cyber domains and another that focused on cross-
domain insights—that gave a broad range of subject matter expertise to
this effort. Working group members were drawn from the Air Force
S&T community, intelligence community, MAJCOMs, product cent-
ers, federally funded research and development centers (FFRDC), de-
fense industry, and academia. Further inputs were obtained from site
visits, briefings, and discussions with organizations across the Air
Force, the Department of Defense, federal agencies, FFRDCs, national
laboratories, and industry, including Air Staff and Air Force Secretariat
offices. Additional use was made of perspectives in several hundred
papers, reports, briefings, and other sources.

Elements of the Resulting S&T Vision

The vision from Technology Horizons to help guide Air Force S&T
over the next decade and beyond consists of the following elements:
1. Strategic Context
2. Enduring Realities
3. Overarching Themes
4. Potential Capability Areas
5. Key Technology Areas
6. Grand Challenges
7. Summary of S&T Vision
8. Implementation Plan & Recommendations
 executive summary │ xix

Overarching Themes for Air Force S&T

The strategic context and enduring realities identified in Technology
Horizons lead to a set of 12 overarching themes to vector S&T in direc-
tions that can maximize capability superiority. These shifts in research
emphases should be applied judiciously to guide each research area.
1. From … Platforms To … Capabilities
2. From … Manned To … Remotely piloted
3. From … Fixed To … Agile
4. From … Control To … Autonomy
5. From … Integrated To … Fractionated
6. From … Preplanned To … Composable
7. From … Single-domain To … Cross-domain
8. From … Permissive To … Contested
9. From … Sensor To … Information
10. From … Operations To … Dissuasion/Deterrence
11. From … Cyber defense To … Cyber resilience
12. From … Long system life To … Faster refresh

Potential Capability Areas, Key Technology Areas,

and Grand Challenges for Air Force S&T
Based on the strategic environment, enduring realities, and over-
arching themes, the remaining elements of the vision from Technology
Horizons are presented as follows to help guide the Air Force in making
choices about the most essential S&T efforts that must be pursued to pre-
pare for the environment of 2010–30. It identifies potential capability
areas (PCA) and maps these PCAs across the Air Force service core
functions to assess the range of impact they can have.
■■ It uses this set of PCAs to identify key technology areas (KTA)
that are most essential for the Air Force to invest in over the next
decade to obtain capabilities aligned with the strategic, technology,
and budget environments.
xx │ technology Horizons

■■ It additionally defines four “grand challenge” problems to advance

KTAs and integrate them in system-level demonstrations of sig-
nificant new capabilities.
■■ It presents an implementation plan that enables the elements of
this vision to be put into practice for guiding Air Force S&T ef-
forts to maximize resulting capabilities in 2030.

Major Findings
The single greatest theme to emerge from Technology Horizons is the
need, opportunity, and potential to dramatically advance technologies
that can allow the Air Force to gain the capability increases, manpower
efficiencies, and cost reductions available through far greater use of au-
tonomous systems in essentially all aspects of Air Force operations. In-
creased use of autonomy—not only in the number of systems and pro-
cesses to which autonomous control and reasoning can be applied but
especially in the degree of autonomy that is reflected in these—can pro-
vide the Air Force with potentially enormous increases in its capabili-
ties and, if implemented correctly, can do so in ways that enable man-
power efficiencies and cost reductions.
Achieving these gains will depend on development of entirely new
methods for enabling “trust in autonomy” through verification and
validation (V&V) of the near-infinite state systems that result from
high levels of adaptibility and autonomy. In effect, the number of pos-
sible input states that such systems can be presented with is so large
that not only is it impossible to test all of them directly, it is not even
feasible to test more than an insignificantly small fraction of them.
Development of such systems is thus inherently unverifiable by today’s
methods, and as a result their operation in all but comparatively trivial
applications is uncertifiable.
It is possible to develop systems having high levels of autonomy, but
it is the lack of suitable V&V methods that prevents all but relatively
low levels of autonomy from being certified for use. Potential adversar-
ies, however, may be willing to field systems with far higher levels of
autonomy without any need for certifiable V&V and could gain signifi-
cant capability advantages over the Air Force by doing so. Countering
 executive summary │ xxi

this asymmetric advantage will require as-yet-undeveloped methods

for achieving certifiably reliable V&V. The Air Force, as one the greatest
potential beneficiaries of more highly adaptive and autonomous sys-
tems, must be a leader in the development of the underlying S&T prin-
ciples for V&V.
A second key finding to emerge from Technology Horizons is that
natural human capacities are becoming increasingly mismatched to the
enormous data volumes, processing capabilities, and decision speeds
that technologies either offer or demand. Although humans today re-
main more capable than machines for many tasks, by 2030 machine
capabilities will have increased to the point that humans will have be-
come the weakest component in a wide array of systems and processes.
Humans and machines will need to become far more closely coupled
through improved human-machine interfaces and by direct augmenta-
tion of human performance.
Focused research efforts over the next decade will permit significant
practical instantiations of augmented human performance. These may
come from increased use of autonomous systems as noted above, from
improved man-machine interfaces to couple humans more closely and
more intuitively with automated systems, or from direct augmentation
of humans themselves. The latter includes drugs or implants to improve
memory, alertness, cognition, or visual/aural acuity, as well as screen-
ing of individuals for speciality codes based on brainwave patterns or
genetic correlators, or even genetic modification itself. While some
such methods may appear inherently distasteful, potential adversaries
may be entirely willing to make use of them.
Developing ways of using science and technology to augment hu-
man performance will become increasingly essential for gaining the
benefits that many technologies can bring. Significant advances and
early implementations are possible over the next decade. Such augmen-
tation is a further means for increasing human efficiencies, allowing
reduced manpower needs for the same capabilities or increased capa-
bilities with given manpower.
A further key theme is the need to focus a greater fraction of S&T
investments on research to support increased freedom of operations
in contested or denied environments. Three main research areas are
of particular importance: (1) cyber resilience, (2) precision naviga-
xxii │ technology Horizons

tion and timing in Global Positioning System (GPS)-denied environ-

ments, and (3) electromagnetic spectrum warfare. Additionally, the
study identifies further key priority areas where S&T investment will
be needed over the next decade to enable essential capabilities, in-
cluding processing-enabled intelligent sensors, directed energy for
tactical strike/defense, persistent space situational awareness, rapidly
composable small satellites, and next-generation high-efficiency gas
turbine engines.

Recommendations
Technology Horizons makes five major recommendations for guiding
Air Force S&T efforts to meet the strategy, technology, and budget
challenges over the next decade and beyond:
Recommendation #1: Communicate Results from Technology Horizons.
■■ Communicate the rationale, objectives, process, and key elements
from Technology Horizons via briefings offered to all HAF offices,
MAJCOMs, product centers, and the Air Force Research Labora-
tory (AFRL).
■■ Build broad awareness, understanding, and support for the Air
Force S&T vision from Technology Horizons.
■■ Disseminate Technology Horizons across all relevant organizations
beyond those that provided inputs to this effort.
Recommendation #2: Assess Alignment of the S&T Portfolio with
Technology Horizons.
■■ Assess alignment of AFRL’s current S&T portfolio with the broad
research directions and technology focus areas outlined in Tech-
nology Horizons.
■■ Identify the target fraction of the total Air Force S&T portfolio to
be aligned with the research directions and technology focus areas
identified in Technology Horizons.
 executive summary │ xxiii

Recommendation #3: Adjust the S&T Portfolio Balance As Needed.

■■ Identify research efforts in the current S&T portfolio that must be
redirected or realigned with the research directions and tech-
nology focus areas in Technology Horizons.
■■ Determine which of these efforts should be realigned, redirected,
or terminated to accommodate new research efforts that achieve
the needed direction and emphasis.
■■ Define new research efforts that will be started to allow broad re-
search directions and technology areas identified in Technology
Horizons to be effectively achieved.
■■ Implement changes in the AFRL S&T portfolio to initiate new re-
search efforts identified above and to realign, redirect, and termi-
nate existing efforts identified above.
Recommendation #4: Initiate Focused Research on “Grand Challenge”
Problems.
■■ Evaluate, define, and focus a set of grand-challenge problems of
sufficient scale and scope to drive major technology development
efforts in key areas identified here.
■■ Structure each grand challenge to drive advances in research di-
rections identified in Technology Horizons as being essential for
meeting Air Force needs in 2030.
■■ Define specific demonstration goals for each challenge that re-
quire sets of individual technology areas to be integrated and
demonstrated at the whole-system level.
■■ Initiate sustained research efforts in the AFRL S&T portfolio as nec-
essary to achieve each of the grand-challenge demonstration goals.
Recommendation #5: Improve Aspects of the Air Force S&T Manage-
ment Process.
■■ Obtain HAF-level endorsement of an AFRL planning construct
for S&T to provide the stability needed for effective mid- and
long-range development of technologies.
xxiv │ technology Horizons

■■ Define and implement a formal process for obtaining high-level

inputs from MAJCOMs and product centers in periodic adjust-
ments within the AFRL S&T planning construct.
■■ Develop and implement an informal process to obtain more fre-
quent inputs from MAJCOMs and product centers for lower levels
of the AFRL S&T planning construct.
 Chapter 1

Introduction

Technology Horizons was conducted over a nine-month period

to provide a vision for science and technology (S&T) in the Air
Force over the next decade and beyond. This chapter summarizes
the goals, organization, and execution of this effort and describes
how the results are presented.

The US Air Force today finds itself at an undeniably pivotal time in its his-
tory. It is without question the most effective and powerful air force in the
world, and the only air force that can truly project global power. That posi-
tion of strength was attained by organizing, training, and equipping a profes-
sional workforce for the entire range of functions essential to joint combat
and combat support, as well as for noncombat missions that the service is
increasingly called on to perform. Yet perhaps the single most important fac-
tor in achieving this position has been the unmatched technological advan-
tage that the US Air Force has attained over any of its competitors.
Today, however, the confluence of strategic changes, worldwide techno-
logical advancements, and looming resource constraints cause some to
wonder how the Air Force will maintain this position of superiority. As the
spectrum of conflict has grown, so too have the demands for a wider range
of capabilities across all facets of conflict. Unprecedented worldwide diffu-
sion of technologies is giving competitors access to capabilities that may
have the potential to offset important parts of USAF technological advan-
tages. At the same time, indications are that defense budgets in the coming
decade may make it increasingly difficult to achieve the pace of S&T in-
vestment that has provided the foundation for US Air Force superiority.

A Vision for Air Force Science

and Technology 2010–30
It is against this background that the secretary of the Air Force and
the Air Force chief of staff called for the chief scientist of the Air Force
to conduct the Technology Horizons study (see app. B). The study exam-
 2 │ Technology Horizons

ines technologies across the air, space, and cyber domains to develop a
forward-looking assessment, on a 20-year horizon, of possible offen-
sive and defensive capabilities and countercapabilities of the Air Force
and its potential future adversaries that could substantially alter future
war-fighting environments and affect future US joint capability domi-
nance. In doing so, Technology Horizons provides a vision for where Air
Force S&T should be focused over the next decade to maximize the
technology superiority of the US Air Force.

A Rational Technical Assessment, Not a Forecast or Prediction

Technology Horizons is neither a prediction of the future nor a fore-
cast of a set of likely future scenarios. Such efforts play a useful role, but
forecasts or predictions tend in most cases to overestimate the pace of
progress, even when technology overall is advancing at an undeniably
rapid pace. Equally important, efforts to forecast or predict the future
invariably miss one or more trivial events that can have a determinative
effect on the future that actually occurs. Chaos theory indicates that the
particular future that will occur be-
yond a short time horizon is the result
Our Air Force is at an- of a confluence of many events, the
other inflection point in product of which can be inherently
its history, where changes unpredictable with any useful cer-
in the strategic environ- tainty and can be influenced to leading
ment, new technologies, order by seemingly incidental events.
and changes in resources Neither is Technology Horizons a
combine to reshape our fantasy from technologists describing
capabilities and to set us a future in which technology will
in new directions. achieve seemingly boundless wonders.
The inaccuracy of such descriptions
—The Honorable Michael B. Donley
Secretary of the Air Force has over time served more to reveal
how difficult it in fact is to translate
technological possibilities into practi-
cally achievable systems while satisfying numerous operational con-
straints that may have nothing to do with the technologies themselves.
Rather, Technology Horizons is a rational assessment of what is credibly
achievable from a technical perspective to give the Air Force a set of
 INTRODUCTION  │ 3

capabilities that is suited for the strategic environment of 2010–30. It

identifies the key technology areas (KTA) where Air Force S&T invest-
ment is most critical for providing the service with the ability to adapt
and prevail across the spectrum of conflict in the air, space, and cyber
domains. It further addresses emerging cross-domain areas where en-
tirely new threats and opportunities exist.
While this study is visionary, its view is informed by the strategic
context in which these technology-derived capabilities will be used. It
is an articulation of the “art of the possible” but is grounded in the sci-
entific and engineering knowledge that merely being possible is only a
prerequisite to being practically useful. It not only considers the spec-
trum of technical possibilities but also acknowledges that budget con-
straints will limit the set of these that can be pursued.

Science and Technology for Materiel and Nonmateriel Solutions

Air Force capabilities and costs are closely interdependent. The costs
of normal operations consume resources that otherwise might be avail-
able to develop greater capabilities. Man-
power costs, for example, are consum-
ing an increasingly larger fraction of While we remain reso-
the overall Air Force budget. Tech- lute about the issues that
nology solutions that can reduce man- remain, we can, and we
power requirements or increase man- must, raise our sights to
power efficiencies via nonmateriel means focus on the longer-term
can thus have as much impact on fu- vision—an Airman’s vision
ture capabilities as can direct materiel
of constant innovation in
solutions. The S&T vision articulated
the control and exploita-
in Technology Horizons thus seeks to
identify “disproportionately valuable” tion of air, space, and
materiel and nonmateriel solutions over cyberspace.
the 2010–30 time frame. —Gen Norton B. Schwartz
US Air Force Chief of Staff
Technology Horizons looks at capa-
bilities on a 20-year time horizon but
recognizes that it can take a decade to
translate technologies from maturity into fielded systems. It therefore
is based on an approach that considers technology developments over
4 │ Technology Horizons

the next decade that can provide the basis for technology-enabled
capabilities over the following decade.
This effort also recognizes that increasingly more of the S&T that
provides the basis for future Air Force capabilities is available world-
wide to be translated into potential adversary capabilities. It consequently
has sought to envision not only US joint and allied opportunities for
using these technologies, but also ways that adversary capabilities and
“technology surprise” could be derived from them using entirely differ-
ent concepts of operations or on the basis of entirely different war-
fighting constructs.
Technology Horizons further recognizes that capabilities enabled by
new technologies and associated operating concepts often introduce
new vulnerabilities not envisioned in the original capability. It thus has
sought to consider potential vulnerabilities and cross-domain inter­
dependences that may conceivably be created by second- and third-
order effects of these technology-derived capabilities.

Can We Even Afford to Do Any of These Things?

With factors such as manpower, sustainment, and energy costs con-
suming increasingly more of the Air Force budget, and the outlook for
defense budgets suggesting little or no real growth over the next de-
cade, some may rightly ask whether a study such as this is even useful.
If the Air Force does not have the resources to put behind the S&T fo-
cus areas emerging from this effort, then what sense does it make to
identify these and develop an Air Force S&T vision around them?
At a minimum, such a view would overlook the fact that tech-
nologies themselves can help offset many of the costs noted above.
For instance:
■■ New technologies for increased cyber resilience of Air Force net-
works and systems can potentially free up manpower otherwise
consumed by additional cyber specialists and their training that
would be needed to defend these systems.
■■ Technologies can provide increased trust in autonomy to enable
reduced manpower requirements via flexibly autonomous sys-
tems, or equivalently autonomous systems can enable greater
war-fighter capabilities for the same manpower requirements.
 INTRODUCTION  │ 5

■■ Technologies can enable fuel cost savings by increases in turbine

engine efficiency, advances in lightweight materials and multi-
functional structures, advanced aerodynamic concepts and tech-
nologies, and adaptive control technologies.
■■ Technologies could potentially reduce manpower needs through
augmentation of human performance via implants that improve
memory, alertness, cognition, and visual/aural acuity; brainwave-
coupled human-machine pairings; or even screening of indi-
viduals for specialty codes based on brainwave patterns or ge-
netic correlators.
Such examples show how an Air Force S&T vision that properly ac-
counts for the role that budget constraints will play in the strategic en-
vironment can enable materiel and nonmateriel solutions to reduce Air
Force costs while expanding capabilities.
It should be further apparent that in a budget-constrained environ-
ment it is all the more essential to have a clear vision for where S&T
investments should be focused. It is precisely when resources are too
constrained to allow as broad a set of S&T investments as might be
desirable that the Air Force needs a vision for which technology areas
are most essential for it to invest in. While broader investment will be
needed to provide an appropriately hedged strategy, a substantial frac-
tion of total S&T efforts should be aligned with a vision that identifies
technology areas for enabling among the greatest Air Force capabilities.

Technology Horizons provides a vision for where a substantial fraction of Air

Force S&T investment should be focused to provide the greatest possible capabilities
in the strategic environment, budget environment, and technology environment
during 2010–30.

Lessons Learned from Prior Air Force

Science and Technology Visions
Throughout its history, beginning shortly before it became a separate
service, the Air Force has conducted a major study roughly once every
10 years to develop a vision for the role that S&T would seek to fill over
the following decade. As shown by the timeline in figure 1, six such
6 │ Technology Horizons

studies have previously been conducted, beginning with Toward New

Horizons in 1945 led by Theodore von Kármán for Gen Hap Arnold,
and continuing through New World Vistas conducted in 1995 by the
Scientific Advisory Board for secretary of the Air Force Dr. Sheila
Widnall and Air Force chief of staff Gen Ronald Fogleman.

1 3 6 7
Toward New Project New World Technology
Horizons Forecast Vistas Horizons
(1945) (1964) (1995) (2010)
High-impact studies
2 4 5
Woods Hole New Project
Summer Study Horizons II Forecast II
(1958) (1975) (1986)
Low-impact studies

1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010+

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Figure 1. Summary of Headquarters Air Force–level studies to produce

Air Force S&T visions. Technology Horizons is an overdue effort to pro-
duce an S&T vision appropriate for the strategic environment during
2010–30. (Courtesy of the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Air Force.)

Since completion of the latter, over 15 years have passed without a

major study to develop an updated S&T vision for the Air Force. Tech-
nology Horizons is the next in this succession of major S&T visions
conducted at the Headquarters Air Force (HAF) level. Particularly in
view of the fundamental strategic changes, rapid global technological
advancements, and forseeable resource constraints that define the envi-
ronment over the next decade, Technology Horizons is an overdue effort
to help guide Air Force S&T investments to include areas that will have
disproportionately valuable impacts on reducing costs and maintain-
ing capability advantage.
Technology Horizons seeks to help guide the S&T efforts of the Air Force over
the next decade to maximize their impact in the substantially different environ-
ment that the Air Force is now facing.
 INTRODUCTION  │ 7

Previous Air Force Science and Technology Visions

Figure 1 shows the six previous Air Force S&T vision studies that
have been conducted at the HAF level. The duration, size, composition,
organization, output, and impact of these have varied widely. The fol-
lowing observations can be made:
■■ These studies have been conducted over durations ranging from
nine months to, in one case, nearly two years.
■■ The numbers of participants involved has ranged from as few as
25 to nearly 500.
■■ Contributors have ranged from academia to the military, the gov-
ernment, and industry.
■■ Panels have in some cases been organized around technical dis-
ciplines, and in others around capability topics, as well as other
arrangements.
■■ Reports have ranged from concise summaries to more than a
dozen volumes and total lengths in excess of 1,300 pages.
■■ Impacts on technical directions, organization, and other aspects
of Air Force S&T have ranged widely, in part depending on how
responsive the studies were to the central issues of their time.
Michael Gorn gives detailed descriptions of the first five of these prior
Air Force S&T vision studies in his book Harnessing the Genie: Science
and Technology Forecasting for the Air Force 1944–1986.

Key Factors That Have Produced Successful S&T Visions

As the above summary suggests, and as detailed in the reference
noted, there is no correlation of the impact of these studies with either
the number of participants or the length of the reports they have pro-
duced. What correlations there are have principally to do with the types
of participants and the way that working panels have been organized.
Studies without representation in substantial numbers from the re-
search community have generally not been successful, though suffi-
cient operational inputs are essential to ground the discussions. Panels
organized along relatively narrow system themes appear, as might be
8 │ Technology Horizons

expected, to restrict the range of ideas for discussion, and essentially

preclude cross-domain insights created by interdependences among
systems. Studies with panels organized around broader themes have
generally proven to be more successful.

The principal factor that has determined the impact of prior S&T visions has
been the extent to which Air Force senior leadership has embraced them as a
means for helping to vector the direction of future Air Force research.

Organization and Conduct of Technology Horizons

Technology Horizons formally began in June 2009 and was completed
in February 2010. Organization of the study and the working groups
preceded the formal start of the effort.

Strategic Perspective as the Foundation

for an Effective S&T Vision
The Air Force S&T vision from Technology Horizons is predicated in
part on the principle that S&T can only be usefully guided in a study
like this by placing it in context with the strategic environment in which
the Air Force will be operating during the 2010–30 time frame it ad-
dresses. The technology areas that are recommended for Air Force S&T
to put special emphasis on are those that meet key needs dictated by
this strategic environment. Technology Horizons thus is not simply an
opportunity-driven technology vision but matches the demand-side
pull of the Air Force during 2010–30 with the opportunity-side push
that realistically achievable technologies can enable.

Technology Horizons “10+10 Technology-to-Capability” Process

To match technology opportunities with the needs of this strategic
environment, the study used a 10+10 Technology-to-Capability pro-
cess, shown in figure 2.
This recognizes that even if it were possible to project the state of
technologies 20 years into the future to the 2030 horizon date of the
study, this effort is instead designed to help the Air Force envision what
technology-enabled capabilities it could credibly have to meet its key
 INTRODUCTION  │ 9

Cross-Domain

Air
STEP 1 STEP 2
Future US
10-Years-Forward 10-Years-Forward Space
Capabilities
Science & Technology Capabilities
Projection Projection Cyber

S&T Resulting
Potential
Capabilities Advances Capabilities
Adversary
Today in 10 Years in 20 Years
Capabilities
(2010) (2020) (2030)
Cyber
10-Years-Back 10-Years-Back US
Science & Technology Countercapability Counter- Space
Investment Need Technology Need capabilites
STEP 4 STEP 3 Air

Cross-Domain

Figure 2. Schematic of the 10+10 Technology-to-Capability process

used in Technology Horizons. (Courtesy of the Office of the Chief Sci-
entist of the Air Force.)

needs in 2030. Thus, the study must determine the state to which the
necessary supporting technologies can be brought in time to enable
those capabilities by 2030.
Owing to the 10 years or so that it typically takes to transition tech-
nology readiness level (TRL) 6 technologies into fielded capabilities,
this means that the underlying date to which technologies must be pro-
jected is 2020. That, in turn, allows a
determination of the technology in-
vestments that need to be under way Technology Horizons will
today to enable these Air Force capa- help the Air Force obtain
bilities in 2030. the greatest effectiveness
The required 10-year projection in a budget-constrained
from today’s state of technology can be environment; if we invest
credibly made with acceptable uncer- in the right technology
tainties, even under the rapid pace at areas we can have un-
which technologies are advancing. By
beatable capabilities.
contrast, the uncertainties if a 20-year
projection of technologies were needed
10 │ Technology Horizons

from today’s state would be far greater than twice as large. Thus, the
2030 time horizon of Technology Horizons requires only a credible pro-
jection from 2010 to 2020 of the technologies needed to enable a set of
capabilities that could be fielded in 2030 to meet key needs of the Air
Force in the strategic environment.
A further foundation of this study is that potential adversaries will
have access to much of the same S&T as the Air Force does over this
period and thus can develop red force capabilities from these technolo-
gies that—driven by entirely different concepts of operations—may be
entirely different from blue force capabilities developed from them. It
thus becomes essential to envision not only credible US technology-
derived capabilities in 2030, as shown on the right in figure 2, but also
potential adversary capabilities along with appropriate US counter­
capabilities, as also shown on the right in the figure.
Developing the technologies needed to enable these counter­
capabilities then involves another pair of 10-year steps, in this case
shown in red in figure 2. The first of these steps begins with the needed
countercapabilities in 2030 and projects back to the required state of
the underlying enabling technologies in 2020. The second of these then
does a further 10-year projection back to 2010 to determine what S&T
investments would need to be under way today to thereby enable these
countercapabilities in 2030.
The result is the four-step 10+10 Technology-to-Capability process
in figure 2:
■■ Step 1: Beginning with the state of technologies today, a 10-year
forward projection is made of the state to which these technolo-
gies, or ones derived from them, can be brought in 2020.
■■ Step 2: From the state to which technologies can be brought in
2020, a further 10-year forward assessment is made of the US ca-
pabilities that could be enabled by them to meet key needs of the
strategic environment in 2030.
■■ Step 3: Potential adversary capabilities and needed US counter­
capabilities are envisioned in 2030, and a 10-year backward pro-
jection is made of the state to which technologies needed to en-
able these countercapabilities must be brought by 2020.
 INTRODUCTION  │ 11

■■ Step 4: From the required state of technologies for US capabilities

and countercapabilities in 2020, a further 10-year backward pro-
jection is made to identify the needed S&T activities that must be
under way today to enable these.
In practice the precise dates must necessarily be interpreted some-
what notionally. In the cyber domain, for instance, it is essentially im-
possible to project technology 10 years into the future, and in that case
the process was instead applied in a “5+5” framework.
Similarly, while this process has formed the foundation of the study,
its implementation has been as much qualitative as quantitative. A fully
quantitative assessment for each of the technologies considered here
would have been beyond the scope even of this effort. Moreover, by
ensuring that working groups and other sources of inputs to this effort
included subject matter experts with technical and operational knowl-
edge, quantitative aspects of this process could be addressed in part by
assessments of these 10-year projections based on technical and opera-
tional judgment.
Identifying technology focus areas that will be most essential over
this period has as much to do with technical and operational judg-
ment as with direct quantitative analysis. As with any vision, the na-
ture of S&T forecasting prevents it from being reducible to an algo-
rithm that might seek to obtain similar insights. An articulation of
the S&T that will be most valuable for the Air Force over the next two
decades is ultimately the result of a set of reasoned, technically rooted,
and objective judgments informed by an understanding of their stra-
tegic context.

Broad Range of Inputs to Technology Horizons

As figure 3 shows, Technology Horizons consists of five phases, in-
cluding three working phases designed to obtain a broad range of sub-
ject matter expertise in the implementation of the underlying process
summarized above. Phases 2 and 3 included working groups, one each
in the air, space, and cyber domains, and a fourth group that focused
on cross-domain insights. The functions of these groups, their compo-
sitions, and their participants’ backgrounds are summarized in appen-
dix E. The working groups included representation from the
12 │ Technology Horizons

March 2009 June 2009 October 2009 December 2009 March 2010
Technology Horizons 2010+

Planning Working Working Working Implementation

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 4
Objectives, Air, Space, Cyber Cross-Domain Findings, Dissemination of
Tasking, and Domain Working Working Conclusions, and Results and
Organization Groups Group Recommendations Implementation

Report and Outbrief

Figure 3. Organization of Technology Horizons into planning, working,

and implementation phases to provide an S&T vision that supports Air
Force capability needs in the 2010–30 strategic environment. (Cour-
tesy of the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Air Force.)

■■ Air Force S&T community,

■■ intelligence community,
■■ MAJCOMs,
■■ product centers,
■■ federally funded research and development centers (FFRDC),
■■ defense industry, and
■■ academia.
In addition to inputs from these groups, Technology Horizons ob-
tained a broad range of further inputs from site visits, briefings, and
discussions involving organizations across the Air Force and elsewhere
in the Department of Defense (DOD), federal agencies, FFRDCs, na-
tional laboratories, and industry. These included inputs from Air Staff
and Air Force secretariat offices, MAJCOMs and product centers, di-
rect reporting units, and field units. A list of these additional sources of
inputs is given in the bibliography.
 INTRODUCTION  │ 13

Additional operational perspectives were gained from briefings, vis-

its, and discussions with
■■ Air Combat Command (ACC),
■■ Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC),
■■ Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), and
■■ Air Mobility Command (AMC).
The effort further made use of a wide range of perspectives in nearly
200 reports and technical papers from the Air Force Scientific Advisory
Board, the Defense Science Board, and other organizations. A partial
list of these additional sources is given in the bibliography.

This exceedingly broad range of inputs to Technology Horizons has allowed

development of a forward-looking, balanced, and effective S&T vision for the
Air Force in 2010–30.

A Focus on Cross-Domain Insights

While the working group phases were organized along the air, space,
and cyber domains, it was recognized that some of the most important
results from Technology Horizons would deal with cross-domain in-
sights. A further working group was thus formed to address cross-­
domain effects, defined here to include the following:
■■ A technology in one domain that can produce unexpected effects
in another domain; the effects could be beneficial or detrimental.
■■ A technology in one domain that requires supporting functions in
another domain and thus creates interdependencies between two
or more domains.
■■ A technology that falls “between” the classical domains but has
implications in one or more of them.
Given the emphasis on cross-domain insights in this effort, the results
from Technology Horizons are intentionally not presented along tradi-
tional domain boundaries.
14 │ Technology Horizons

The understanding and exploitation of cross-domain effects will grow in

importance in the next decade and beyond, and the organization and
execution of Air Force S&T will need to ensure access to such cross-domain
insights and capabilities.

Organization of Results from

Technology Horizons
Chapter 1: Introduction. Sum-
Strategic Context marizes the Air Force vision for
S&T, lessons learned from its
prior S&T visions, organization
Enduring Realities and conduct of the study, organi-
zation of results, and caveats for
Overarching Themes the study.
Chapter 2: Strategic Context
Potential Capabilities for Air Force S&T 2010–30. Sum-
marizes the principal strategic
factors that will drive needed Air
Key Technology Force capabilities during this
time and factors relevant to the
Grand Challenges worldwide S&T arena that will
impact the Air Force’s ability to
maintain superior technological
Principal Findings capabilities over this time frame.
Chapter 3: Enduring Reali-
Implementation Plan ties for the Air Force 2010–30.
Recognizes key drivers that will
Figure 4. Major elements of the remain largely unchanged during
Technology Horizons vision for Air this time and that will constrain
Force S&T over the next decade. the Air Force’s ability to shape it-
(Courtesy of the Office of the Chief self for the future using S&T in
Scientist of the Air Force.) ways it might in an otherwise un-
constrained environment.
 INTRODUCTION  │ 15

Chapter 4: Overarching Themes for Air Force S&T 2010–30. Iden-

tifies specific overarching themes that will be central for meeting Air
Force needs dictated by the above strategic context and enduring reali-
ties; these themes form the essential foundation for the most important
Air Force S&T during 2010–30.
Chapter 5: Technology-Enabled Capabilities for the Air Force
2010–30. Defines a set of technologically achievable capability areas
that are well aligned with the overarching themes identified above and
then uses these notional capabilities to identify key enabling technolo-
gies that are most impactful across this set.
Chapter 6: Key Technology Areas 2010–30. Determines a cross-
cutting set of enabling technology areas that are most determinative
over the notional capabilities identified above and identifies them as
being among the most important areas to emphasize in Air Force S&T
over the next decade and beyond.
Chapter 7: Grand Challenges for Air Force S&T 2010–30. Lists a
set of challenge problems that will help focus Air Force S&T over the
next decade on the KTAs identified above through technology devel-
opment efforts followed by systems-level integrated technology dem-
onstrations to achieve stretch goals.
Chapter 8: Summary of Technology Horizons Vision. Describes
the major S&T focus areas that the Air Force should emphasize during
the next decade and beyond to enable technologically achievable capa-
bilities that will give it the greatest joint force effectiveness by 2030.
Chapter 9: Implementation Plan and Recommendations. Outlines
the proposed plan for implementing the S&T vision from Technology
Horizons, provides actionable recommendations to vector Air Force
S&T over the next decade, and identifies corresponding primary and
supporting organizations to implement these.

The above chapters of Technology Horizons give the results of a rational

approach for determining—from the enormous range of technologies that
could benefit the Air Force—a set of guiding principles for the most important
S&T to be conducted over the next decade.
16 │ Technology Horizons

Caveats
Value of Technologies Not Specified in Technology Horizons
No effort such as this can usefully list all S&T that is important for
the Air Force to pursue, nor has it been an objective of Technology Hori-
zons to do so. Instead, this effort has sought to identify some of the
most valuable technology areas for Air Force S&T—ones that the Air
Force must pursue to enable key capabilities that it will need to be as
effective as possible in the strategic environment during 2010–30. The
KTAs identified herein thus necessarily represent only the most essential
fraction of the overall research portfolio that should be pursued by the
Air Force.

Focus on Key Technology Areas versus Broad

Technical Domain Areas
Technology Horizons was designed to identify KTAs that are among
the most essential for Air Force S&T to focus on over the next decade
and beyond. These technology areas aggregate individual narrow re-
search topics into usefully defined focus areas that Air Force S&T
should emphasize but avoid dictating the individual lines of research
within these areas that might prove to be most productive. Focusing on
such KTAs is the appropriate level of specificity for an S&T vision.
At the other extreme, overly broad domain area descriptors such as
“material science,” or even broad technical domains within these such
as “nanotechnologies,” do not provide a comparable level of specificity
needed to usefully serve as a guide for Air Force S&T. KTAs identified
as most essential for the Air Force to pursue are sufficiently specific to
usefully guide S&T investment choices but are not so narrow as to dic-
tate individual research projects to be pursued.

Connection between Air Force S&T and

the Acquisition Process
Air Force S&T is the initial phase of the process by which technolo-
gies are matured and, where appropriate, are transitioned for acquisi-
tion by the Air Force. As a consequence, often-discussed improvements
to the defense acquisition process could potentially improve the transi-
 INTRODUCTION  │ 17

tion of technologies from S&T into systems for acquisition. At least

some of the elements of the S&T vision identified in Technology Hori-
zons could potentially achieve greater likelihood of practical impact
from improvements to the defense acquisition process. However, at-
tempts to suggest such improvements to the acquisition process were
outside the scope of this effort.
 Chapter 2

Strategic Context for

Air Force S&T 2010–30

Air Force S&T can be prudently vectored only when placed in

the context of the strategic environment in which the Air Force
will be operating during this period. This chapter summarizes
key elements of this environment that will drive needed Air
Force capabilities over the next two decades.

The strategic environment that the Air Force faces over the next two
decades is substantially different from that which has dominated
throughout most of its history. Since the end of the Cold War, long-
standing paradigms that had ordered thinking and policy with respect
to conflict have been replaced by a far broader range of threats and a
less predictable set of challenges. Potential conflict scenarios now in-
clude not only major powers and regional players, but also failed and
failing states, radical extremists, and a range of nonstate actors that
spans from organized militias, informal paramilitary organizations,
warlords, and warring ethnic groups to pirates, organized criminals,
terrorists, and even individuals who may come from around the globe
or across the street. Potential drivers of conflict range from religious
extremism and ethnic disputes to resurging nationalism and aspira-
tions for regional influence, and from competition over energy and
natural resources to the need to contain nuclear proliferation and the
spread of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons.
Unable to compete in direct engagements with US joint forces, ad-
versaries have learned to exploit newfound asymmetric advantages.
Some have sought to shift the battle into the media, exploiting public
intolerance for real or contrived collateral damage—strikes that by his-
torical standards are being conducted with near surgical accuracy are
now often deemed unacceptable. Others have learned to exploit US de-
pendence on the space and cyber domains, developing ways to disrupt
or deny these to achieve potentially far-reaching cross-domain effects.
Some are seeking access to nuclear capabilities. The Cold War, by com-
20 │ Technology Horizons

parison, seemed remarkably simpler, and the set of capabilities that the
Air Force needs to be effective in the foreseeable strategic landscape is
substantially different and appears less certain than ever before.
To aid in deterring conflict with major world powers, the United
States must correctly understand their potential capabilities in the 2030
time frame, many of which are derived from investments in technolo-
gies that support development of military systems. China, for example,
has focused much of its recent military modernization on investments
in high-end asymmetric capabilities, emphasizing electronic warfare
(EW), cyber warfare, counterspace operations, ballistic and cruise mis-
siles, advanced integrated air defense systems (IADS), and theater un-
manned air vehicles. By combining imported technologies, reverse en-
gineering, and indigenous development, it is seeking to rapidly narrow
the technology and capability gap between the People’s Liberation
Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the US Air Force. China is also using
“military diplomacy” to expand security cooperation activities with
Asian states and engage foreign militaries in a range of cooperative ac-
tivities. Russia as well is developing and fielding new technology-derived
military systems, including advanced fighter aircraft such as the T-50
PAK FA and advanced IADSs such as the SA-21. Global diffusion of
advanced military systems through arms transfers, not only by Russia
and China but also by France, Israel, and many others, is making sub-
stantial technology-derived capabilities available around the world.
Among these, China in particular is widely regarded as having
both the economic resources to devote to such advanced technology-
development programs and the national desire to achieve the resulting
regional and global influence that such systems may bring. Its grow-
ing economy has helped pay for a massive military modernization
program that includes not only new fighter aircraft but also naval
vessels and missiles.
Yet at the same time, China’s one-child policy has created serious
demographic imbalances in gender and age distributions, which are
requiring it to direct resources toward social programs that could po-
tentially constrain these ambitions. As a result, carefully chosen cost-
imposing strategies developed through appropriate US technology-
enabled capabilities can provide an opportunity to slow the potential
threat that this military buildup creates. If we understand the strategic
 strategic context  │ 21

environment that the Air Force faces over the next two decades, we can
make the right choices to obtain the mix of capabilities that will best
meet US national security objectives.

Relation to National Security Objectives

Military forces exist to develop and offer a range of operational and
strategic options to the president for meeting national security objec-
tives and to joint force commanders for meeting military objectives.
Throughout its history, the US military’s consistent dual purpose has
been not only to fight and win the nation’s wars but also to protect the
nation and its global interests in ways that extend beyond direct com-
bat operations. The latter acknowledges that military forces are as much
an instrument employed for shaping the global environment, for deter-
ring those who might otherwise harm the nation’s interests, and for
providing regional stability where needed to advance the nation’s
broader interests as they are for warfare itself.
At the broadest level these functions include the following:
■■ Protecting and defending the homeland from external attack.
■■ Deterring conflict with major global powers and encouraging re-
gional stability through use of Air Force global vigilance, global
reach, and global power.

Figure 5. Supporting US joint force operations in so-called irregular or

hybrid warfare while preparing for possible larger conflicts with a
near-peer adversary is among the Air Force’s greatest challenges.
(Courtesy US Air Force.)
22 │ Technology Horizons

■■ Preparing to fight and win the nation’s wars as part of the joint
force.
■■ Providing military assistance to civilian authorities.
■■ Enabling national and partner instruments of power to prevent or
contain local or regional instabilities.
■■ Supporting the nation’s cooperative relationships with interna-
tional partners and its interactions with competitors.
In fulfilling these objectives to protect the nation and advance its
global interests in times of peace, crisis, and combat, the Air Force is
distinct among the joint services in its ability to use the speed, range,
flexibility, precision, and lethality of aerospace forces to provide global
vigilance, global reach, and global power. Its mission requires it to look
at the world from an inherently strategic perspective as it conducts
global, regional, and tactical operations in the domains of air, space,
and cyberspace in concert with the other services, with other national
instruments of power, and with US international partners. This re-
quires capabilities for the full spectrum of nonconflict and conflict op-
erations, ranging from emergency response and humanitarian relief to
counterinsurgency operations, major warfare, and homeland defense.

Technology-Derived Challenges
to Air Force Capabilities
The immense asymmetric advantage that the Air Force’s air domi-
nance has for much of the past 50 years provided for US and partner
forces could be potentially put at risk by worldwide development and
proliferation of numerous advanced-technology-derived threats, in-
cluding integrated air defenses, long-range ballistic missiles, and ad-
vanced air combat capabilities. There have been equally important ad-
vances in counterspace technologies, in cyber warfare technologies,
and in understanding the cross-domain effects that these technologies
can produce on the US ability to conduct effective air, space, and cyber
domain operations. The combined effects of these and yet further tech-
nology advances that will occur over the next decade, and their transi-
tion into worldwide military systems, are essential elements of the stra-
 strategic context  │ 23

Figure 6. High-end systems such as the F-22 support Air Force air domi-
nance over the near term to midterm. Technology Horizons seeks to
define the S&T that will enable the next generation of Air Force capa-
bilities that are suited to the needs of the 2010–30 strategic environ-
ment. (Courtesy US Air Force.)

tegic context that determines the most essential Air Force S&T over
this period.

Advanced Electronic Systems

Land-based air defenses and air combat systems in particular are
benefitting from increasingly widespread use of advanced electronics,
including active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar technolo-
gies to enable more capable detection and targeting capabilities. These
have evolved to counter nontraditional threats such as remotely piloted
aircraft (RPA) and cruise missiles. Advanced EW systems, including
approaches based on digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) sys-
24 │ Technology Horizons

Figure 7. Advanced fighter development efforts, such as the fifth-generation

Russian/Indian T-50 PAK FA, could pose a significant mid- to long-term
challenge to US joint air dominance. (Reprinted from Wikipedia, s.v.
“Sukhoi PAK FA,” accessed 20 June 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Sukhoi_PAK_FA.)

tems, that are being developed and proliferated today have shown sig-
nificant abilities even against advanced AESA radars. Further advances
in miniaturization and speed of electronics—and the massive process-
ing capabilities that these are enabling—are likely to yield further sub-
stantial increases in the capabilities of EW systems over the next de-
cade and beyond.

Advanced Missile Seekers

Advances in electro-optical tracking, such as dual-band electro-­
optical-infrared (EO-IR) imaging arrays with wide fields of view and
advanced digital tracking filters, can be expected to significantly in-
crease over the next decade. Early implementations of combined
EO-IR imaging seekers in systems such as the highly maneuverable
beyond-visual-range Python 5 air-to-air missile (AAM) have shown
the effectiveness of these technologies. Corresponding implementa-
tions of these advanced technologies in surface-to-air missiles (SAM),
 strategic context  │ 25

such as the SPYDER antiaircraft missile system based on the Python 5,

are extending these technology advances to area defense systems. Such
lethal systems are already beginning to be proliferated via international
sales. Their capabilities will appear even more broadly over time, both
through indigenous developments that use these technologies and
through subsequent global sales of such systems.

High-Speed Air-Breathing Missile Propulsion

High-speed air-breathing missile propulsion technologies have steadily
advanced over the past two decades and are now enabling substantially
more capable supersonic AAMs, SAMs, and cruise missiles. Such a
ramjet-derived propulsion system is used in the MBDA-developed Me-
teor, a Mach 4+ AAM that is likely to enter service in 2013. A ramjet-
derivative propulsion system is also being used in the Russian/Indian
BrahMos Mach 2.5+ cruise missile, brought into service in 2007, and a
related ramjet-based air-breathing propulsion system is used in the In-
dian Mach 2.8+ Akash SAM, first fielded in 2009. The speed, range, and
terminal maneuverability benefits of such air-breathing supersonic
propulsion technologies will likely accelerate development of missile
systems to exploit these advantages.

Advanced Integrated Air Defense Systems

Development and proliferation of advanced IADSs have progressed
substantially. Longer-range mobile SAMs in the Russian S-300 family,
such as SA-10s/20s, which have been exported widely, and corre-
sponding Chinese-manufactured derivatives of “double-digit SAMS,”
such as the HQ-10/15/18, represent significant challenges. These sys-
tems can potentially engage legacy fighters at ranges beyond their
own ability to hold such targets at risk. More advanced Russian sys-
tems, such as the S-400, have advanced tracking and longer-range ca-
pabilities and could potentially be sold internationally. Modern inte-
grated systems such as these are enabling a fundamental change in air
defense strategy, from traditional point defense of key targets to
broader antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) approaches based on offen-
sive and defensive counterair operations.
26 │ Technology Horizons

Passive Sensors and Electronic Warfare

Further development of passive sensor technologies such as infrared
search and track (IRST) systems over the next decade or more will
make air defense systems increasingly resistant to electronic suppres-
sion. Potential adversaries are also upgrading to networked air defense
systems with advanced electronics and signal processing capabilities
that can make jamming far more difficult. AESA radars are allowing
active electronic beam forming and steering. EW capabilities of potential
adversaries are increasingly shifting from jamming to sophisticated
spoofing, made possible largely by the continuing miniaturization of
commercial electronics. Availability of inexpensive yet massively
capable electronic processing and storage not only allows the number
and sophistication of such devices to grow rapidly but also to be fielded
in relatively low-cost EW pods and decoys. Software changes allow
these threat systems to be readily adapted to new countermeasures.

Figure 8. Technologies such as the ramjet-derivative propulsion system

on the MDNA Meteor are beginning to enable high-speed AAMs with
greater range and terminal maneuverability. (Courtesy MBDA–Th Wurtz.)
 strategic context  │ 27

At the same time, an overlap has developed between electronic and

cyber warfare, especially in the wireless radio-frequency (RF) domain.
The technological sophistication, diversity, and proliferation of ad-
vanced EW systems present a substantial challenge to US air domi-
nance. New technology-derived approaches will be needed across the
spectrum of standoff and close-in EW capabilities, including electronic
attack, protection, and support techniques suited to permissive, con-
tested, and highly contested environments.

Shoulder-Fired Surface-to-Air Missiles

Next-generation shoulder-launched SAM systems can be expected
to further add to the threats that advanced technologies pose. Current
“low end” man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) are afford-
able enough to buy in large quantities and can be readily dispersed,
hidden, and employed for close-in air defense. Further advances in
miniaturization of electronics and processing are likely to produce sub-
stantially more capable systems at price points that may permit compa-
rably widespread global diffusion.

Ballistic and Cruise Missiles

The emergent long-range air defense capabilities of several potential
adversaries have serious implications for US airpower. Additionally,
ballistic and cruise missiles with growing mobility, range, maneuver-
ability, and precision pose further threats to Air Force systems and
their ability to deliver the power projection on which much of US
strategy is based. This is especially the case in the western Pacific, where
China has fielded conventional ballistic missiles and cruise missiles
with significant reach. By 2015 China is expected to have hundreds of
DF-15 ballistic missiles and DH-10 cruise missiles capable of reaching
much of the western Pacific. Advanced medium-range ballistic missiles
such as the DF-21, DF-25, and the intercontinental-range DF-31 may
be in service in significant numbers, and a DF-41 advanced inter-
continental ballistic missile (ICBM) may be under development.
The threats posed to US air bases in the Pacific by ballistic missiles
create significant technology challenges for maintaining airpower pro-
jection in this region. The long ranges required for operations in the
28 │ Technology Horizons

Pacific entail substantial tanking requirements that put a premium on

long-range strike capabilities and fuel-efficient propulsion systems. The
air-sea battle concept based on synchronized Air Force and Navy op-
erations against a potential near-peer competitor in this region may
also require significant new capabilities.

Figure 9. Dual-mode EO-IR focal-plane array seeker technology, as on

the Python-5 AAM, can give wide field-of-view imaging infrared capa-
bility and full-sphere beyond-visual-range engagement. (Reprinted from
Wikipedia, s.v. “Python [missile],” accessed 20 June 2011, http://en
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(missile).)

Figure 10. Advanced SAM systems, such as the SPYDER that combines
Python-5 EO-IR missiles with active radar-guided missiles, can provide
highly capable area defense capabilities. (Reprinted from Wikipedia, s.v.
“SPYDER,” accessed 20 June 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPYDER.)
 strategic context  │ 29

Advanced Fighter Aircraft

Russian development of the Sukhoi T-50 PAK FA fifth-generation
fighter, reportedly in a joint effort with India, is an indicator that the
United States must continue to develop its capabilities to maintain air
dominance. The aircraft will reputedly include substantial technology-
derived advances over all prior potential competitor aircraft, including
significant low observable (LO) capability, advanced AESA radar, ad-
vanced avionics, and supercruise capability. Early flights of the PAK FA
in January and February 2010 suggest a serious development program
that has reached an advanced stage of engineering refinement. Re-
ported Chinese efforts to develop one or more J-XX fifth-generation
fighters appear not to be as far advanced, but the resources that may
be available to devote to these efforts suggest such a capability could
be fielded within the time horizon of this study. In general, fifth-
generation fighter systems, if deployed against the United States,
have the potential to pose substantial challenges to our air domi-
nance over the next decade.

Remotely Piloted Aircraft

Growth in military use of remotely piloted vehicles has been rapid as
forces around the world explore increasingly wider uses for them, in-
cluding surveillance, strike, EW, and others. These will include fixed-
wing and rotary-wing systems, airships, hybrid aircraft, and other ap-
proaches. They will have increasingly autonomous capabilities allowing
remote pilots to declare their overall mission intent but permit these
systems to adapt autonomously in the local environment to best meet
those objectives. Some systems may operate collaboratively in multiple-
craft missions to increase survivability and deliver effects that could
not be achieved individually. Technologies are enabling such increas-
ingly autonomous systems to exchange data on their respective states
in order to adjust their mission planning and adapt to their changing
environment. Autonomous aerial refueling capability will enable long-
range and long-endurance operations. While most remotely piloted
systems will likely have limited capabilities, some will incorporate LO
technologies, advanced EW functions, and directed energy (DE) strike
capabilities. Price points of some systems could allow them to be ac-
30 │ Technology Horizons

quired in numbers sufficient to present significant challenges for cer-

tain types of missions.

Directed-Energy Systems
Laser-based and high-power, microwave-based DE systems being
developed by several nations will play an important role in the strategic
context of 2010–30. The success of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associ-
ates (MDA) in tracking, targeting, and destroying a representative mis-
sile in February 2010 with an integrated, airborne, megawatt-class
chemical laser demonstrated the potential of strategic-scale systems.
Ground-based lasers are likely to appear for air defense and other roles,
as will airborne microwave-based systems that can disable or defeat
electronic systems. More recent solid-state laser technologies are en-
abling tactical-scale systems for potentially revolutionary airborne self-
defense and low-collateral-damage strike capabilities. Emerging fiber
laser technologies as well as diode-pumped alkali lasers may allow later
versions of such systems to be made even smaller for integration in a
much wider set of platforms, including fighters. DE systems will be
among the key “game changing” technology-enabled capabilities that
enter service during this time frame.

Figure 11. The stand-up of Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC)
has consolidated all Air Force assets for the nuclear mission, including
B-52s and B-2s, under a single major command. (Courtesy US Air Force.)
 strategic context  │ 31

Space Control
US joint force dependence on the space domain is a further key com-
ponent of the strategic context for Air Force S&T during 2010–30. Reli-
ance on assured access to military space systems is essential to meet the
demand for global intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), and
communications. Potential adversaries recognize our critical depen-
dence on space assets and are developing means for disrupting our ac-
cess to those assets, or even for incapacitating or destroying those as-
sets. Jammers allow interference with satellite uplinks and downlinks,
and cyber attacks can disrupt ground control segments. Some are de-
veloping the means to gain access to space themselves. Others are mak-
ing use of increasingly capable commercial space-based imaging capa-
bilities and space-based imagery freely available via the Internet at
levels of resolution that not long ago were accessible only to the intel-
ligence community.

Figure 12. Continuing to strengthen the Air Force nuclear enterprise,

such as with the AGM-129A advanced nuclear cruise missile shown
here, remains the top US Air Force priority. (Courtesy US Air Force.)
32 │ Technology Horizons

Global Positioning System Denial

The broad dependence of US joint war-fighting capabilities on precision
navigation and timing from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites
has made local or regional GPS denial a high priority for adversaries.
Beyond preventing access to positioning information, inexpensive low-
power GPS jammers and spoofers can deny accurate timing informa-
tion that is at least equally critical to US systems. China’s efforts to field
its Beidou-2 (Compass) positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) sat-
ellite network and Russia’s fielding of its Global Navigation Satellite
System (GLONASS) suggest the role that navigation warfare via GPS
denial and spoofing may play in the strategic thinking of these and
other nations.

Space Launch Capabilities

Altogether, 11 nations today have orbital launch capability, and
roughly 50 possess orbiting satellites. In 2009, with the launch of its
Omid telecommunications satellite, Iran became the ninth country to
have developed the capability to place indigenously developed satellites
into low Earth orbit (LEO) using indigenously developed launch sys-
tems. This was achieved with its Safir-2 space launch vehicle, a deriva-
tive of the Iranian-developed Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile
(MRBM) that itself is believed to trace to the North Korean Nodong-1
MRBM. A subsequent Iranian launch in February 2010 showed the ca-
pability of its Kavoshgar-3 rocket.
Iran further claims to be developing a larger Simorgh orbital
launcher, and North Korea too is seeking to develop a satellite launch
capability. Countries with these sophisticated capabilities could po-
tentially develop ICBM systems. Moreover, private corporations now
operate 19 launch sites throughout the world, providing launch op-
tions for nations seeking to gain access to space. In 2009 the first or-
bital launch using a commercially developed liquid-fueled rocket oc-
curred when Space-X put a Malaysian satellite into LEO using its
Falcon-1 launcher, and its evolved expendable launch vehicle (EELV)-
class Falcon-9 rocket had its first launch in 2010.
 strategic context  │ 33

Satellite Technologies
Technologies are also enabling a range of “small sats” with masses be-
low about 200 kilograms (kg), some of which can already today provide
significant military capabilities. They include microsatellites with masses
between 10 and100 kg, nanosatellites with masses between 1 and 10 kg,
and picosatellites with masses below 1 kg. The latter include “CubeSats”
measuring just 10 centimeters on a side, which meet published design
standards that allow their deployment by common low-cost mechanisms.

Figure 13. Air mobility operations, including aerial refueling and air-
drop, will remain both challenging and increasingly critical for sup-
porting Air Force and US joint force operations. (Courtesy US Air Force.)

Combined materiel and launch costs for such systems are as low as
$100K. They are drawing extensive interest from universities, compa-
nies, and others around the world, and numerous such systems have
been launched. Efforts are under way to develop low-cost, standard-
ized, on-demand orbital imaging systems for such small satellites. They
represent a further aspect of the increasing low-cost access to space
that is available to numerous potential adversaries.

Direct-Ascent Antisatellite Capabilities

Offensive counterspace capabilities are also growing, most notably
in antisatellite (ASAT) warfare capabilities. In 2007 China became the
third known country with a proven ASAT capability when it conducted
an unannounced launch of a modified DF-21 intermediate-range bal-
34 │ Technology Horizons

listic missile, designated the KT-1 space-launch vehicle, to destroy its

own defunct Feng Yun-1C meteorology satellite. Essentially any nation
with a space launch capability could potentially field a rudimentary
ASAT program. The dual use of civilian and military rockets being de-
veloped by several countries, including Iran, North Korea, India, and
Israel, could lead to rapid growth in the number of players with the
technical capability to develop ASAT systems.

Directed-Energy ASAT Technologies

China’s demonstrated direct-ascent ASAT capability comes in addi-
tion to open-source reports of Chinese and Russian efforts to develop
directed-energy ASAT capabilities, primarily in the form of ground-
based lasers. Even relatively low-power lasers can temporarily blind or
dazzle EO and IR sensors in ISR satellites. At somewhat higher power
levels, they can permanently disable these detector arrays or can degrade
the effectiveness of solar panels and other components to render a satel-
lite inoperable. At sufficiently high power, they can induce thermal over-
loads in satellites or even destroy them directly. The rapid time scales on
which these effects can be achieved make satellite self-protection ex-
tremely challenging. In principle such ground-based laser ASAT sys-
tems can be made mobile and widely dispersed, further complicating
satellite protection at the terrestrial end.

Co-orbital ASAT Systems

Beyond direct-ascent kinetic-kill ASAT capabilities and ground-
based lasers for directed-energy ASAT capability, co-orbital satellites
represent a further emerging ASAT concern. Such systems might be
relatively small satellites designed to provide an on-demand kinetic-kill
capability or might have laser-based or microwave-based DE capabilities
to degrade or destroy satellites. Co-orbiting satellites could also provide
an adversary counterspace options beyond ASAT capability by, for in-
stance, interfering at relatively close ranges with satellite uplink and
downlink transmissions. Such small, maneuvering, co-orbiting satellites
also offer many other options for lethal and nonlethal “proximity opera-
tions” in support of counterspace efforts.
 strategic context  │ 35

High-Altitude Nuclear Detonation Effects on Space Systems

Beyond the well-known prompt electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effect
of a high-altitude nuclear detonation that affects terrestrial and air-
borne electronics, a further long-term effect can specifically disable
space systems. Such a nuclear detonation would act to populate Earth’s
Van Allen radiation belts with large numbers of energetic electrons
produced from beta decay of fission fragments. These high-energy
electrons would remain trapped for years by Earth’s magnetic field. Sat-
ellites in LEOs or highly elliptical orbits (HEO) would be disabled from
effects of the ionizing electrons on critical satellite parts over months or
years as they pass through the resulting enhanced radiation belts. This
could occur as a side effect of a regional nuclear war or as a deliberate
effort by a rogue nuclear adversary seeking to cause massive economic
damage to the industrial world.

Figure 14. Increasingly capable RPA systems (left) are being used
worldwide, while DE systems (right) may achieve tracking, targeting,
and destruction of such systems. (Courtesy US Navy [left] and US Air
Force [right].)

Orbital Debris
Increasing amounts of orbital debris also pose serious threats to
space assets, as demonstrated by the February 2009 collision between a
functioning Iridium-33 satellite and a defunct Russian Kosmos-2251
satellite. The collision itself produced nearly 400 new pieces of orbital
debris. By comparison the 2007 Chinese kinetic-kill ASAT demonstra-
tion produced between 20,000 and 40,000 debris pieces. There are in
36 │ Technology Horizons

fact some 1,600 conjunctions predicted every day within the accuracy
of current analyses. Just two weeks prior to the Iridium-Kosmos colli-
sion, a discarded 4-ton Chinese upper-stage rocket body passed within
48 meters of the 8-ton European Envisat Earth-observation satellite,
producing a one-in-70 chance of a collision that by itself would have
doubled the entire catalog of human-made objects in orbit.

Cross-Domain Vulnerabilities of Air, Space, and Cyber Systems

Space has long been recognized as an operational domain with capa-
bilities far beyond the original supporting functions that it provided for
the air domain. The cyber domain as well has come to be recognized as a
domain of its own beyond the supporting functions that it originally pro-
vided for the air and space domains. Yet Air Force systems and opera-
tions in the air, space, and cyber domains are highly interdependent. Re-
sulting cross-domain effects associated with this interdependence have
only recently begun to be understood. They include opportunities for
gaining synergies through properly orchestrated combined operations in
all three domains to achieve more than the sum of individual operations.
However, they also include far-reaching cross-domain threats that arise
from these interdependences, many of which are only recently being
widely recognized. Potential adversaries will increasingly seek to exploit
these cross-domain influences. The challenge is to continue gaining the
synergistic cross-domain benefits of these interdependences while mini-
mizing the potential vulnerabilities that they can create.

Cyber Domain Challenges

While the cyber domain was originally envisioned mainly in the context
of computer software, hardware, and networks, it is now recognized as en-
compassing the entire system that couples information flow and decision
processes across the air and space domains. It thus comprises traditional
wired and fiber-optic computer networks based on electromagnetic (EM)
waveguides, but also free-space wireless transmissions of voice, data, and
video at radio frequencies, optical wavelengths, and other parts of the EM
spectrum, in addition to the hardware and software associated with such
systems. Viewed in this way, the enormous cross-domain opportunities
and threats presented by the cyber domain become more clearly apparent.
 strategic context  │ 37

Coupling of Cyber, EW, and ISR Vulnerabilities

Cyber domain opportunities and vulnerabilities apply not only to
traditional network warfare and information warfare but also extend to
all aspects of EM spectrum warfare. The latter encompasses certain as-
pects of EW, some of which in turn have close synergies with ISR and
other operations in both the air and space domains. This strong cou-
pling of all three Air Force operational domains through the EM spec-
trum reveals how essential freedom of operation and control of the
spectrum will be both for protecting against cross-domain vulnerabili-
ties and enabling the potentially enormous benefits that can come from
cross-domain synergies.
Potential adversaries have recognized these cross-domain vulnera-
bilities and the resultant opportunities that could be presented to them.
Because US joint force operations have evolved to become highly depen-
dent on the cyber domain, the strong integration and interdependence
of all three Air Force operational domains provide most potential ad-
versaries with an inherently asymmetric advantage. They have found
that attacks through cyberspace allow them to create tactical, opera-
tional, and strategic effects at low cost and with relative impunity. Most
see the cyber domain as a relatively inexpensive venue within which
they can potentially offset many of the Air Force’s current overwhelm-
ing advantages in the air and space domains.
For instance, as China undertakes its force modernization, it does so
at a time when cyber threats and opportunities are being understood.
It thus has an asymmetric advantage in being able to build a military
cyber infrastructure that could potentially be less vulnerable than that
which had been put in place much earlier by US joint forces. Develop-
ing the ability to make Air Force operations resilient to cyber attacks—
as distinct from the current emphasis on protecting adversary access to
cyber systems—will become increasingly important.

Cyber Operations in Untrusted Environments

Other countries are increasingly becoming the majority providers of
equipment and infrastructure for cyber systems. Particularly in cyber
networking technologies, markets have judged foreign-based sources
to be comparably capable and less costly than US providers. This situa-
38 │ Technology Horizons

tion is causing critical mission traffic to pass over enterprise architec-

tures that involve significant foreign control and that therefore cannot
be fully verified with regard to trust/integrity. This includes foreign
suppliers of both hardware and software, creating risks to critical mis-
sions that must operate in inherently untrusted cyber environments.
Although these cyberspace systems can greatly enhance mission effec-
tiveness, a clear understanding of the resulting vulnerabilities they cre-
ate in key mission areas is typically lost in the rush to gain the benefits
of cyber-enabled systems. As Air Force capabilities across the air, space,
and cyber domains become increasingly reliant on such systems, a key
challenge will be to effectively manage the risks associated with having
to operate in environments that are inherently untrusted.

Strategic Implications of S&T Globalization

Further aspects of the strategic context affecting Air Force S&T dur-
ing this time originate from changes that are occurring due to global-
ization of science and technology. Over the next two decades, the
United States will not dominate science and technology—or the world
economy—the way it has over the past 50 years. Already today, the sub-
stantial S&T gap that once existed between the United States and much
of the rest of the world is closing rapidly. Some say this is the result of
US inability to continue educating and advancing a competitive work-
force in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Yet regardless of how well the United States addresses that challenge, it
is at the other end of the “gap” that most of the change is occurring.
The rest of the world has recognized science and technology as central
to national economies that can compete effectively in the knowledge-
based global marketplace. They have sent their best and brightest to be
educated, often at US universities, and many have returned home to
build education systems that, over time, have allowed development of
substantial indigenous science and engineering workforces. Some of
these countries have also used internal resources to develop the indus-
trial capacity needed to translate science and engineering knowledge
into technology-derived products and capabilities. The effect of these
investments is that the worldwide S&T gap will continue to close
 strategic context  │ 39

regardless of what the United States may do. The United States and
DOD will be competing on an S&T playing field that is substantially
different than it was a decade or two ago.
In parallel with this, knowledge and information have become readily
available worldwide. Just a decade ago, gaining access to the technical
papers needed to understand the results of prior development efforts
on any given topic around the world, and thereby identify the most
productive avenues for further work, was a significant challenge and a
substantial barrier to entry in most technical fields. Today the Internet
puts literally thousands of technical papers published every day at
nearly anyone’s fingertips. The literature search needed to understand
the status of any given field and determine the best ways to advance it
may be only a few mouse clicks away. The net effect is a rapid and mas-
sive global diffusion of science and engineering knowledge that has
fundamentally changed how technology advancements made on one
side of the world can be translated into militarily relevant systems on
the other.
At the same time there has been a growing convergence of the key
technologies involved in worldwide consumer products with the tech-
nologies needed for enabling many advanced military systems. This
trend has been driven primarily by the role that advanced electronics
technologies—once largely the domain of high-end military hard-
ware—have come to play in the consumer products market. Today, the
technical level of the electronics, processing, and software in many or-
dinary consumer devices may differ only marginally from those in
many high-end military systems, and in some cases exceeds these.
The effect has been to create a global science and engineering work-
force having technical skills that can be readily converted from develop-
ing consumer products to developing substantial military capabilities.
Similarly, enormous investments being made worldwide in legitimate life
sciences and biotechnology research are providing the knowledge and
workforce that can enable others to develop closely related biological
weapons capabilities in a relatively short time. In short, the advancing
globalization of S&T is bringing knowledge, technology, and industrial
capacity developed for the consumer market within reach of a far wider
range of players who can readily transform these into militarily capable
40 │ Technology Horizons

systems. Others will find easy access to the resulting technology-derived

military systems in international arms markets.

Europe (Western,
Central, Eastern) Asia (East
$313 (28.2%) South, West)
North America
$343 (31.0%)
$393 (35.5%)

Africa and Middle East

$15 (1.3%)

Latin America
and Caribbean
$26 (2.4%)

Pacific
$18 (1.6%)

World Total = $1,107

Figure 15. Regional research and development (R&D) expenditures in

billions of dollars and percentage of world total, showing North America,
Europe, and Asia as roughly equal in R&D investment. (Adapted from
National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 [Ar-
lington, VA: National Science Foundation, 2010].)

A further effect of the globalization of S&T and the resulting rapid

pace at which technical advances are being made is that the lifetime of
many such advances is becoming remarkably shorter. In part due to the
sheer number of scientists and engineers now working worldwide in
technical fields, the pace of both technical innovation and obsolescence
has increased sharply. In the consumer products market, it is the in-
novation cycle that receives the most attention, but in the military sys-
tems market it may be the obsolescence cycle that is more important.
As a result, the lifetime of at least some technology-derived military
systems may not be nearly as long as it has been in past decades. This
can be expected to impact defense acquisition choices as well as the
S&T investment decisions needed to support these.
 strategic context  │ 41

Federal Budget Implications for

Air Force S&T Strategy
A final essential aspect of the strategic context that will guide Air
Force S&T during 2010–30 is the influence that federal budget pres-
sures will have. Combined impacts of the federal debt, the aging popu-
lation, and federal entitlement promises made through Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid have begun what will become over the next
several decades an unprecedented drain on the federal budget that will
increase rapidly in coming years. The first of 77 million retiring baby
boomers born between 1946 and 1964 became eligible for Social Secu-
rity benefits in January 2008. Their numbers will grow at a rate of four
million per year through 2026, and they will continue to draw entitle-
ment benefits through 2050.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has calculated that the
cost of these benefits will grow from 8.4 percent of the gross domestic
product (GDP) today to 14.5 percent by 2030, and 18.6 percent by
2050. By comparison, the entire federal budget today is just 20 per-
cent of the GDP. At current rates, the CBO has estimated that by 2049
these entitle­ments would consume every other federal program ex-
cept interest on the federal debt. Even with potential changes in
entitle­ment benefits, the looming federal budget pressures will be im-
mense and will necessarily impact the range of S&T and other Air
Force efforts that can be pursued.
 Chapter 3

Enduring Realities for the Air Force

2010–30

This chapter notes several enduring factors that will continue to

influence Air Force S&T needs and the environment in which
Air Force S&T will be conducted over the next two decades.
Beyond elements of the strategic environment in the previous
chapter, additional key factors represent enduring needs of the
Air Force in 2010–30 and form essential background for an
S&T vision to guide investment choices over this period.

Ensuring Interoperability with Legacy Systems

In 2030 many manned, RPA, and other systems that the Air Force
operates today will continue to be needed and remain in use. Ensuring
interoperability with these systems, especially as the technologies in
newer systems advance rapidly, will become an increasing challenge.
Technologies that can be cost-effectively integrated in these systems to
upgrade their capabilities, or that otherwise enable these legacy sys-
tems to interoperate effectively with newer systems, will become even
more important than they are today.

Sustainment Costs for Legacy Systems

Sustainment is essential to the Air Force mission. As legacy air plat-

forms and other systems continue to be used throughout this period
and as new platforms and systems are introduced during this time,
technologies to support improved sustainability or to reduce costs as-
sociated with sustainment will continue to be essential.
44 │ Technology Horizons

Importance of Low-Observable Systems

LO technologies and the systems that employ them for long-range
penetrating and persistent strike are among the most distinguishing
elements of the Air Force. While advanced IADSs may over time
create an increasingly challenging environment for these critical
systems, LO systems will remain essential for the ability they give to
penetrate defended airspace, for the sensitivities they demand in
the air-defense systems of potential adversaries, and for the potential
secondary benefits that this can create for other technology-based
capabilities. Technologies to extend affordable LO capabilities will
remain essential.

Energy Costs and Availability

Reducing Air Force energy costs, especially the costs associated with
aviation fuel usage, and increasing the assured availability of energy,
including fuels and base energy, will continue to be growing challenges
during 2010–30. As with other Air Force costs, fuel and energy outlays
will reduce the availability of resources that could otherwise be used to
provide increased capability dominance. The need for advances in a
broad range of technology areas to reduce fuel use—including propul-
sion, structures, aerodynamics, and controls, as well as technologies to
allow increasing use of alternative fuels—will remain important, as will
technologies to enable air base operations with increasingly greater in-
dependence from the electricity grid.

Growing Role of the Cyber Domain

During the past decade, no other technology domain has grown in
importance as rapidly as the cyber domain. Understanding of potential
vulnerabilities that cyber systems create has grown from defending
computer networks to include network-enabled RF systems and other
parts of the EM domain, as well as hardware and software supply-chain
vulnerabilities. This domain has become centrally important for main-
taining Air Force mission assurance and for enabling entirely new mis-
 enduring realities │ 45

sion capabilities. While the defensive aspects of cyber warfare may im-
prove somewhat as systems developed in the “precyber” age are retired,
cyber warfare at various levels will continue to grow rapidly in impor-
tance in the 2010–30 environment.

Need for “Soft Power” Capabilities

Air Force missions have always included many types of other-than-
conflict operations, including emergency response, humanitarian relief,
peacekeeping missions, and contingency operations as well as joint exercises
and other cooperative activities with international partners. The role of these
missions has grown in recent decades and will likely continue to expand over
the next two decades. There will be an enduring need for technologies that
can enable a wide range of Air Force capabilities that support these types of
missions, including better multilevel security solutions to facilitate sharing
of information, systems, and training with international partners.

Manpower Costs
Manpower costs associated with pay and benefits are consuming a
significantly growing fraction of the total Air Force budget, pressuring
resources for all other functions that support Air Force missions. Tech-
nologies that can enable the same or greater mission effectiveness with
reduced manpower requirements can free up resources to permit
greater overall Air Force capability. For example, these may include
technologies for increasingly autonomous systems and methods to in-
crease trust in them; for augmentation of human performance; for im-
proved processing, exploitation, and dissemination (PED) of ISR data;
and for reducing maintenance and sustainment costs. The need to fo-
cus S&T efforts on these and other technologies to reduce manpower
costs will continue to become increasingly important.

Budget Constraints
Air Force budgets throughout this period will likely remain con-
strained. As noted in chapter 2, combined impacts of the federal debt,
46 │ Technology Horizons

the aging population, and federal entitlement promises made through

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have begun an unprecedented
drain on the federal budget that by 2030 will consume nearly three-
quarters of the entire budget. Even if reductions in entitlement prom-
ises are enacted and federal taxes as a percentage of the GDP are raised
substantially over today’s rates, the effect of these factors will be to place
increasingly severe limits on Air Force budgets over this period.

Effective National S&T Partnerships

The Air Force has consistently maintained working partnerships that
include coordination of science and technology programs as well as col-
laborations on joint S&T efforts with its sister services, the Defense Ad-
vanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA), Intelligence Advanced Research Projects
Activity (IARPA), and other organizations. The importance of such ef-
fective partnerships will continue—and is likely to grow—as budget
pressures necessitate even greater efficiencies and as the scale and scope
of many ambitious efforts exceed the reach of any one organization alone.
These benefits of such effective partnerships extend as well to FFRDCs
and to industry involved in S&T-related efforts.

Continued International S&T Cooperation

International collaboration in S&T has grown significantly over the
past decade, providing access to capabilities that complement those do-
mestically available. Building and expanding international S&T-related
partnerships have been achieved, for example, through efforts such as
the Engineer and Scientist Exchange and the Windows on Science Pro-
grams; the Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s (AFOSR) European
(EOARD), Asian (AOARD), and Southern (SOARD) Offices of Aero-
space Research and Development; and the deputy under secretary of
the Air Force for international affairs (SAF/IA) air armaments coop-
eration program. In addition to leveraging the limited resources avail-
able for advancing the US technological base, these international coop-
erations help build partner capacity and can help in efforts to avoid
 enduring realities │ 47

capability surprise. Such international S&T cooperation programs will

play an increasingly important role in the 2010–30 environment.

Science, Technology, Engineering, and

Mathematics Workforce
Air Force capabilities are dependent on a workforce that has the
needed STEM backgrounds to provide the S&T advances on which
these capabilities will be based. Development and maintenance of
such a workforce will be essential for achieving the S&T vision laid
out in Technology Horizons. This applies to the workforce needed
within the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) as well as within
the broader industrial base. The Air Force already makes important
contributions to successful STEM programs focused at the K-12 and
college/university levels through open-house efforts in AFRL and via
direct mentoring relationships. Support of the Air Force’s “Bright Ho-
rizons” plan for a coordinated STEM workforce development effort
will need to be sustained to provide the workforce needed over the
next decade and beyond.
 Chapter 4

Overarching Themes for

Air Force S&T 2010–30

This chapter identifies a number of broad themes that will

guide Air Force S&T in ways that can accelerate the delivery
of technology-derived capabilities able to respond to the strate-
gic environment, budget environment, and technology environ-
ment during this period.

The strategic and budget environments outlined in earlier chapters,

together with the state to which key technologies can be brought dur-
ing the next decade to meet the demands of those environments, lead
to a set of broad technology themes that will be of overarching impor-
tance during this time. These themes provide guidance and direction
for identifying S&T efforts that will be among the most essential in
terms of their impact on Air Force capabilities.
These overarching themes are presented in figure 16. Each row rep-
resents a significant shift in research emphasis within a given area,
namely a decrease in emphasis on one area toward an increased em-
phasis on a different focus area. Both the reduced emphases in the left
column and the increased emphases in the right column combine to
ensure an S&T portfolio that is well suited to enabling key capabilities
the Air Force will need during 2010–30.
The trends in figure 16 are fundamental shifts in research focus areas
to guide Air Force S&T in directions that will provide it with the tech-
nologies needed to enable capabilities that are matched to the environ-
ment over the next decade and beyond. The identified shifts in research
balance should not be interpreted as a call for ending all research in the
technical areas identified on the left, since this would create a substan-
tially unbalanced S&T portfolio. Instead, greater attention must be
given to those areas on the right.
Beyond the impact on S&T efforts, the shifting emphases in figure 16
point to a need for systems engineers in product centers to become fa-
miliar with the resulting technologies and to develop approaches and
50 │ Technology Horizons

From decreased emphasis on this . . . To increased emphasis on this . . .

1. From . . . Platforms To . . . Capabilities
2. From . . . Manned To . . . Remotely piloted
3. From . . . Fixed To . . . Agile
4. From . . . Control To . . . Autonomy
5. From . . . Integrated To . . . Fractionated
6. From . . . Preplanned To . . . Composable
7. From . . . Single domain To . . . Cross domain
8. From . . . Permissive To . . . Contested
9. From . . . Sensor To . . . Information
10. From . . . Strike To . . . Dissuasion
11. From . . . Cyber defense To . . . Cyber resilience
12. From . . . Long system life To . . . Faster refresh

Figure 16. Overarching themes that will guide Air Force S&T during
2010–30 to accelerate delivery of technologies appropriate to the
changing spectrum of threats. Emphasis should decrease—but not
end—in research supporting the areas on the left to accommodate in-
creased emphasis in those on the right. These trends represent shifts in
research emphases, not necessarily in near-term acquisition priorities.
(Courtesy Office of the Chief Scientist of the Air Force.)

tools for integrating them in Air Force systems. Design protocols, sub-
system interactions, and other aspects of system development all will
be impacted by these changing characteristics of future Air Force systems.

From Platforms to Capabilities

Since the end of the Cold War and its single major nation-state threat
scenario, emphasis has been increasingly shifting from “platforms” ex-
quisitely designed to overcome a single threat toward “capabilities” able
to meet a far wider range of threats. For instance, potential adversary
A2/AD capabilities and long-range AAMs are increasing emphasis on
standoff strike and beyond-visual-range engagements that rely less on
 overarching themes │ 51

platform-specific functions, such as thrust vectoring for combat ma-

neuverability, and more on capabilities derived from the platform con-
tents, such as ISR and EW functions. This trend is likely to continue,
and it suggests that core technologies associated with platforms, such
as aerodynamics and flight control, will continue to be needed but that
greater emphasis will shift toward other technology areas that deal
more directly with capability-providing functions.

Although platforms will remain significant drivers of capability, the challenges

the Air Force faces require S&T to place increasing emphasis on capability-
based efforts over platform-centric efforts.

From Manned to Remotely Piloted

The growth in Air Force and other DOD use of remotely piloted
vehicles has been rapid, as their utility for operations far beyond sur-
veillance has come to be understood. Such systems are also being
used for an increasingly wider range of nonairborne applications. Al-
though some types of emerging systems will still benefit from having
one or more crew members on board, for many applications the
weight, volume, and endurance limitations associated with such crew,
as well as the cockpit environmental control systems needed to sup-
port crew operations, extract an unacceptable performance penalty.
Manned systems also present risks to crew that can be avoided in re-
motely piloted systems.
For these reasons, an increasing shift to remotely piloted systems is
inevitable over the next decade, and technologies will be needed to per-
mit the potentially greater functionality of such systems to be exploited
for entirely new missions. Such systems are likely to involve varying
degrees of autonomy, require endurance far beyond what is possible
today, and include large high-altitude airships with massive ISR capa-
bilities, all requiring new supporting technologies.

Technologies to enable an increasingly wider array of remotely piloted sys-

tems, many of which will bear little resemblance to today’s systems, will be-
come increasingly important over the next decade and beyond.
52 │ Technology Horizons

From Fixed to Agile

The Air Force is likely to face a broad spectrum of conflict and non-
conflict operations in this period. This will demand a shift from sys-
tems designed for fixed purposes or limited missions to ones that are
inherently agile in their ability to be readily and usefully repurposed
across a range of scenarios. In many cases, this is likely to entail less
than optimal performance for a primary purpose in exchange for ac-
ceptable utility and performance across these broader uses.
This extends also to the range of operating environments in which
such systems will be used. Frequency agility, for example, is virtually
certain to become an essential attribute as further portions of federal or
shared spectrum worldwide are transferred to primary commercial
use. Similarly, frequency agility may enable approaches such as pulse-
to-pulse waveform diversity that can assist in offsetting the threats
posed by DRFM and other electronic countermeasures. A further ex-
ample of agility is represented by systems in which sensitive functional
components can be more easily removed to allow them to be readily
shared with international partners or to assist in overcoming multilevel
security issues.
Technologies and enabling design principles will be needed to per-
mit such increasingly agile systems to retain the greatest functionality
in their primary role(s) while allowing the greatest range of intended
secondary roles and, to the greatest extent possible, adequate func-
tionality even under unanticipatable scenarios. To a degree far ex-
ceeding what is possible today, Air Force systems will need to become
increasingly multirole-capable. The benefits of agility reach well be-
yond the scenarios identified above and will allow many systems to
swing from high-end general-purpose applications to lower-end ir-
regular warfare applications.

For reasons both of cost savings and flexibility of use, it will become increasingly
necessary to develop technologies specifically intended to enable substantially
greater agility in systems.
 overarching themes │ 53

From Control to Autonomy

Airborne remotely piloted systems and many nonairborne systems
have significant autonomous capability. However, increasing levels of
flexible autonomy will be needed for a wider range of Air Force func-
tions during 2010–30 and beyond. These will include fully unattended
systems with reliable levels of autonomous functionality far greater
than is possible today, as well as systems that can reliably make wide-
ranging autonomous decisions at cyber speeds to allow reactions in
time-critical roles far exceeding what humans can possibly achieve.
Key attributes of such autonomy include the ability for complex de-
cision making, including autonomous mission planning, and the ability
to self-adapt as the environment in which the system is operating
changes. Flexible autonomy refers to systems in which a user can specify
the degree of autonomous control that the system is allowed to take on
and in which this degree of autonomy can be varied from essentially
none to near or complete autonomy.
Limited autonomy is already being widely used in Air Force systems,
but their autonomous functionality is far below what could be achieved
over the next decade. From a purely technical perspective, methods
already exist to extend autonomy to far higher levels than are being
used today. Even this level of autonomy will be enabled only when
auto­mated methods for verification and validation (V&V) of complex,
adaptive, highly nonlinear systems are developed. In the near term to
midterm, developing methods for establishing certifiable trust in au-
tonomous systems is the single greatest technical barrier that must be
overcome to obtain the capability advantages that are achievable by in-
creasing use of autonomous systems.
Although humans will retain control over strike decisions for the
foreseeable future, far greater levels of autonomy will become possible
by advanced technologies. These, in turn, can be confidently exploited
as appropriate V&V methods are developed along with technical stan-
dards to allow their use in certifying such highly autonomous systems.
This area is at the interface between complex nonlinear systems theory
and the massive computational analytics enabled by the availability of
near-infinite processing and storage capacity at near-zero unit cost.
54 │ Technology Horizons

It is thus reasonable to expect that with increasing S&T emphasis in

this area, technologies will be developed over the next decade that can
enable reliable V&V and certification methods to provide trust in even
highly adaptable autonomous systems. These, in turn, can open up en-
tirely new avenues for reducing manpower needs and entirely new mis-
sions and capabilities for Air Force systems. Such trusted highly au-
tonomous systems will be essential for dominance in the cyber domain,
where operation at the speeds that autonomy offers will be combined
with levels of autonomous control far beyond what is possible today.
Note that potential adversaries may be willing to field highly autono-
mous systems without any demand for prior certifiable V&V. In so do-
ing they may gain potential capability advantages that we deny our-
selves by requiring a high level of V&V. One of the main conclusions of
this study is that such highly autonomous systems can generally pro-
vide enormous capabilities.

Emphasis on developing methods to achieve V&V of complex, highly adaptive,

autonomous systems will be essential to enabling the capabilities they can
provide.

From Integrated to Fractionated

To date, in most system architectures the various functions needed
for the system to operate have been physically integrated via sub­systems
in the overall system. Thus, for example, most aircraft integrate com-
munications, EW, ISR, strike, and other mission functions together
into a single platform. The resulting systems become relatively large
and heavy, with associated performance penalties that translate into
limits on range and other factors and with relatively high unit produc-
tion costs and operating costs. Moreover, in such system architectures
the loss of any one subsystem can lead to mission failure or even loss of
the entire system. From a mission survivability perspective, such archi-
tectures demonstrate poor survivability.
Yet, it is becoming increasingly possible to fractionate systems into a
relatively small set of functional subsystems, each operating spatially
separated from the others but maintaining local communication with
them to allow overall system functionality to be preserved. The system
 overarching themes │ 55

is, in effect, separated into fractional elements and physically dispersed.

If the fractionation is done correctly, then the short-range communica-
tion bandwidth between elements can be made low enough that burst
mode transmission, frequency agility, laser links, and other methods
can be used to achieve low probability of detection and maintain jam-
resistant local link integrity.
Fractionation provides a dispersed architecture that, even by itself,
can create cost and risk advantages over traditional integrated systems.
It is distinct from modularity in that the latter is designed to more
readily allow subsystem replacement but still aggregates subsystems
into an integrated architecture. Most importantly, when a fraction-
ated architecture is augmented by even low levels of redundancy
among the dispersed elements, survivability can increase dramati-
cally. Combining fractionation with redundancy in a system-level ar-
chitecture produces survivability that far exceeds what is possible by
traditional redundancy alone.
For a system architecture with m different types of functional ele-
ments and n copies of each, the number N of shots each having indi-
vidual probability-of-kill Pk that are needed to cause mission-loss proba-
bility PL can be readily shown to be given by

Any fractionated architecture corresponds to particular m and n val-

ues, and the traditional integrated system architecture corresponds to
the trivial case where m = n = 1. Using the above equation it can be
readily shown that, for reasonable Pk values, the number of shots N
needed to cause any mission-loss probability PL increases rapidly with
the degree of fractionation and redundancy. The combination of frac-
tionation and redundancy produces a multiplicative benefit beyond
what is possible in a traditional architecture.
Such highly survivable fractionated system architectures are only re-
cently becoming possible through technologies that enable jam-resistant
secure local communications and collaborative control to permit the
spatially dispersed functional elements to operate as a single coherent
56 │ Technology Horizons

system. Fractionated architectures are a key to the development of low-

cost autonomous systems that can survive in A2/AD environments.
Such architectures and the key technologies that enable them have been
relatively unexplored to date.

Fractionated systems represent a relatively new technology-enabled architec-

ture for achieving increased system-level survivability with low-cost autono-
mous system elements.

From Preplanned to Composable

Composability refers to the ability to rapidly assemble an as-needed
mission-specific capability from an available set of standard and rela-
tively low-cost elements. It raises the concept of agility from the level of
a single system to the entire set of systems needed for mission-level
capability. By composing a mission-level capability from a standard set
of common elements, a broader range of missions can be effectively
addressed at lower cost than is possible with a more traditional aggre-
gated system designed for a specialized or narrow range of missions.
For example, the same fractionated mission elements noted above
could be used to compose a relatively simple EO surveillance mission
in uncontested airspace using just one element having imaging capability.
The same set of elements could be used to compose a hunter-killer mis-
sion package by adding the strike variant. At the other extreme, for
heavily defended airspace a large number of EO, EW, strike, and other
variants could be composed into a package suitable for that mission.
The key point is that for a wide range of mission types, it may be pos-
sible to compose a “good enough” mission package from the appropri-
ate mix of a set of common-core, flexibly autonomous elements that
differ primarily in their function-specific payloads.
The underlying concept of composability can be applied broadly. In
cyberspace, for example, by storing elements from a common set of
functional cyber-mission components in a network in advance of a cy-
ber attack, these elements can be very rapidly composed into a good-
enough mission package to respond to the attack. The point is that
composing a mission package from an already available set of common
 overarching themes │ 57

elements can allow for a faster response at lower cost that is “good
enough” to deal with a much wider range of missions.
In the cyber domain, the fundamental inability to anticipate every
possible attack and preplan an ideally tailored response to each is readily
apparent. However, the same idea of a mission package composed as
needed from preexisting low-cost elements is central to the previous
example as well. Similarly, plug-and-play modularity to enable rapid
custom satellite composition is a further embodiment of composability,
and the approach can even be extended to as-needed composition of
good-enough small satellite constellations for operationally responsive
space missions.

Gaining the cost advantages and mission flexibility that are available through
composability will require developing technologies to enable composable
mission capabilities in all domains.

From Single Domain to Cross Domain

Air Force systems are broadly thought of as belonging in the air,
space, and cyber domains, yet it is being increasingly recognized that
key vulnerabilities can arise in these systems as a result of cross-domain
influences and interdependences. It is possible to exploit cross-domain
effects in adversary systems as well or even to derive beneficial effects
from cross-domain influences. Here, cross-domain effects are defined
to include a technology in one domain that can produce unexpected
beneficial or detrimental effects in another domain, or a technology in
one domain that requires supporting functions in another domain and
as a result creates interdependences between two or more domains, or
even a technology that falls between classical domains but has implica-
tions in one or more of them.
In general, the awareness of these cross-domain effects is only begin-
ning to be understood, in part as a result of recent rapid growth in
vulnerabilities of cyber and space systems. Cross-domain effects apply,
however, in all three domains. Over the next decade, efforts to develop
new technologies will need to increasingly take into account possible
unintended cross-domain effects. At the same time, technologies to
58 │ Technology Horizons

minimize existing cross-domain vulnerabilities and to exploit similar

vulnerabilities in adversary systems will be increasingly needed.

Emphasis will increase on technologies to understand, anticipate, and, where

appropriate, avoid cross-domain effects in Air Force systems and to exploit
them in adversary systems.

From Permissive to Contested

With only a few exceptions, Air Force operations over the past two
decades have been conducted under largely permissive conditions in
relatively poorly defended airspace. This risks the development of an
underappreciation for the impact that possible future operations in A2/
AD environments could have on some missions and functions, includ-
ing those in the cyber domain. Greater emphasis should be placed on
technologies that can operate effectively in moderate or heavily con-
tested domains.
This will require developing technologies specifically designed to
enable resilience of key Air Force mission functions in contested do-
mains. In developing technology solutions for any specific problem, it
will be essential to ensure that these have the needed resilience to
operate effectively even in significantly contested domains. Examples
include the need for EW technologies that can be effective in situa-
tions where control of the EM domain is not assured. Similarly, tech-
nologies will be needed that can not only permit RPAs to communi-
cate and operate under threats in defended airspace but also permit
other weapon systems to achieve greater range and deep penetration
ability. In the increasingly contested space domain, technologies will
be needed to ensure resilience of space assets and space operations to
various forms of threats.

To meet the needs of Air Force operations during this period, it will be essential
for S&T emphasis to increase on technologies that can remain effective even
in contested domains.
 overarching themes │ 59

From Sensor to Information

As a result of rapid advances made in electronics and in imaging
technologies in particular, there has been an enormous surge in the
amount of sensor data available across many portions of the EM spec-
trum. Current EO-IR sensors, for example, generate huge amounts of
raw imaging data, and similar increases in raw data streams are occur-
ring from other sensing modalities, including hyperspectral imaging,
light detection and ranging (LIDAR) imaging, electronic signals intel-
ligence, and other RF-based ISR sensing modes. The volume of sensor
data from current-generation sensors that must be processed, ex-
ploited, and disseminated has become overwhelming, as manpower
requirements to deal with these data have placed an enormous burden
on the Air Force.
It appears clear that the focus on developing ever more capable sen-
sor technologies of the present type is far outstripping the ability to
deal efficiently with the resulting raw data. Such current-generation
sensors can be characterized as “dumb” insofar as they are designed
solely to generate raw sensed data, rather than to generate interpreted
information from these raw data. Over the next decade, development
focused solely on higher-output sensor technologies will need to be
deemphasized to accommodate increased emphasis on developing
technologies for “intelligent” sensors. These will, for example, provide
cueing-level processing of raw data on the sensor itself and then trans-
mit only those data segments containing cues to the ground.
Technologies that make use of continuing advances in miniaturiza-
tion of electronics and the availability of massive processing and stor-
age in extremely small volumes can, in principle, allow limited process-
ing of raw sensor data to be done behind the sensor itself. This offers
potential to transform sensor output from raw data to real information.
Processing done on the sensor need not be as detailed as that currently
done on the ground and might be used only to cue burst transmissions
of raw data to the ground for subsequent detailed processing. Resulting
substantial decreases in the amount of raw data being transmitted
would alleviate bandwidth requirements as well as ground-based PED
manpower requirements.
60 │ Technology Horizons

Beyond development of such intelligent sensors that provide infor-

mation rather than data, other technologies may assist with increas-
ingly autonomous data processing on the ground to reduce current
PED manpower requirements. As with intelligent on-sensor process-
ing, such autonomous off-sensor processing may not need to be as de-
tailed as current manual processing since it might only be used to cue
raw data segments for subsequent manual processing. The combined
impacts of intelligent sensors to reduce raw data streams and autono-
mous ground processing to assist in current PED functions can poten-
tially be enormous.
In general, Air Force S&T emphasis in the next decade will need to
shift focus from advancing current dumb sensor technologies to ad-
vancing the ability to extract useful information from the sensor data
stream. The utility of ever-greater situational awareness created by ex-
panded ISR systems will make this an exceptionally high priority for
the S&T community.

A significant shift in Air Force S&T emphasis is needed toward developing

technologies that can increasingly assist in converting raw sensor data into
useful information.

From Strike to Dissuasion/Deterrence

Dissuasion and deterrence have played a role in the Air Force mis-
sion since its inception as a distinct service. However, the nature of the
broader deterrence mission that applies in today’s environment, and
that is likely to become increasingly important during 2010–30, is sub-
stantially different. Future strategy will include nuclear and conven-
tional components and must address state and nonstate actors as well
as other entities that are not dissuaded or deterred by traditional means
based solely on threats of retaliation or punishment. The correspond-
ing tools needed to deal effectively with that environment are also dif-
ferent. In addition to technologies needed for active conflict opera-
tions, there will be a need during this period to enable appropriate
dissuasion and deterrence tools for that environment.
As noted in chapter 2, deterrence in the context of 2010–30 involves
not only effectively deterring nations that are pursuing nuclear-weapons
 overarching themes │ 61

capabilities, such as North Korea and Iran, but also deterrence in the
conventional warfare sense, as well as in the cyber domain and even
deterrence of chemical and biological warfare arenas. The broad spec-
trum of the Air Force role in these missions and the wide range of ac-
tors involved create a need for significantly different and more effective
tools that can support these deterrence roles.
In many cases, to be effective these tools will require nonkinetic
means to exert influence on potential adversaries. The cyber domain
offers significant capabilities for exerting a deterrent influence on some
such actors. Deterrence in the context of what is often termed irregular
warfare and hybrid warfare brings special difficulties that may require
new approaches. Actors other than nation-states may be less susceptible
to such influence, and other tools will be needed to deal with them.
In general, S&T will need to play an expanded role in developing
technologies that can support the Air Force role in providing effective
dissuasion and deterrence capabilities across the spectrum of conflict
and nonconflict scenarios. These efforts may benefit from coordination
with the other services, with DARPA and IARPA, and with our inter­
national partners.

Over the next decade, technologies will be needed that can enable effective
deterrence capabilities across a far broader spectrum of threats than has
historically been the case.

From Cyber Defense to Cyber Resilience

Since the earliest awareness of the vulnerabilities of cyber systems
and the far-reaching implications of them, efforts to control these have
been based largely on cyber defense. This refers to the many traditional
approaches intended to prevent adversaries from entering computer
networks and other cyber-accessible systems. Yet despite extensive ef-
forts to block adversaries from entering these systems, they can and
routinely do access them. Today the efforts that must be expended to
protect cyber systems in this manner far exceed those that adversaries
expend to penetrate them. There is essentially no evidence to suggest
that this will change significantly as long as the focus remains largely on
cyber defense.
62 │ Technology Horizons

Entirely new approaches to assuring continued mission effectiveness

of cyber systems will be needed, allowing us to better fight through
cyber attacks. A key step is to begin a fundamental philosophical shift
from emphasizing cyber protection to emphasizing mission assurance.
This subtle but important change opens vastly different ways to ap-
proach the cyber challenge. For example, mission assurance can be
dramatically increased by technologies that can inherently make cyber
systems more resilient to the presence of adversaries within them. S&T
efforts to develop technologies for increased cyber resilience will be a
key theme in the coming decade and one of the cornerstones for achiev-
ing mission assurance.
For instance, as described in chapter 5, massive virtualization cou-
pled with rapid network recomposability can make cyber systems in-
herently far less vulnerable to direct network attacks. This technology
represents a fundamental shift in the approach to network defense, re-
placing current efforts to keep adversaries out with a new paradigm
that makes it nearly useless for an adversary to gain entry. The resulting
network thereby becomes inherently resilient to attack.
Such inherent cyber resilience via massive virtualization and rapid
network recomposability can also cause cyber adversaries to leave be-
hind far greater forensic evidence for attribution, regardless of whether
they entered via the network layer, backdoor implants in hardware, or
the application layer. The technology can provide inherent resilience in
the sense that its benefits do not require any explicit awareness of the
adversary’s presence in the system or explicit action by the defender to
gain the benefit.

The fundamental shift in focus from cyber defense to cyber resilience

represents one of the most far-reaching themes for Air Force S&T in the
coming decade.

From Long System Life to Faster Refresh

It is a reality that many of the air platforms and other systems that
the Air Force employs will continue to be needed and will remain in
use long after they are first introduced into operation. Yet such long-
life systems often make integrating new technology-derived updates
 overarching themes │ 63

into them inherently difficult and costly. This is particularly true

when systems are not developed with architectures specifically de-
signed to accommodate such future upgrades. At the same time, tech-
nologies continue to advance at an increasingly faster pace, and
worldwide access to the resulting military systems developed from
them is also increasing rapidly.
The result is that the global technology refresh rate is now far faster
than just a decade or two ago. Air Force capabilities based on systems
designed for long-life use will remain appropriate for some applica-
tions. However, adversary capabilities obtained with less exquisite sys-
tems may have increasing access to faster technology refresh cycles. For
many types of systems, it will become increasingly difficult for the Air
Force to maintain sufficient technology advantage without itself having
access to substantially faster technology refresh rates.
Technologies need to be developed to allow subsystems, if not entire
systems, to be inherently expendable by design in the sense that they
are designed and integrated with the specific intent to replace them
with newer technology after far shorter usage than is the case today. In
part, this requires new technologies that can enable key system func-
tions to be implemented at much lower cost. It also requires advances
in technologies for “open architectures” that are secure but can enable
ready integration of successive generations of newer subsystems.
Development of technologies to support such innately expendable
systems also supports other overarching themes identified in Technology
Horizons, including agility and composability, as well as the shift toward
fractionated system architectures. All of these are essential elements for
maximizing US joint capabilities while supporting the need for the Air
Force and DOD to move from exquisite systems to more flexible, agile,
and broadly effective capabilities that can meet the needs of a wider and
increasingly less predictable set of future operational scenarios.
New approaches that can enable far faster technology refresh rates in Air
Force systems and subsystems are key to achieving the far greater flexibility
that will be needed to respond to the range of future threats.
 Chapter 5

Technology-Enabled Capabilities for the

Air Force 2010–30

Potential technology-enabled capability areas are identified

that are aligned with key needs of the strategic environment,
enduring realities, and overarching themes that the Air Force
faces and that can be achieved with realistically attainable
technology advancements over the next 10 years.

The notional process used in Technology Horizons for identifying

“potential capability areas” (PCA) is shown in figure 17. For each of the
air, space, and cyber domains, it identifies key functions associated
with the domain and uses these to envision PCAs that could provide
these domain functions. For each candidate PCA, it considers the tech-
nology areas that would be needed to enable that capability and the
state to which each technology area would need to be brought in order
to provide the potential capability being envisioned.
If a technology area could not be credibly advanced from its current
2010 state to the needed state by the 2020 target in the 10+10 Technology-
to-Capability process (see chap. 1, fig. 2), then an alternate technology
for enabling that PCA had to be identified, or the capability was re-
jected. Similarly, if an adversary using the same state of technologies
could readily counter a potential capability, or if a capability would create
unacceptable vulnerabilities—either by itself or through cross-­
domain influences it would produce—then it was also discarded. In so
doing, Technology Horizons envisioned PCAs that would be of value in
the 2030 strategic environment and that could be credibly achieved if
the needed S&T investments are made.
Note this does not mean that the technologies needed to develop
these capabilities are already sufficiently mature or that the Air Force
should necessarily acquire these capabilities. Instead, these notional ca-
pabilities are identified because they are well matched to needs of the
Air Force within the time horizon of the study. This set of PCAs is then
used as a mechanism for identifying the KTAs that would be needed to
66 │ Technology Horizons

Air, Space, and Cyber Domains

Domain Domain Domain Domain

Function 1 Function 2 Function 3 Function N

Potential Potential Potential Potential

Capability Capability Capability Capability
Area 1 Area 2 Area 3 Area 4

Technology Technology Technology Technology Technology

Area 1 Area 2 Area 3 Area 4 Area 5
Tech 1
Tech 2
Tech 3
Tech 4
Tech 5
Tech 6
Tech 7
Tech 8
Tech 9
Tech 10
Tech 11
Tech 12
Tech 13
Tech 14
Tech 15
Tech 14
Tech 15
Tech 16
Tech 17
Tech 18
Tech 19
Tech 20
Tech 21
Tech 22
Tech 23
Tech 24
Tech 25
Tech 26
Tech 27
Tech 28
Tech 29
Tech 30
Tech 7946
Tech 7947
Tech 7948
Tech 7949
Tech 7950
Tech 7951
Tech 7952
Tech 7953
Tech 7954
Individual Research Efforts

Figure 17. Notional process used in Technology Horizons for identify-

ing PCAs and KTAs for the air, space, and cyber domains. (Courtesy of
the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Air Force.)

enable them. In chapter 6, mapping the KTAs across the PCAs allows
identification of the most valuable technology areas that Air Force S&T
should be pursuing now.
This process allowed Technology Horizons to maintain its focus on
assessing the most valuable technology areas for the Air Force, without
specifying what future capabilities the Air Force should be acquiring.
Note that the PCAs used in this process should not be interpreted as an
alternative to “flagship capability concepts” or “focused long-term chal-
lenges” that the AFRL may use as constructs for communicating, plan-
ning, and managing its S&T efforts. Instead, the PCAs are a comple-
mentary means used here for understanding the relative impacts of
various KTAs. They allow identifying the KTAs that have the greatest
crosscutting value in enabling capability areas that are aligned with the
strategic context and enduring realities of 2010–30.
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 67

Alignment of Capability Areas with

Air Force Core Functions
The process described above is predicated on the set of PCAs being
sufficiently broad to address most of the key functions the Air Force
needs to perform its mission. This ensures that the KTAs determined
by this process are the most valuable for Air Force S&T to pursue and
can support a sufficient range of the functions needed to meet likely Air
Force needs. To assess if this is the case, researchers mapped the final
set of PCAs into the Air Force service core functions (SCF) to deter-
mine the range of these that the underlying KTAs will support.

Air Force Service Core Functions

The Air Force has defined the following set of 12 SCFs that encom-
pass the combat and support functions it needs to accomplish its range
of missions.
■■ SCF1: Nuclear Deterrence Operations
■■ SCF2: Air Superiority
■■ SCF3: Space Superiority
■■ SCF4: Cyberspace Superiority
■■ SCF5: Global Precision Strike
■■ SCF6: Rapid Global Mobility
■■ SCF7: Special Operations
■■ SCF8: Global Integrated ISR
■■ SCF9: Command and Control
■■ SCF10: Personnel Recovery
■■ SCF11: Building Partnerships
■■ SCF12: Agile Combat Support
The final set of 30 PCAs used in Technology Horizons is listed in the
next section. Figure 18 maps these PCAs across the above SCFs to as-
sess the range of these functions that each area supports.

Mapping the PCAs across the SCFs ensures that Technology Horizons con-
sidered a sufficiently wide range of technologies to support the full set of Air
Force missions.
68 │ Technology Horizons

Technology-Enabled Potential Capability Areas

A set of 30 PCAs was identified as being credibly achievable within
the time horizon this study addresses and as meeting key needs defined
by the strategic environment, enduring realities, and overarching
themes that apply to 2010–30. Each of these PCAs is listed below, and
all are summarized in a following section.
■■ PCA1: Inherently Intrusion-Resilient Cyber Systems
■■ PCA2: Automated Cyber Vulnerability Assessments and Reactions
■■ PCA3: Decision-Quality Prediction of Behavior
■■ PCA4: Augmentation of Human Performance
■■ PCA5: Advanced Constructive Discovery and Training Environments
■■ PCA6: Trusted, Adaptive, Flexibly Autonomous Systems
■■ PCA7: Frequency-Agile Spectrum Utilization
■■ PCA8: Dominant Spectrum Warfare Operations
■■ PCA9: Precision Navigation/Timing in GPS-Denied Environments
■■ PCA10: Next-Generation High-Bandwidth Secure Communications
■■ PCA11: Persistent Near-Space Communications Relays
■■ PCA12: Processing-Enabled Intelligent ISR Sensors
■■ PCA13: High-Altitude, Long-Endurance (HALE) ISR Airships
■■ PCA14: Prompt Theater-Range ISR/Strike Systems
■■ PCA15: Fractionated, Survivable, Remotely Piloted Systems
■■ PCA16: Direct Forward Air Delivery and Resupply
■■ PCA17: Energy-Efficient, Partially Buoyant Cargo Airlifters
■■ PCA18: Fuel-Efficient Hybrid Wing-Body Aircraft
■■ PCA19: Next-Generation High-Efficiency Turbine Engines
■■ PCA20: Embedded Diagnostic/Prognostic Subsystems
■■ PCA21: Penetrating, Persistent Long-Range Strike
■■ PCA22: High-Speed Penetrating Cruise Missile
■■ PCA23: Hyperprecision Low-Collateral-Damage Munitions
■■ PCA24: DE for Tactical Strike/Defense
■■ PCA25: Enhanced Underground Strike with Conventional Munitions
■■ PCA26: Reusable Air-Breathing Access-to-Space Launch
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 69

■■ PCA27: Rapidly Composable Small Satellites

■■ PCA28: Fractionated/Distributed Space Systems
■■ PCA29: Persistent Space Situational Awareness (SSA)
■■ PCA30: Improved Orbital Conjunction Prediction
A much larger set of PCAs was considered; however, this list gives
the 30 PCAs that were assessed as being most valuable for meeting Air
Force needs. The list is not prioritized in any way since it was not the
objective of the study to define capabilities the Air Force should acquire
but to prioritize the most essential technology areas that are needed to
enable capabilities such as these. These are PCAs in the sense that most
represent systems or functions that enable what would be regarded as
future capabilities. These capability areas also serve as example em-
bodiments of the broader overarching themes identified in chapter 4.

Alignment of Potential Capability Areas with

Service Core Functions
Figure 18 shows the mapping of each of the above PCAs into each of
the 12 Air Force SCFs previously listed. In each case, a check mark in-
dicates that the PCA could significantly assist in the performance of at
least one or more aspects of the corresponding SCFs. Where there is no
check mark, there may still be connections with that capability area,
but these do not rise to as comparably meaningful a level as those that
are marked in the figure.

Brief Descriptions of
Technology-Enabled Capabilities
Each PCA is briefly described below at a level sufficient to under-
stand the basic capabilities being proposed, the technologies that can
enable them, and the benefits they would provide for the Air Force. For
each of these PCAs, there is technical support for the claim that the
underlying technologies that can be brought to the needed level of
readiness by the 2020 technology horizon date in the 10+10 Technology-
to-Capability process.
70 │ Technology Horizons

Figure 18. Mapping of PCAs across Air Force SCFs. (Courtesy of the
Office of the Chief Scientist of the Air Force.)
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 71

Inherently Intrusion-Resilient Cyber Systems

This represents a fundamental shift in emphasis from “cyber protec-
tion” to “maintaining mission effectiveness” in the presence of cyber
threats, using technologies such as Internet protocol (IP) hopping, net-
work polymorphism, massive virtualization, and rapid network recom-
position that can make cyber systems inherently resilient to intrusions
entering through the network layer. These convert the currently static
network layer into a highly dynamic one in which the hypervisor map-
ping between the hardware and functional layers changes constantly in
a pseudorandom way, perhaps hundreds of times every second. A cyber
adversary who finds vulnerabilities in the physical layer thus has virtu-
ally no time to use them for mapping the network before its topology
has changed. Current manpower-intensive cyber protection efforts to
block attacks at the network surface could be augmented or replaced by
these new methods, which introduce “rapid maneuver” to cyber war-
fare to make a network inherently resilient to attack. Since adversaries
entering or passing through the network layer may have only a few milli­
seconds to operate, not weeks or months, they leave greater forensic
evidence for attribution. Intrusion-resilient methods would initially be
applied to computer networks but are extendable to other cyber systems.

Commercial development of massive virtualization and hypervisor technolo-

gies to enable cloud computing can provide much of the technology needed
for such inherently intrusion-resilient Air Force cyber systems.

Automated Cyber Vulnerability Assessments and Reactions

Assuring continued mission effectiveness in the cyber environ-
ment begins with identifying mission essential functions across the
Air Force enterprise and prioritizing these in terms of individual and
interdependent mission impacts. Mapping the dependence of each
function over the cyber domain gives insights into critical hidden
inter­dependences that enable autonomic generation of appropriate
reactions to attacks at the “speed of cyber” and thereby maximizes
mission effectiveness under any threat. This is beginning to be done
today via a slow manual process for limited and specific threats; en-
tirely new automated approaches can allow scale-up across the entire
72 │ Technology Horizons

Air Force cyber enterprise and automatic development of optimal

courses of action for any momentary threat set across the enterprise
to maintain maximum mission effectiveness. Software tools to auton-
omously probe and map complex interdependences across the cyber
enterprise are still in relative infancy, and tools needed to visualize
and understand the resulting cyber vulnerabilities are primitive. Au-
tonomous decision support tools will also be needed to allow reac-
tions at speeds needed to limit the effects of cyber attacks. Such auto-
mated mapping of cyber vulnerabilities and corresponding attack
responses represents one way of implementing the overarching theme
of “resilience” in Air Force cyber systems.

Cyber defense must shift emphasis from network protection to maintaining

enterprise-wide mission effectiveness; automated methods for continuous
assessment of interdependences among cyber elements and generation of
autonomic reactions to threats will be key.

Decision-Quality Prediction of Behavior

Advances in human and cultural behavior modeling, social net-
work modeling, cognitive modeling, and autonomous reasoning
can enable decision support tools for anticipating and predicting
adversary and own-force behaviors. Fusion and understanding of
information from disparate sources, including classical intelligence
data as well as large data sets of open source information routinely
collected from global cyber networks, provide essential inputs.
Massive analytics made possible by the availability of near-infinite
processing and storage capacities during this time can provide soft-
ware tools that aid in decision making, course-of-action develop-
ment, and related tasks involving prediction of individual/collective
behaviors over a range of conditions, along with statistical uncer-
tainty bounds to quantify decision confidence levels and inform al-
ternative courses of action.

Massive storage and processing power during this time will enable wider use
of open source and other information and advanced statistical models of
individual or collective behaviors.
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 73

Augmentation of Human Performance

Human performance augmentation will be essential for effectively
using the overwhelming amounts of data that will be routinely avail-
able during this time. As suggested in figure 19, this may include im-
plants, drugs, or other augmentation approaches to improve memory,
alertness, cognition, and visual/aural acuity. It may even extend to lim-
ited direct brainwave coupling between humans and machines and to
screening of individual capacities for key specialty codes via brainwave
patterns and genetic correlators. Adversaries may use genetic modifica-
tion to enhance specific characteristics or abilities. ISR operators, com-
manders, and personnel in the cockpit and on the flight line will rou-
tinely use performance augmentation applications. Data may be fused
and delivered to humans in ways that exploit synthetically augmented
intuition to achieve needed decision speeds and enhance decision quality.
Human senses, reasoning, and physical performance will be augmented
using sensors, biotechnology, robotics, and computing power.

Figure 19. Technologies to augment human performance and cognition

have significant potential for reducing Air Force manpower needs or
increasing effectiveness in specialized roles. Left, electronics for a third-
generation artificial retina that could restore sight to millions; right, aug-
mentation of human performance through brainwave technology. (Cour-
tesy LLNL, Public Affairs Release NR-10-02-03, “Lab Plays Key Role in
Department of Energy’s Artificial Retina Project,” 4 February 2010 [left],
and US Air Force [right].)
74 │ Technology Horizons

As natural human capacities become increasingly mismatched to data

volumes, processing capabilities, and decision speeds, augmenting human
performance will become essential for gaining the benefits that other tech-
nology advances can offer.

Advanced Constructive Discovery and Training Environments

Constructive environments being used for training today are simple
by the standards of commercial massively multiplayer online games
(MMOG), many of which have hundreds of thousands of users around
the world playing at any given moment in thousands of simultaneous
multiplayer games; CounterStrike alone has over 4.5 billion man-
minutes of game play worldwide every month. Advances in such highly
constructive environments—compared with virtual systems that are in
Air Force use today—enabled by continued processing and storage ca-
pacities can provide sufficient fidelity to allow useful mining of the
enormous statistical information contained in such global game play.
This can enable entirely new methods for discovering cultural insights
as well as innovative blue- and red-force concepts of employment long
before they are evident by ordinary experience or in the far smaller
statistical samples available by formal methods. Highly constructive
environments also enable further improved training at reduced cost
and will be used for high-fidelity mission rehearsal, course-of-action
development, and other uses (fig. 20).

Figure 20. Virtual and constructive technologies can be advanced to

allow high-fidelity, constructive, massively multiplayer environments
for discovery, including online environments where game play statis-
tics are mined to discern cultural insights and identify potential con-
cepts of employment. (Courtesy US Air Force.)
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 75

The fidelity of constructive environments will benefit from commercial ad-

vances in processing, storage, and advanced authoring tools developed for
online game markets; expanding the use of such environments offers sub-
stantial new capabilities as well as cost savings.

Trusted, Adaptive, Flexibly Autonomous Systems

Inexpensive processing power, data storage, and powerful auton-
omous reasoning algorithms will enable systems capable of far higher
levels of autonomy and extension of autonomous systems to entirely
new functions. Such advanced autonomous systems will be power-
ful force multipliers (as suggested in fig. 21) and will enable opera-
tions at timescales far faster than possible with human-in-the-loop
control. Establishing trust in autonomy will thus become the central
factor in gaining access to the potentially enormous capabilities
that such systems can offer. Human control will be preserved with
legally reviewed rules of engagement and appropriate human-in-
the-loop decision points. However, adversaries are unlikely to be
constrained by such limits and may be able to field systems that can
take advantage of far greater levels of autonomy. Entirely new ap-
proaches will be needed to enable V&V for the near-infinite-state
control systems created by high levels of adaptability and autonomy.
Developing such methods will be essential for gaining certifiable
trust and legal freedom to field autonomous systems that can match
or exceed potential adversary capabilities.

Methods to enable trust in highly adaptive autonomous systems are a game-

changing technology needed to reap the enormous capability and cost bene-
fits that such systems can offer and to avoid the asymmetric advantage that
adversaries could otherwise have with such systems.

Frequency-Agile Spectrum Utilization

Future Air Force systems will need substantially frequency-agile ca-
pabilities to ensure access to available spectrum bands in worldwide
operations. Spectral agility will also be needed for jam resistance, low
probability of detection/intercept, and cyber resilience in the increas-
ingly congested spectrum environment and increasingly contested EW
environment. Yet even software-defined spectral agility has been diffi-
76 │ Technology Horizons

Figure 21. Manpower-intensive Air Force functions performed using

trusted autonomous systems can enable substantial manpower effi-
ciencies and provide time-domain operational advantages over adver-
saries limited to human planning and decision processes. (Courtesy US
Air Force.)

cult to implement and certify. New methods such as dynamic spectrum

access and associated policy engines will require compatibility with Air
Force–specific aspects of spectrum use, including fast movers, large
fields of regard, compatibility with below-noise signals such as radars,
and resistance to malevolent interferers. Frequency agility can also be
extended to spectral mutability, in which a wider range of spectral pa-
rameters may be adjustable.
Frequency agility will be essential for ensuring that Air Force systems can
operate under rapidly changing spectrum regulations worldwide and can
provide needed functionality in contested environments where electronic and
cyber warfare could create cross-domain vulnerabilities.
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 77

Dominant Spectrum Warfare Operations

Today the Air Force relies on US joint force partners for EW sup-
port, yet it will become an essential resident capability for many types
of systems. Growing overlaps in electronic and cyber warfare extend
this need to full-spectrum dominance, including electronic attack,
defense and support, and corresponding functions for optical free-
space and wave-guided EM systems. In modern IADS environments,
jamming may have to overcome sophisticated electronic counter-
countermeasures in radars and SAM seekers via methods such as
cognitive EW. Increasing use of track fusion methods may give adver-
sary systems improved jam resistance, and increased standoff ranges
imposed by long-range SAM systems further complicate spectrum
warfare. As potential adversaries increasingly move to AESA radars
and make use of DRFM-based systems for RF spoofing, Air Force
freedom of operation in the air-to-air EM domain is also being sig-
nificantly challenged. New spectrum warfare methods should be de-
veloped to support Air Force dominance in attack, self-defense, and
support across the EM spectrum.

Rapidly advancing EW capabilities of some potential adversary systems may

create significant challenges to traditional Air Force spectrum dominance; a
new generation of spectrum warfare methods is needed to ensure acceptable
freedom of operations.

Precision Navigation/Timing in GPS-Denied Environments

Widespread dependence of critical Air Force and other DOD sys-
tems on GPS for precision navigation and timing functions has caused
potential adversaries to exploit GPS jamming as an asymmetric advan-
tage. Key systems will thus need GPS independence or augmentation
to allow their use in such environments. Chip-scale atomic clocks as
shown in figure 22 and inertial measurement units (IMU) based on
cold-atom principles or other technologies as shown in figure 23 can
provide low-drift PNT in the event of GPS loss. These approaches
maintain GPS-like position and timing uncertainties over relatively
long periods after GPS signal loss. Netting to systems outside the
jammed environment will allow relaying intermittent reference posi-
78 │ Technology Horizons

Figure 22. Chip-scale atomic clocks can provide low-drift timing inde-
pendent of active GPS links, allowing a backup timing source to permit
a wide range of critical Air Force systems to continue operating even
under GPS-denied conditions. (Reprinted from National Institute of
Standards and Technology [NIST], “NIST Unveils Chip-Scale Atomic
Clock,” 27 August 2004, accessed 20 June 2011, http://www.nist.gov/
public_affairs/releases/miniclock.cfm.)

tion and timing information for limited updates to correct drift during
long-duration jamming events. Technologies can enable miniaturiza-
tion of such systems and supporting system-level network functions to
negate the asymmetric adversary advantage that GPS jamming could
otherwise provide.
Developing miniaturized cold-atom IMUs and clocks as well as other
approaches for chip-scale PNT will be essential to ensure access to PNT in
GPS-denied areas.
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 79

Figure 23. Cold-atom devices enable low-drift IMUs and clocks for PNT
in GPS-denied environments. Intersecting lasers trap/cool ytterbium,
strontium, or other atoms to slow their motion, forming a Bose-Einstein
condensate that can serve as a highly precise matter-wave interfer-
ometer. (Reprinted from NIST, “Experimental Atomic Clock Uses Ytter-
bium ‘Pancakes,’ ” NIST Tech Beat, 6 Mar 2006, accessed 21 June 2011,
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/techbeat/tb2006_0306.htm.)

Next-Generation High-Bandwidth Secure Communications

Laser communication technology allows extremely high-bandwidth
communications over moderate ranges in clear weather conditions for
atmospheric propagation, and over very long ranges when used for
cross-links in space. The extremely low side lobes produced in trans-
missions at optical wavelengths also allow for potentially secure com-
munications. When coupled with quantum key distribution (QKD),
laser communication can provide verifiably secure encrypted trans-
missions. These characteristics make lasers attractive for linking critical
80 │ Technology Horizons

Air Force satellite, air, and ground network nodes and can help shift the
rapidly growing demand for bandwidth to frequencies where spectrum
management is far simpler. Developing precision pointing and other
technologies to enable and integrate laser communications in key Air
Force systems will be a high priority.

Technologies to enable laser-based communication links with QKD methods

can provide large increases in bandwidth and security needed in some types
of Air Force uses.

Persistent Near-Space Communications Relays

Flight vehicles and lighter-than-air systems as in figure 24 can serve
as pseudosatellites capable of operating at near-space altitudes as com-
munication relays in the event of satellite loss. Netting several such re-
lays can provide theater-level coverage and full connectivity to the con-
tinental United States, with system-level concept of operations
providing needed platform protection. These systems hold significant
platform challenges as well as electronics, power, and thermal manage-
ment challenges but may be key to assured communications under the
increasingly contested space environment. Systems designed to remain
airborne for extremely long durations can allow launch and ascent to
be timed when winds are sufficiently weak, enabling structural masses
substantially below those of traditional airships designed for lower-­
altitude use. Significant technical challenges must be overcome in high-
altitude materials, lightweight solar cells and energy storage, and
thermal management to enable such systems.

Near-space communications relays can provide essential backup for satellite

communications in the increasingly contested space domain but represent
substantial technical challenges.

Processing-Enabled Intelligent ISR Sensors

ISR sensors equipped with backplane processing for data synthesis
and fusion can permit certain PED functions to be performed on the
sensor itself, reducing bandwidth otherwise consumed in transferring
large amounts of raw data to the ground. Functions such as coherent
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 81

Figure 24. Persistent near-space systems, potentially in the form of ultra-

long-endurance airships or autonomous flight vehicles, can ensure
theater-level communications relay functions in the event of loss or
degradation of corresponding space systems. (Courtesy Lockheed Martin
[left] and “DARPA’s Vulture: What Goes Up, Needn’t Come Down,” De-
fense Industry Daily, 16 September 2010, http://www.defenseindustry
daily.com/DARPAs-Vulture-What-Goes-Up-Neednt-Come-Down
-04852 [right].)

change detection may be suited to on-sensor processing, with raw data

being transmitted only when cued by processed results from the sen-
sor. On-sensor processing is enabled by the massive processing and
storage capacity that can be routinely integrated into modern electronic
systems. Processing done on the sensor does not need to be as detailed
as can be done on the ground, since its role is only to provide initial
cueing that triggers raw data transmission for the ground processing.
Beyond substantial reductions in bandwidth consumed by transmis-
sion of raw sensor data, intelligent sensors can greatly reduce the man-
power needs of current ground-based PED of sensor data.
On-sensor processing of raw data to cue transmission and detailed off-board
processing can greatly reduce bandwidth consumed by ISR platforms and re-
duce PED manpower needs.

High-Altitude, Long-Endurance ISR Airships

Theater-level ISR aircraft operating for long durations in fixed orbits
require forward flight to generate aerodynamic lift, imposing fuel and
82 │ Technology Horizons

maintenance costs in addition to engine and aircraft structural masses

that cause sensor payload fractions to below those of airships. HALE
airships designed for extremely long endurance can achieve payload
mass fractions even higher than those of traditional airships, since their
ascent through the atmosphere can be timed when winds aloft are low.
The size of HALE airships, as shown in figure 25, accommodates mas-
sive sensor apertures far larger than any other aircraft could carry, en-
abling extreme RF sensitivities that may be essential in the emerging
strategic environment. Their high operating altitude provides a large
field of regard, allowing such systems to also serve as theater-level near-
space communication relays. Technical challenges that must be over-
come include advancement of high-altitude, long-life materials; light-
weight solar cells and energy storage; and lightweight multifunctional
sensor structures.
HALE airships can provide theater-level ISR capabilities with massive sensors
and offer inherently low operating costs compared with traditional aircraft-
based systems.

Figure 25. HALE ISR airships can remain aloft for years so that launch/
ascent is decoupled from immediate demand and thus can be timed
when winds are low. This allows exceptionally lightweight structures
that can enable extreme functionality to be used. (Courtesy Lockheed
Martin, reprinted from Wikipedia, s.v. “High-Altitude Airship,” accessed
20 June 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_airship [left],
and DARPA [right].)
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 83

Prompt Theater-Range ISR/Strike Systems

Air-breathing hypersonic systems designed for Mach 6 or below
avoid most of the extreme temperatures traditionally associated with
hypersonic flight, yet can provide rapid ISR or strike capability to en-
gage high-value, time-critical targets from standoff distances. Such sys-
tems can hold targets at risk that might otherwise be immune, poten-
tially altering the calculus of strategic deterrence. The system in figure
26, for example, uses combined-cycle propulsion with internal rocket
boost, ram/scramjet acceleration, and scramjet cruise. Inward turning
inlets and a dual-flow path design allow high volumetric efficiency, and
high cruise speed provides significantly increased survivability. Vertical
takeoff using a rocket-based combined cycle gives substantially greater
range and payload while imposing few real limitations on launch sites
relative to turbine-based horizontal takeoff systems.

High-speed theater-range ISR/strike systems can provide time-critical mission

capabilities in a reusable system suited to ranges and operating conditions of
key strategic missions.

Fractionated, Survivable, Remotely Piloted Systems

A standardized, low-cost, small- to medium-sized, remotely piloted
airframe able to carry mission-specific payloads can enable a fraction-
ated and survivable approach for meeting key needs of missions span-
ning the spectrum from low-end to high-end operations. An as-needed
mission package can be composed from such standard elements carry-
ing different payloads, ranging from single or paired elements for un-
contested environments to a dozen or more elements in A2/AD envi-
ronments. The underlying airframe that enables such an architecture
would use small, efficient turbojet propulsion; be capable of fully au-
tonomous takeoff, flight, landing, and collaborative control among ele-
ments of the mission package; and would carry standard-sized modu-
lar payloads such as ISR, EW, strike, communications, and other
functions among the individual elements to compose the mission capa-
bility. Elements cooperate autonomously to form a coherent system us-
ing secure, burst-mode, frequency-agile RF or laser communication.
Beyond making use of affordable LO technologies, mission survivability
84 │ Technology Horizons

Figure 26. Single-stage ISR/strike vehicles such as this early-stage con-

cept design, which uses internal rocket boost to Mach 3.5 and rocket-
based combined-cycle acceleration to scramjet cruise at Mach 6, can
enable time-responsive missions at long ranges with substantial pay-
loads and runway landings. (Courtesy Astrox Corporation.)
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 85

in A2/AD environments would come from the multiplicative benefits

of redundancy among the low-cost expendable elements in the frac-
tionated system architecture, which can overwhelm adversary IADSs
via fundamentally asymmetric cost-imposing strategy.

Fractionated autonomous systems provide a low-cost means for as-needed

composable mission capabilities, from individual or paired systems for simple
EO-IR imaging or hunter-killer missions to large mission packages with redun-
dancy for A2/AD environments.

Direct Forward Air Delivery and Resupply

Small-unit operations in difficult environments are likely to require
improved means for resupply beyond current joint precision airdrop
system (JPADS) capabilities and related near-term systems. Such a ca-
pability will typically need substantial autonomy and aerodynamic
control authority to overcome high winds in mountainous terrain
while maintaining precise drop-point accuracy, requiring substantially
different aerodynamic and control concepts than traditional autono-
mous systems. Demand for a wide range of weight classes and the ability
to deliver from existing mobility platforms make this a substantially
challenging system.

The likelihood of a continuing mid- to long-term need to provide precision

forward air delivery in difficult terrain makes this an important challenge for
advancing autonomous system capabilities within significant limits on cost
and other factors.

Energy-Efficient, Partially Buoyant Cargo Airlifters

Partially buoyant cargo airlifters as shown in figure 27 derive most
of their lift from buoyancy and the remainder aerodynamically from
forward flight. They typically differ from dirigibles in that they have a
rigid semimonocoque hull structure fabricated from a lightweight
but strong composite that provides significant structural mass effi-
ciencies. Moderate-size prototypes of such craft have been built and
operated, and fully autonomous systems are possible. Large systems
of this type can transport enormous amounts of cargo far more en-
ergy efficiently than winged aircraft and more quickly than traditional
86 │ Technology Horizons

Figure 27. Hybrid airships that achieve part of their lift from buoyancy
and part aerodynamically from forward flight can serve as highly efficient
large-scale cargo airlifters for long-haul routes and in uncontested areas
with unprepared landing sites. (Courtesy Lockheed Martin.)

seagoing cargo ships, and can land in relatively unprepared sites to

deliver cargo closer to the point of use. Enabling such capabilities re-
quires advancing several of the underlying technologies in system de-
sign and integration for differing weight classes and operating capa-
bilities, as well as in technologies to address weather effects, ballast
control, and cargo handling.
Partially buoyant cargo airlifters could provide substantially reduced fuel
costs for certain types of air mobility missions and increased ability to deliver
large-scale cargo into relatively unprepared sites in a potentially autonomous
system.

Fuel-Efficient Hybrid Wing-Body Aircraft

Subsonic hybrid wing-body aircraft provide significantly increased
fuel efficiency and are adaptable for multiple mission roles. Configura-
tions such as in figure 28 are enabled in part by advanced lightweight
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 87

Figure 28. Hybrid wing-body aircraft have higher fuel efficiency than
traditional tube-and-wing designs for tankers and transports. Advances
in integrated stitched-composite manufacturing technologies such as
PRSEUS (pultruded, rod-stitched efficient unitized structure) have en-
abled large, lightweight, high-stiffness panels at low cost. (Courtesy
NASA/Dryden.)

stitched-composite fabrication methods that allow out-of-autoclave

forming of large, complex-shaped panels. Hybrid wing-body designs
have a wide internal bay suitable for cargo hauling and personnel trans-
port or for use as aerial-refueling tankers. A single common airframe of
this type could be reconfigured during its service life to any of these
mission sets to meet changing Air Force mission needs. These designs
are suitable to be developed into a family of related aircraft with com-
mon wing and other components that can potentially enable reduced
production and maintenance costs.
Hybrid wing-body aircraft fabrication is enabled by PRSEUS technology that
can substantially reduce airframe weight and cost.
88 │ Technology Horizons

Next-Generation High-Efficiency Turbine Engines

Demands for reducing fuel costs and increasing range and endur-
ance call for substantially increased efficiency of embedded turbine en-
gines. Continuing advances in component-level and system-level
methods to achieve lower fuel consumption will be needed beyond ef-
forts currently under way, as in figure 29. These are driving overall
pressure ratios (OPR) well above today’s state of the art for increased
Brayton cycle efficiencies, in turn requiring new advances in materials and
thermal management technologies. At the same time, emerging “third-
stream engine architectures” can enable constant-mass-flow engines
that can provide further reductions in fuel consumption. A wide range
of technology advances can enable substantial collective improvements
in turbine engine fuel efficiency.
The Air Force’s need for high-efficiency embedded turbine engines in many of
its platforms calls for substantially different approaches from those accessible to
commercial high-bypass engines.

Embedded Diagnostic/Prognostic Subsystems

An embedded system of diagnostic and prognostic sensors emplaced
within high-value Air Force assets such as air vehicles and DE systems
will provide warning and prediction of structural or subsystem failure.

Figure 29. Advancing and integrating technologies that enable a genera-

tion of highly efficient embedded turbine engines at a range of scales
will be key for meeting numerous Air Force needs, from fuel cost savings
to long-endurance ISR and long-range strike. (Courtesy US Air Force.)
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 89

These systems will ensure that preventive maintenance is performed

when actually necessary rather than by antiquated time-based mainte-
nance schedules. Data will be autonomously tracked by individual tail/
system number and part by part. The system can alert maintenance
personnel of suspect parts and queue the supply system to ensure re-
placement prior to failure. These subsystems can also allow mainte-
nance personnel to impose operational flight-envelope restrictions on
individual tail numbers as needed, rather than imposing these across
the entire fleet. Such embedded subsystems can increase overall opera-
tional readiness while decreasing maintenance costs.

Embedded sensors and processors to determine system health and mainte-

nance requirements can extend service life of many systems and reduce
maintenance and sustainability costs.

Penetrating, Persistent Long-Range Strike

The need to penetrate substantially defended adversary airspace and
persist to achieve desired effects is likely to remain an enduring re-
quirement. This will demand a range of technologies that can achieve
deep penetration capability, long loiter, and secure egress. Such systems
would likely need LO across multiple bands, secure communications,
and advanced active and passive spectrum warfare capabilities to allow
deep penetration into adversary territory. Technologies to support ef-
ficient engines, bleedless inlets, and serpentine nozzles will be needed
for improved propulsion integration to enable long range and loiter.

Maintaining LO capabilities is likely to remain essential for key Air Force mis-
sions, as will a wide range of supporting technologies needed to enable long
range and persistence.

High-Speed Penetrating Cruise Missile

A high-speed cruise missile as suggested in figures 30 and 31 can
provide an effective standoff component in a long-range strike system.
It achieves penetration into A2/AD environments by using speed to
obtain substantially increased survivability against modern air defenses.
Such an air-breathing penetrating cruise missile might operate in the
90 │ Technology Horizons

Figure 30. Advances made over the past decade in scramjet propulsion
technologies embodied in the X-51 demonstrator can allow development
of high-speed cruise missiles and other capabilities to support long-range
strike on critical targets in A2/AD environments. (Courtesy US Air Force.)

Figure 31. India and Russia have developed and fielded the BrahMos
supersonic cruise missile, reportedly capable of Mach 2.5 flight over
ranges in excess of 250 kilometers. Su-30 fighters are reportedly being
modified to provide an air-launch capability, primarily for antiship and
land attack roles. (Reprinted from Wikipedia, s.v. “BrahMos,” accessed
20 July 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Brahmos.)

high supersonic or low hypersonic regime to provide a balance be-

tween flight time, range, and survivability. Advances in dual-mode
ram/scramjet propulsion can enable systems up to around Mach 6,
while high Mach turbine engine advances would be used for systems
operating closer to Mach 3+. Such a system might be air-launched
and employ multiple redundant systems for navigation and target ac-
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 91

quisition including GPS, chip-scale cold-atom PNT systems, optical

terrain recognition, EO and IR sensors, passive RF sensing, and ac-
tive EW. Variants could include a hard target penetrator or dispenser
for submunitions.

Speed provides an alternative to low observability that can permit time-

critical strikes in A2/AD environments.

Hyperprecision Low-Collateral-Damage Munitions

The development of focused lethality munitions, precision guidance
via cold-atom PNT systems, and increased ISR information allows the
manufacture of intelligent, cooperative, small munitions with near-
zero circular error probable (CEP) capable of identifying and coordi-
nating an attack through simultaneous engagements of a target to
achieve a mission-defined level of effect. Multiple munitions could be
launched or dropped from one or several air vehicles to cooperatively
engage targets. Operating autonomously or with a continuous stream
of ISR data, the munitions would do final target acquisition and coop-
eratively plan a simultaneous attack to achieve the desired effect. Muni-
tions not used would engage other approved targets or self-destruct
with minimal collateral damage.

Advances in precision guidance for GPS-denied areas and focused-lethality

munitions can enable a generation of hyperprecise, low-collateral-damage
munitions.

Directed Energy for Tactical Strike/Defense

Laser and high-power microwave systems can be developed with
sufficient power and beam control for active air base defense, air vehicle
defense, and tactical strike applications, as suggested in figure 32. Prior
chemical lasers as used in the advanced tactical laser will be replaced by
solid-state laser systems, most likely derived from the High-Energy
Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS) technology and subse-
quently will be replaced by even more efficient fiber laser systems. The
reduced size, weight, power, and thermal management requirements
will allow closer integration of such systems in advanced fighters and
92 │ Technology Horizons

Figure 32. Laser DE systems will use advanced solid state and fiber la-
ser technologies that enable lightweight, efficient airborne self-defense
and low-collateral-damage tactical strike. (Courtesy US Air Force.)

other tactical platforms. Highly autonomous, self-contained systems can

be utilized for self-defense to neutralize credible GPS receiver application
module (GRAM) and AAM missile threats. Airborne tactical strike sys-
tems can be used against targets in complex environments such as urban
areas with near-zero collateral damage. Such systems can incorporate in-
telligent beam control to avoid collateral damage to blue forces and non-
combatants. Advances in power and thermal management can permit
ground-based air base defensive systems to have near-infinite magazines,
while airborne systems will have magazines limited by onboard power
generation and storage and by thermal management capabilities.
Technologies for laser-based DE systems enabling near-zero-collateral-damage
tactical strikes and airborne self-defense are advancing rapidly and in the
midterm to long term may allow such systems to expand into new airborne
and ground-based roles.

Enhanced Underground Strike with Conventional Munitions

Hyperprecision navigation, timing, and autonomous/cooperative
guidance will enable two or more conventional munitions to strike
high-value underground targets using extremely short and precisely
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 93

spaced time separations to provide maximal penetration. Using the un-

steady dynamics of the compression and expansion wave system pro-
duced in a granular earth medium by the downward impulse from a
preceding munition allows a following time-phased munition to pene-
trate through the locally weakened depth-time region produced by the
overexpansion wave in the resulting wave system. In effect, the second
munition “wave rides” through the subsurface wave system created by
the first munition, taking advantage of the degraded material proper-
ties of the granular medium that result from partial dislocation of the
otherwise interlocking granular constituents. This partial fluidization
of the granular medium allows for dramatically reduced drag on the
second munition as well as increased penetration depth and stability.

Relatively soft underground targets can be struck without ground-penetrating

munitions by using precisely time-phased impacts that allow subsurface
wave dynamics to be exploited for achieving substantially deeper impact
than would otherwise be possible.

Reusable Air-Breathing Access-to-Space Launch

The cost of placing satellites in orbit with current EELV launchers is
high. Next-generation two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) launch systems cur-
rently under consideration are focused on reusable rocket approaches
that can provide modest reductions in launch costs, depending on launch
rates. However, reusable air-breathing TSTO systems based on combined-
cycle propulsion have potential to create large reductions in launch
costs since such systems utilize oxygen in the atmosphere and thus do
not need to loft the enormous oxidizer weight needed by rocket sys-
tems. Vertical takeoff space launch vehicles such as this will use a reus-
able rocket in the first stage with a reusable rocket-based, combined-
cycle air-breathing scramjet in the second stage. Advanced materials,
automation, and onboard diagnostic and prognostic systems will allow
rapid turnaround for reuse as well as life cycle cost savings as compared
to conventional rockets.

Air-breathing, combined-cycle TSTO launch systems have the ability to pro-

vide substantial reductions in space launch costs.
94 │ Technology Horizons

Rapidly Composable Small Satellites

Small satellites, as in figure 33, can be assembled, tested, launched, and
functioning on orbit within days of operational requirement genera-
tion. These satellites are based on a plug-and-play/open-architecture
approach using standards for self-describing components within a dis-
coverable and autoconfiguring system. Satellite control can be accom-
plished with standardized ground stations. These architectures can be
sufficiently flexible to allow spiral upgrade of individual components,

Figure 33. Small satellites composed from standardized modular ele-

ments can provide rapid on-orbit capabilities with “good enough”
functionality. Fractionated or distributed space systems composed
from such small satellites can significantly increase their functionality
and survivability. (Courtesy NASA.)
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 95

cooperative control with other satellites, and the potential for on-orbit
self-assembly. Subassemblies can include propulsion for attitude con-
trol, orbital maintenance and maneuver, laser and/or traditional com-
munications, ISR, SSA, self-defense, and other missions. Such plug-
and-play architectures are based on a cross-domain-enabling concept
since air and cyber systems can also be built from preexisting modular
components using similar “open architecture” approaches.

Plug-and-play modular components allow lower-cost small satellites with

“good enough” capabilities to be rapidly designed and assembled for opera-
tionally responsive space missions.

Fractionated/Distributed Space Systems

Constellations of smaller satellites operating cooperatively to per-
form a given mission set can provide greater survivability and greater
ease of systematic upgrade. Architectures based on fractionation in-
volve several functionally different satellite elements that cooperate to
act as a single system, while distributed architectures involve many
copies of identical elements that operate coherently to produce greater
capability than each element could individually. The individual satellite
elements make use of onboard data processing to minimize intercon-
stellation communications to achieve a highly secure and jam-resistant
architecture. Such systems may utilize plug-and-play/open architec-
tures and allow seamless upgrade of the constellation’s overall capability
by adding or substituting new individual, small satellites.

Fractionated or distributed space systems can potentially provide greater on-

orbit capability at lower cost than is achievable with traditional approaches,
while allowing rapid reconstitution in the event that elements in the constel-
lation are lost.

Persistent Space Situational Awareness

Current ground-based radars and telescopes and space-based space
surveillance (SBSS) assets that comprise the space surveillance network
can be augmented to provide birth-to-death detection, tracking, and
characterization of every object in orbit, from traditional large satellites
to picosatellites and orbital debris at LEO, medium Earth orbit (MEO),
96 │ Technology Horizons

and geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) altitudes. As suggested in fig-

ure 34, this can be done through a combination of new ground-based
and space-based assets with appropriate fusion of data from other sat-
ellites, Aegis ships, and other sources into an integrated database. Cur-
rent plans are to augment the radars and optical telescopes in the cur-
rent space surveillance network with a 3.5-millimeter space surveillance
telescope (SST), the SBSS system, and the S-band Space Fence system.
These will address detection and tracking, but determining the con-
tents of a satellite or its potential capabilities and intent will be ex-
tremely difficult. Bringing together data from active and passive RF
and EO-IR sources can provide a true “SSA network” with capabilities
far beyond those of its individual elements. In principle, all satellites in
orbit can provide information that, when fused and analyzed, provides
a far more complete picture, including space weather effects to allow
discrimination of hostile actions from natural causes.
A substantially greater SSA capability will be essential to protecting space
assets and allowing continued effective use of space.

Figure 34. Improved space surveillance capability will consist of

ground-based and space-based assets that can provide birth-to-death
tracking and characterization of all spaceborne systems. Effective data
fusion from multiple sources provides significant leverage over single-
source observations. (Courtesy US Air Force.)
 technology-enabled capabilities │ 97

Improved Orbital Conjunction Prediction

Development of a physics-based, near-real-time predictive model of
near-Earth space environment interactions with spacecraft will allow
highly accurate, actionable predictions of space object conjunctions.
This model would utilize space weather data from ground- and space-
based space environment sensors, SSA sensor data of object locations/
trajectories, and substantially improved astrodynamic calculations us-
ing improved satellite drag models. The model will provide confidence
levels in conjunction predictions sufficient to justify orbital maneuvers
to reduce risks of collisions.

Development of such an improved conjunction prediction capability will be

essential for protecting space assets from collisions and from resulting increases
in orbital debris that would endanger critical Air Force space assets.

Key Potential Capability Areas

The set of 30 PCAs is within reach as new Air Force capabilities by
the 2030 target date of Technology Horizons and is matched to key needs
of the strategic environment of this period. Among these PCAs, the
following 12 were determined to be of highest priority:
■■ PCA1: Inherently Intrusion-Resilient Cyber Systems
■■ PCA2: Automated Cyber Vulnerability Assessments and Reactions
■■ PCA4: Augmentation of Human Performance
■■ PCA6: Trusted, Adaptive, Flexibly Autonomous Systems
■■ PCA8: Dominant Spectrum Warfare Operations
■■ PCA9: Precision Navigation/Timing in GPS-Denied Environments
■■ PCA12: Processing-Enabled Intelligent ISR Sensors
■■ PCA15: Fractionated, Survivable, Remotely Piloted Systems
■■ PCA19: Next-Generation High-Efficiency Turbine Engines
■■ PCA24: DE for Tactical Strike/Defense
■■ PCA27: Rapidly Composable Small Satellites
■■ PCA29: Persistent SSA
98 │ Technology Horizons

From Potential Capability Areas to

Key Technology Areas
The next section lists the KTAs that can enable each of the 30 PCAs
that have been identified. In so doing, it identifies the S&T that must be
pursued over the next decade to allow these new Air Force capabilities
to be developed. Correlating the resulting lists of KTAs across all 30
PCAs, and particularly across the top 12 PCAs, makes it possible to
determine the S&T investments that can make the greatest contribu-
tions to Air Force capabilities for the 2010–30 strategic environment.
 Chapter 6

Key Technology Areas 2010–30

This chapter identifies a set of KTAs—among the most essen-

tial Air Force S&T to be pursued over the next decade—that
will enable technology-derived capabilities that can respond to
the strategic, budget, and technology environments.

Each of the PCAs noted in the previous chapter is predicated on a set

of underlying technologies that enable materiel or nonmateriel means
for achieving capabilities within that area. As indicated in the previous
chapter (see fig. 17), the set of individual technology research efforts
associated with these capabilities may be quite large; however, these
individual technologies can be sensibly aggregated into broader tech-
nology areas.
Individual research efforts within any given technology area may be
exploring different ways of achieving the same technology objective or
may be exploring different technology objectives that are needed to en-
able complementary aspects of a given technology. It is not the objec-
tive of Technology Horizons to dictate which of these individual lines of
research within a given technology area will likely prove to be the most
productive. Rather, this effort is appropriately focused on identifying
which technology areas are most essential for Air Force S&T to pursue
to enable PCAs, such as those in chapter 5, that are aligned with the
strategic environment, enduring realities, and overarching themes
identified in chapters 2–4.
Focusing on such KTAs and not on individual lines of research is the
appropriate level of specificity for an S&T vision. Identifying KTAs
provides useful guidance in making difficult choices among the limited
set of S&T investments that can be pursued in the likely budget envi-
ronment over the next two decades, yet it gives AFRL leadership the
freedom to evaluate and select the specific individual lines of research
that should be pursued.
100 │ Technology Horizons

Key Technology Areas Supporting

Potential Capability Areas
For each of the PCAs identified in chapter 5, a large number of supporting
technologies are needed to allow systems of that type to be developed or to
contribute to the increased effectiveness of such systems. It has not been an
objective of Technology Horizons to produce an exhaustive list of all such sup-
porting technologies. Indeed, by being comprehensive, such a list would be
of little or no use in providing guidance for Air Force S&T decisions.
Instead, this effort has sought to identify the more limited set of KTAs
that not only support these PCAs but also are broadly essential for enabling
the overarching themes previously noted (chap. 4, fig. 16). The resulting
KTAs identified below for each of the PCAs should be understood in that
way. They do not define the entirety of S&T that the Air Force needs, but
they are among the most essential components of the S&T that the Air
Force will need for the strategic environment, enduring realities, and over-
arching themes that define the 2010–30 time frame and beyond.
A set of 110 individual technology areas is identified here as being among the
most essential S&T for the Air Force to pursue over the next decade. Each of
these KTAs is mapped into the PCAs from chapter 5 and the overarching
themes from chapter 4.

Figure 35. Basic research is providing the foundation on which a wide

range of future capabilities can be based, such as (left) superconduct-
ing artificial atom structures visualized via (right) amplitude spectros-
copy and metamaterials with negative refractive index that bend EM
waves backwards. (Courtesy US Air Force [left] and NASA [right].)
 key technology areas │ 101

PCA1: Inherently Intrusion-Resilient Cyber Systems

■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Autonomous systems
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ Autonomous reasoning
■■ Agile hypervisors ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Agile networks ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Pseudorandom network recomposition ■■ Automated software generation
■■ Laser communications ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ Secure RF links ■■ Sensor data fusion
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Cyber offense
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ Cyber defense
■■ QKD ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Massive analytics
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Automated reasoning and learning

PCA2: Automated Cyber Vulnerability Assessments and Reactions

■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Agile networks ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ Complex environment visualization ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Cyber defense
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ Human behavior modeling
■■ QKD ■■ Cultural behavior modeling
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Social network modeling
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Human-machine interfaces
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning

PCA3: Decision-Quality Prediction of Behavior

■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Biological signatures
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Human behavior modeling
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Cultural behavior modeling
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Social network modeling
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation
■■ Decision support tools ■■ Influence measures
■■ Distributed sensing networks ■■ Cognitive modeling
■■ Integrated sensing and processing ■■ Human-machine interfaces
102 │ Technology Horizons

PCA4: Augmentation of Human Performance

■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Sensor-based processing
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Agile networks ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Biological signatures
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Human behavior modeling
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Cultural behavior modeling
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Social network modeling
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Influence measures
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Cognitive modeling
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Cognitive performance augmentation
■■ Decision support tools ■■ Physical performance augmentation
■■ Automated software generation ■■ Human-machine interfaces
■■ Distributed sensing networks

PCA5: Advanced Constructive Discovery and Training Environments

■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ Automated software generation
■■ Agile networks ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Human behavior modeling
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Cultural behavior modeling
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Social network modeling
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Influence measures
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Cognitive modeling
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Human-machine interfaces

PCA6: Trusted, Adaptive, Flexibly Autonomous Systems

■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Ad hoc networks
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Polymorphic networks
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Virtual machine architectures
■■ Cold-atom inertial navigation systems ■■ Agile networks
(INS) ■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
 key technology areas │ 103

■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Sensor-based processing

■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Cyber defense
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ Human behavior modeling
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Cultural behavior modeling
■■ Decision support tools ■■ Social network modeling
■■ Automated software generation ■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation
■■ Distributed sensing networks ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Integrated sensing and processing ■■ Human-machine interfaces

PCA7: Frequency-Agile Spectrum Utilization

■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Autonomous mission planning
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Agile networks ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Pseudorandom network recomposition ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ RF EW
■■ Laser communications ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ QKD ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Massive analytics
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Human-machine interfaces
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Metamaterials

PCA8: Dominant Spectrum Warfare Operations

■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Laser communications
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Short-range secure RF communications
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Frequency-agile RF systems
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Spectral mutability
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ Dynamic spectrum access
■■ Agile networks ■■ QKD
■■ Pseudorandom network recomposition ■■ Complex adaptive systems
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Complex system dynamics
■■ Modular small-sat components ■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems
■■ Distributed small-sat architectures ■■ DE effects
■■ Fractionated small-sat architectures ■■ DE protection
104 │ Technology Horizons

■■ High-power microwaves ■■ IR signature suppression

■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Sensor-based processing
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Cyber offense
■■ Decision support tools ■■ Cyber defense
■■ Passive radar ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Secure RF links ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ RF EW ■■ Metamaterials
■■ EO-IR sensing ■■ Nanomaterials

PCA9: Precision Navigation/Timing in GPS-Denied Environments

■■ Cold-atom INSs chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Complex adaptive systems
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Complex system dynamics
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems
■■ Agile networks ■■ Autonomous systems
■■ Laser communications ■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ QKD ■■ Secure RF links

PCA10: Next-Generation High-Bandwidth Secure Communications

■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ QKD
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Solid-state lasers
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Fiber lasers
■■ Laser communications ■■ Semiconductor lasers
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ EO-IR sensing
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ Metamaterials

PCA11: Persistent Near-Space Communications Relays

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Frequency-agile RF systems
■■ Aerodynamic test and evaluation (T&E) ■■ Spectral mutability
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Dynamic spectrum access
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ DE protection
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Advanced composite fabrication
■■ Agile networks ■■ Structural modeling and simulation (M&S)
■■ Laser communications ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations
 key technology areas │ 105

■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Composites sustainment

■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Metamaterials
■■ High-altitude airship ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Secure RF links ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ RF EW ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Cyber defense ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Cyber resilience ■■ Radiation hardened electronics
■■ High-altitude materials ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Lightweight materials ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Advanced composites ■■ High-OPR compressors

PCA12: Processing-Enabled Intelligent ISR Sensors

■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Cyber offense
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ Cyber defense
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ Quantum computing ■■ Biological signatures
■■ Decision support tools ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning
■■ EO-IR sensing ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Distributed sensing networks ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Integrated sensing and processing ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Sensor-based processing ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Signal identification and recognition ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Information fusion and understanding ■■ Radiation hardened electronics

PCA13: High-Altitude, Long-Endurance ISR Airships

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ RF EW
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ EO-IR sensing
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ High-altitude materials
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ DE protection ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Radiation hardened electronics
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Thermal management components
■■ High-altitude airship
106 │ Technology Horizons

PCA14: Prompt Theater-Range ISR/Strike Systems

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Health monitoring and prognosis
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Advanced thermal protection system ■■ EO-IR sensing
(TPS) materials ■■ IR signature suppression
■■ Scramjet propulsion systems ■■ High-temperature materials
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ High-altitude materials
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ DE protection ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Hydrocarbon boost engine
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ High-temperature fuel technologies
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Efficient bleedless inlets
■■ Autonomous mission planning

PCA15: Fractionated, Survivable, Remotely Piloted Systems

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Autonomous mission planning
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Health monitoring and prognosis
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ RF EW
■■ Laser communications ■■ EO-IR sensing
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ IR signature suppression
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Advanced composites
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ DE effects ■■ Metamaterials
■■ DE protection ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ High-power microwaves ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Three-stream engine architectures
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ High-OPR compressors
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Advanced/interturbine burners
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Efficient bleedless inlets
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Serpentine nozzles
■■ Resilient autonomy
 key technology areas │ 107

PCA16: Direct Forward Air Delivery and Resupply

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Health monitoring and prognosis
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Autonomous systems

PCA17: Energy-Efficient, Partially Buoyant Cargo Airlifters

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Health monitoring and prognosis
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ DE effects ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ DE protection ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Embedded diagnostics

PCA18: Fuel-Efficient Hybrid Wing-Body Aircraft

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ IR signature suppression
■■ DE effects ■■ High-temperature materials
■■ DE protection ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Three-stream engine architectures
108 │ Technology Horizons

PCA19: Next-Generation High-Efficiency Turbine Engines

■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Structural M&S ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Alternate fuels
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ Three-stream engine architectures
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ High-temperature fuel technologies
■■ High-temperature materials ■■ High-OPR compressors
■■ Lightweight materials ■■ Engine component testing
■■ Nanomaterials ■■ Advanced/interturbine burners
■■ Nondestructive evaluation ■■ Serpentine nozzles

PCA20: Embedded Diagnostic/Prognostic Subsystems

■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Fiber lasers ■■ High-temperature materials
■■ Semiconductor lasers ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Nondestructive evaluation
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis

PCA21: Penetrating, Persistent Long-Range Strike

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Complex adaptive systems
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Complex system dynamics
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ DE effects
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ DE protection
■■ Laser communications ■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Advanced composite fabrication
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Structural M&S
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
 key technology areas │ 109

■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Cyber resilience

■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ High-temperature materials
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Decision support tools ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Passive radar ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Secure RF links ■■ Thermal management components
■■ RF EW ■■ Three-stream engine architectures
■■ EO-IR sensing ■■ High-OPR compressors
■■ IR signature suppression ■■ Advanced/interturbine burners
■■ Integrated sensing and processing ■■ Efficient bleedless inlets
■■ Information fusion and understanding ■■ Serpentine nozzles
■■ Cyber offense

PCA22: High-Speed Penetrating Cruise Missile

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ RF EW
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Advanced TPS materials ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Scramjet propulsion systems ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ High-temperature materials
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Advanced composites
■■ DE protection ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Engine component testing
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ High-speed turbines
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Efficient bleedless inlets
110 │ Technology Horizons

PCA23: Hyperprecision Low-Collateral-Damage Munitions

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Autonomous mission planning
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Secure RF links
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ EO-IR sensing
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Autonomous systems

PCA24: Directed Energy for Tactical Strike/Defense

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Structural M&S
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Validation support to simulations
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ Solid-state lasers ■■ Health monitoring and prognosis
■■ Fiber lasers ■■ High-temperature materials
■■ Semiconductor lasers ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Beam control ■■ Advanced composites
■■ DE effects ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ DE protection ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ High-power microwaves ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Three-stream engine architectures

PCA25: Enhanced Underground Strike with Conventional Munitions

■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Validation support to simulations
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Autonomous mission planning

PCA26: Reusable Air-breathing Access-to-Space Launch

■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Complex adaptive systems
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Complex system dynamics
■■ Advanced TPS materials ■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems
■■ Scramjet propulsion systems ■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures
 key technology areas │ 111

■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Lightweight materials

■■ Structural M&S ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Hydrocarbon boost engine
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Secure RF links ■■ Radiation hardened electronics
■■ Cyber resilience ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ High-temperature materials ■■ Thermal management components
■■ High-altitude materials ■■ Efficient bleedless inlets

PCA27: Rapidly Composable Small Satellites

■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Modular small-sat components ■■ RF EW
■■ Fractionated small-sat architectures ■■ EO-IR sensing
■■ Laser communications ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ High-altitude materials
■■ DE effects ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ DE protection ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Space weather ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Orbital environment characterization ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Satellite drag modeling ■■ Metamaterials
■■ SSA ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Hydrocarbon boost engine
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Spacecraft propulsion
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Electric propulsion
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ Radiation hardened electronics
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ Thermal management components

PCA28: Fractionated/Distributed Space Systems

■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Short-range secure RF communications
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Frequency-agile RF systems
■■ Agile networks ■■ Spectral mutability
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Complex adaptive systems
■■ Modular small-sat components ■■ Complex system dynamics
■■ Distributed small-sat architectures ■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems
■■ Fractionated small-sat architectures ■■ DE effects
■■ Laser communications ■■ DE protection
112 │ Technology Horizons

■■ High-power microwaves ■■ Distributed sensing networks

■■ Space weather ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Orbital environment characterization ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Satellite drag modeling ■■ High-temperature materials
■■ SSA ■■ High-altitude materials
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Hydrocarbon boost engine
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Spacecraft propulsion
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ Electric propulsion
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Secure RF links ■■ Radiation hardened electronics
■■ RF EW ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ EO-IR sensing ■■ Thermal management components

PCA29: Persistent Space Situational Awareness

■■ Distributed small-sat architectures ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ Fractionated small-sat architectures ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ Decision support tools ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ EO-IR sensing ■■ RF and electronic materials

PCA30: Improved Orbital Conjunction Prediction

■■ Space weather ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Orbital environment characterization ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ Satellite drag modeling ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ SSA ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Validation support to simulations
 key technology areas │ 113

Not every KTA listed under each PCA is necessarily relevant to every
line of research that might support development of materiel or non­
materiel means for achieving capabilities within that area. However, all
are potentially relevant to at least some key aspects of approaches that
might be pursued under that capability area.

Alignment of Key Technology Areas

with Overarching Themes
Chapter 4 identifies a set of 12 broad overarching themes that helps
to define the most essential research efforts that Air Force S&T should
pursue to prepare for the strategic environment and enduring realities
of the 2010–30 time frame. These overarching themes are aggregated
into logical clusters below, and the KTAs identified above are mapped
into these to clarify how these themes can be used to guide S&T invest-
ment choices.

FROM . . . Platforms, Integrated, Preplanned, Long System Life

TO . . . Capabilities, Fractionated, Composable, Expendable
■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Complex system dynamics
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Solid-state lasers
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Fiber lasers
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Semiconductor lasers
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Beam control
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ DE effects
■■ Agile hypervisors ■■ DE protection
■■ Agile networks ■■ High-power microwaves
■■ Pseudorandom network recomposition ■■ Quantum computing
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Space weather
■■ Modular small-sat components ■■ Orbital environment characterization
■■ Distributed small-sat architectures ■■ Satellite drag modeling
■■ Fractionated small-sat architectures ■■ SSA
■■ Laser communications ■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Advanced composite fabrication
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Structural M&S
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations
■■ QKD ■■ Validation support to simulations
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Autonomous systems
114 │ Technology Horizons

■■ Autonomous reasoning ■■ Cognitive modeling

■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Automated reasoning and learning
■■ Embedded diagnostics ■■ Cognitive performance augmentation
■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Physical performance augmentation
■■ Decision support tools ■■ Human-machine interfaces
■■ Automated software generation ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Secure RF links ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ RF EW ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ EO-IR sensing ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Distributed sensing networks ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Integrated sensing and processing ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Sensor-based processing ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Signal identification and recognition ■■ Nondestructive evaluation
■■ Information fusion and understanding ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Cyber resilience ■■ Spacecraft propulsion
■■ Advanced computing architectures ■■ Electric propulsion
■■ Human behavior modeling ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Cultural behavior modeling ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Social network modeling ■■ Radiation hardened electronics
■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Influence measures ■■ Thermal management components

FROM . . . Cyber Defense, Permissive, Operations, Single Domain

TO . . . Cyber Resilience, Contested, Dissuasion, Cross Domain
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Complex system dynamics
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ DE effects
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ DE protection
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ High-power microwaves
■■ Agile hypervisors ■■ Quantum computing
■■ Agile networks ■■ Space weather
■■ Pseudorandom network recomposition ■■ Orbital environment characterization
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Satellite drag modeling
■■ Modular small-sat components ■■ SSA
■■ Distributed small-sat architectures ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
■■ Fractionated small-sat architectures ■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations
■■ Laser communications ■■ Validation support to simulations
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Autonomous systems
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Autonomous reasoning
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ QKD ■■ Autonomous mission planning
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Embedded diagnostics
 key technology areas │ 115

■■ Health monitoring and prognosis ■■ Complex environment visualization

■■ Decision support tools ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Automated software generation ■■ Automated reasoning and learning
■■ Passive radar ■■ Cognitive performance augmentation
■■ Advanced RF apertures ■■ Physical performance augmentation
■■ Secure RF links ■■ Human-machine interfaces
■■ RF EW ■■ High-altitude materials
■■ EO-IR sensing ■■ Lightweight materials
■■ IR signature suppression ■■ Advanced composites
■■ Distributed sensing networks ■■ Composites sustainment
■■ Integrated sensing and processing ■■ Optical and infrared materials
■■ Sensor-based processing ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Signal identification and recognition ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Information fusion and understanding ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Cyber offense ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Cyber resilience ■■ Spacecraft propulsion
■■ Advanced computing architectures ■■ Electric propulsion
■■ Biological signatures ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Human behavior modeling ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Cultural behavior modeling ■■ Radiation hardened electronics
■■ Social network modeling ■■ Alternate fuels
■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Influence measures ■■ Thermal management components

FROM . . . Sensors, Control, Single Domain

TO . . . Information, Autonomy, Cross Domain
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ DE protection
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ High-power microwaves
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Quantum computing
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ Space weather
■■ Agile hypervisors ■■ Orbital environment characterization
■■ Agile networks ■■ Satellite drag modeling
■■ Pseudorandom network recomposition ■■ SSA
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
■■ Modular small-sat components ■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations
■■ Distributed small-sat architectures ■■ Validation support to simulations
■■ Fractionated small-sat architectures ■■ Autonomous systems
■■ Laser communications ■■ Autonomous reasoning
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Autonomous mission planning
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ QKD ■■ Health monitoring and prognosis
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Automated software generation
116 │ Technology Horizons

■■ Secure RF links ■■ Influence measures

■■ RF EW ■■ Cognitive modeling
■■ Distributed sensing networks ■■ Complex environment visualization
■■ Integrated sensing and processing ■■ Massive analytics
■■ Sensor-based processing ■■ Automated reasoning and learning
■■ Signal identification and recognition ■■ Cognitive performance augmentation
■■ Information fusion and understanding ■■ Human-machine interfaces
■■ Cyber resilience ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Advanced computing architectures ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Biological signatures ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Human behavior modeling ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Cultural behavior modeling ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Social network modeling ■■ Radiation hardened electronics
■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation

FROM … . . . Manned, Control, Long System Life

TO . . . Remotely Piloted, Autonomy, Expendable
■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Autonomous systems
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Autonomous reasoning
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Autonomous mission planning
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ Health monitoring and prognosis
■■ Agile hypervisors ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Agile networks ■■ Automated software generation
■■ Pseudorandom network recomposition ■■ High-altitude airship
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Passive radar
■■ Modular small-sat components ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ RF EW
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ EO-IR sensing
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ IR signature suppression
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Semiconductor lasers ■■ Sensor-based processing
■■ DE effects ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ DE protection ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ High-power microwaves ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ Quantum computing ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures ■■ Human behavior modeling
■■ Advanced composite fabrication ■■ Cultural behavior modeling
■■ Structural M&S ■■ Social network modeling
■■ Multiscale simulation technologies ■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation
■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations ■■ Cognitive modeling
■■ Validation support to simulations ■■ Complex environment visualization
 key technology areas │ 117

■■ Massive analytics ■■ Material-specific manufacturing

■■ Automated reasoning and learning ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Human-machine interfaces ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ High-altitude materials ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Lightweight materials ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Advanced composites ■■ High-OPR compressors
■■ Composites sustainment ■■ Engine component testing
■■ Optical and infrared materials ■■ Advanced/interturbine burners
■■ RF and electronic materials ■■ Efficient bleedless inlets
■■ Metamaterials ■■ Serpentine nozzles
■■ Self-healing materials ■■ High-speed turbines
■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Nondestructive evaluation

FROM . . . Fixed, Single Domain, Permissive

TO . . . Agile, Cross Domain, Contested
■■ Advanced aerodynamic configurations ■■ Space weather
■■ Aerodynamic T&E ■■ Orbital environment characterization
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Satellite drag modeling
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ SSA
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Lightweight multifunctional structures
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
■■ Virtual machine architectures ■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations
■■ Agile hypervisors ■■ Validation support to simulations
■■ Agile networks ■■ Resilient autonomy
■■ Pseudorandom network recomposition ■■ Collaborative/cooperative control
■■ Complex adaptive distributed networks ■■ Autonomous mission planning
■■ Distributed small-sat architectures ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ Fractionated small-sat architectures ■■ Health monitoring and prognosis
■■ Laser communications ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Short-range secure RF communications ■■ Passive radar
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems ■■ Advanced RF apertures
■■ Spectral mutability ■■ Secure RF links
■■ Dynamic spectrum access ■■ RF EW
■■ QKD ■■ EO-IR sensing
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ IR signature suppression
■■ Complex system dynamics ■■ Distributed sensing networks
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Integrated sensing and processing
■■ Solid-state lasers ■■ Sensor-based processing
■■ Fiber lasers ■■ Signal identification and recognition
■■ Semiconductor lasers ■■ Information fusion and understanding
■■ Beam control ■■ Cyber offense
■■ DE effects ■■ Cyber defense
■■ DE protection ■■ Cyber resilience
■■ High-power microwaves ■■ Advanced computing architectures
■■ Quantum computing ■■ Human behavior modeling
118 │ Technology Horizons

■■ Cultural behavior modeling ■■ Optical and infrared materials

■■ Social network modeling ■■ RF and electronic materials
■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation ■■ Metamaterials
■■ Influence measures ■■ Self-healing materials
■■ Cognitive modeling ■■ Nanomaterials
■■ Complex environment visualization ■■ Nondestructive evaluation
■■ Massive analytics ■■ Material-specific manufacturing
■■ Automated reasoning and learning ■■ Power generation and energy storage
■■ Cognitive performance augmentation ■■ High-temperature electronics
■■ Physical performance augmentation ■■ System-level thermal management M&S
■■ Human-machine interfaces ■■ Thermal management components
■■ Lightweight materials

Summary of Key Technology Areas

Among the 110 technology areas listed above, a smaller subset is
common to many of these PCAs and overarching themes. This subset
is especially important for enabling the shorter list of 12 top PCAs
identified in the previous chapter. This set represents KTAs that are the
most critical to advance over the next decade to enable Air Force capa-
bilities that are matched to the 2030 environment.

■■ Autonomous systems ■■ Spectral mutability

■■ Autonomous reasoning and learning ■■ Dynamic spectrum access
■■ Resilient autonomy ■■ QKD
■■ Complex adaptive systems ■■ Multiscale simulation technologies
■■ V&V for complex adaptive systems ■■ Coupled multiphysics simulations
■■ Collaborative/cooperative control ■■ Embedded diagnostics
■■ Autonomous mission planning ■■ Decision support tools
■■ Cold-atom INSs ■■ Automated software generation
■■ Chip-scale atomic clocks ■■ Sensor-based processing
■■ Ad hoc networks ■■ Behavior prediction and anticipation
■■ Polymorphic networks ■■ Cognitive modeling
■■ Agile networks ■■ Cognitive performance augmentation
■■ Laser communications ■■ Human-machine interfaces
■■ Frequency-agile RF systems

The KTAs identified above represent only a fraction of the research

efforts that the AFRL is currently pursuing. However, they are identi-
fied here as being among the most essential S&T that must be explored
to enable Air Force capabilities that are matched to the 2010–30 envi-
ronment. Other supporting research efforts beyond these will also be
 key technology areas │ 119

needed to obtain a properly balanced and hedged portfolio, but these

areas will be essential. These KTAs will be needed to enable Air Force
capabilities based on game-changing approaches such as flexible
­autonomy and human performance augmentation, which have been
identified in Technology Horizons as central for maintaining Air Force
technology superiority.

If we are to achieve results never before accom-

plished, we must expect to employ methods never
before attempted.
—Sir Francis Bacon
 Chapter 7

Grand Challenges for Air Force S&T

2010–30

This chapter presents four focused technology challenges to help

guide S&T efforts and drive innovative solutions in ways that
support the enduring realities, overarching themes, and KTAs
identified in Technology Horizons. Each leads to a demon-
stration of a substantial Air Force capability that requires sig-
nificant S&T advances and integration across multiple tech-
nology areas.

The following “grand challenges” are presented to provide a set of

identifiable focus problems that can help guide Air Force S&T over the
next decade in the directions outlined by Technology Horizons. These
are candidate problems designed to promote integration of S&T efforts
across traditional technical domains in ways that can trigger creative
means to solve them. Each is intended to lead to a major systems-level
integrated technology demonstration. The problem statements are
written to be sufficiently descriptive of a major technology-enabled
“stretch capability” without prescribing the approaches by which the
challenge may be met.
These are not meant to be competitions in the way that some DOD-
related grand challenges have been. They are focus areas within which
sets of individual KTAs can be advanced and integrated at the whole-
system level. The goal of each is to guide Air Force S&T in directions
consistent with the enduring realities, overarching themes, and tech-
nology areas identified in Technology Horizons, as well as facilitate dra-
matic advances over current capabilities in areas that will be essential
for the Air Force over the next two decades and beyond.
By design, the scale and scope of these challenges vary significantly.
While the AFRL may be able to entirely solve some issues, others may
require it to partner with other organizations. Each is intended to
stress the solution space and drive innovative development of key tech-
nologies. Beyond advancing the underlying technologies and their
122 │ Technology Horizons

inte­gration via these focused efforts, the demonstrations will help

broaden Air Force–wide awareness of S&T advances in ways that could
potentially lead to accelerated development of fieldable capabilities de-
rived from them.

Challenge #1:
Inherently Intrusion-Resilient Cyber Networks
The first challenge is to explore, develop, and demonstrate autono-
mous and scalable technologies that enable large, nonsecure networks
to be made inherently and substantially more resilient to attacks enter-
ing through network or application layers and to attacks that pass
through these layers. Emphasis is on advancing technologies that en-
able network-intrusion tolerance rather than traditional network de-
fense, with the goal to achieve continued mission effectiveness under
large-scale, diverse network attacks. Technologies may include, but are
not limited to, virtualization, recomposability, IP hopping, pseudorandom
switching, server self-cleansing, and other methods that provide sub-
stantial increases in resilience or tolerance to intrusions, are scalable to
arbitrarily large networks, and do not require explicit network operator
interventions. These technologies apply the overarching themes of agility,
autonomy, composability, and resilience in cyber networks.
A representative synthesized, large-scale, open network should be
used to demonstrate the individual or combined benefits of resulting
technologies. This will include an extended period during which un­
restricted parties worldwide are invited to achieve one or more of a set
of defined goals that may include installation of malware or other im-
plants, metatag alteration, data corruption, data exfiltration, distrib-
uted denial of service, and other representative predetermined objec-
tives, in addition to provable accomplishment of any unspecified
modifications in the network or interruptions of network functions.
Target date for demonstration: no later than 2015.

This challenge applies the overarching themes of agility, autonomy, compos-

ability, and resilience to cyber systems and will result in methods for achieving
substantially improved intrusion resistance and intrusion tolerance in Air
Force cyber systems.
 grand challenges │ 123

Challenge #2:
Trusted, Highly Autonomous
Decision-Making Systems
The second challenge is to explore, develop, and demonstrate tech-
nologies that enable current human-intensive functions to be replaced,
in whole or in part, by more highly autonomous decision-making sys-
tems and technologies that permit reliable V&V to establish the needed
trust in them. Emphasis is on decision-making systems requiring lim-
ited or no human intervention for current applications where substan-
tial reductions in specialized manpower may be possible and for future
applications involving inherent decision time scales far exceeding hu-
man capacity.
Technologies may include, but are not limited to, information fu-
sion, cognitive architectures, robust statistical learning, search and op-
timization, automated reasoning, neural networks, complex system
dynamics, and other approaches that will enable increasingly autono-
mous decision making. In parallel, generalized V&V methods should
also be developed for highly autonomous, adaptive, near-infinite state
systems that can provide asymptotic inferential assessments of confi-
dence levels for such systems over their state space. Emphasis in both
areas should be on identifying broadly applicable principles, support-
ing theoretical constructs, practical methods and their algorithmic em-
bodiments, and measures of effectiveness, rather than focusing pri-
marily on individual application-specific instantiations.
The effectiveness of the resulting technologies should be demon-
strated in a representative synthesized, large-scale combined air opera-
tions center environment using recorded operational or operationally
realistic data streams, with total or partial autonomous decision mak-
ing for functions such as battle management, deployment planning,
and logistics management. The resilience of decision-making systems
should be verified under extremely high data-stream capacities and ex-
ceptional events, including corrupted data or information. Autono-
mous or semiautonomous decision quality should be quantified and
compared with human operator decision-making results. Levels of
124 │ Technology Horizons

trust in decision-making systems involved should also be quantified

and compared with demonstration results.
Target date for demonstration: 2017.

Focused effort on this challenge will enable technologies that can support sub-
stantial manpower cost reductions and extend robust improved decision-
making capabilities to highly stressing future applications that may involve
decision time scales beyond human capacity.

Challenge #3:
Fractionated, Composable, Survivable,
Autonomous Systems
The third challenge is to explore, develop, and demonstrate technolo-
gies that can enable future autonomous aircraft or spacecraft systems
achieving greater multirole capability across a broader range of mis-
sions at moderate cost, including increased survivability in contested
environments. Emphasis is on composability via system architectures
based on fractionation and redundancy. This involves advancing meth-
ods for collaborative control and adaptive autonomous mission plan-
ning, as well as V&V of highly adaptable, autonomous control systems.
This also includes technology advances to enable autonomous coordi-
nated flight operation of fractional elements using short-range, low-
bandwidth, jam-resistant, secure communication links. This effort may
include RF agility, burst transmissions, laser links, and other methods
to achieve low probability of detection and maintain needed levels of
link integrity. System-level optimization will determine the degree of
fractionation and define functionality of each type of fractional element.
The demonstration should highlight underlying technologies in a
fully integrated ground-based hardware-in-the-loop simulation of a
complete fractionated system operating over a range of missions and
denial environments. It should also incorporate representative frac-
tional elements and level of redundancy needed for A2/AD operations.
Active links between all system elements for data exchange and com-
mand and control communications should be featured. The demon-
stration should verify maintenance of link integrity over a range of
 grand challenges │ 125

jamming levels and broader EW attacks, as well as show resilience of

system functionality to various types and degrees of degradation in
fractional element capabilities. Finally, it should exhibit mission resilience
to cyber attacks and to loss of multiple fractional elements.
Target date for demonstration: no later than 2018.

This challenge helps focus development of technologies to enable composable

systems of RPAs from sets of common, relatively low-cost, fractional elements
that cooperate as a single system to provide flexible capabilities across a
broader range of missions.

Challenge #4:
Hyperprecision Aerial Delivery
in Difficult Environments
The fourth challenge is to explore, develop, and demonstrate tech-
nologies that enable single-pass, extremely precise, autonomously
guided aerial delivery of equipment and supplies under GPS-denied
conditions from altitudes representative of operations in mountainous
and contested environments and winds representative of steep, moun-
tainous terrain. Emphasis is on low-cost, autonomous flight systems
with control authority capable of reaching target point within specified
impact limits under effects of large stochastic disturbances. Guidance
technologies could include independent IMUs, back-referencing to de-
livery aircraft, or other methods. Technologies should address the full
range needed to enable a complete air delivery system, including flight
vehicle, guidance, terminal impact control, system health monitoring,
and interfaces to airborne platform and ground units.
Resulting technologies should be demonstrated by their capability to
consistently deliver payloads in excess of 2,000 pounds from a 25,000-
foot altitude to within 25 meters of a designated point in steep terrain
under wind conditions representative of mountainous areas. An inte-
grated demonstration system should be deployable from current and
future airlift systems, including remotely piloted platforms, in a single
pass over the drop point. Impact metrics must meet standards for sur-
vivable delivery of equipment and supplies. The system should be
126 │ Technology Horizons

linked to the Global Information Grid to report position, manifest, and

system health information but remain resilient to cyber attacks. It must
also be recoverable and, if possible, self-recoverable.
Target date for demonstration: 2018.
This challenge advances and integrates technologies in several key areas to
demonstrate the potential of autonomous systems to meet the extreme
requirements of a key Air Force mission.
 Chapter 8

Summary of Technology Horizons Vision

This chapter presents a summary of the S&T vision from Tech-

nology Horizons and identifies the most critical focus areas for
S&T investment during the next decade. Sustained research in
these areas will provide the basis for Air Force capability domi-
nance during 2010–30 and beyond.

Technology Horizons has developed a realistically implementable vision

of the most essential Air Force S&T that will be needed to meet the
strategic, technological, and budget demands of 2010–30. The follow-
ing recaps the range of inputs that went into developing this vision and
its key elements and then describes the major insights from this effort.

Broad Range of Inputs to Technology Horizons

The most important S&T efforts that the Air Force will pursue over
the next decade and beyond, as identified in this report, are the result
of an exceptionally broad range of inputs that reflect
■■ inputs from working groups composed of individuals from the
Air Force S&T and intelligence communities, MAJCOMs, prod-
uct centers, FFRDCs, defense industry, and academia;
■■ broad S&T-related perspectives from visits, discussions, and brief-
ings with organizations across the Air Force, including Air Staff
and Air Force secretariat offices, MAJCOMs, product centers, di-
rect reporting units, and field units;
■■ feedback obtained from visits, discussions, and briefings with or-
ganizations representing the DOD, federal agencies, FFRDCs, na-
tional laboratories, and industry;
■■ operational perspectives from briefings, visits, and discussions
with ACC, AFSOC, AFSPC, and AMC; and
128 │ Technology Horizons

■■ technological, operational, and strategic perspectives in reports

from the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, Defense Science
Board, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and nu-
merous other organizations.
Collectively, the broad range of perspectives that was considered in
Technology Horizons ensures that the resulting S&T vision reflects key
Air Force needs during 2010–30 as well as the principal technology-
enabled opportunities where properly focused S&T investments can
best meet those needs.

Elements of the S&T Vision

The role of any S&T vision is to help guide the right choices that
must be made among a very large set of possible technology develop-
ment efforts that could be pursued if resources were available. In the
likely budget-constrained environment that the Air Force faces, such a
guiding vision is essential for making these difficult choices. Technology
Horizons thus provides an Air Force S&T vision for 2010–30 that con-
sists of the following elements:
■■ Strategic Context: Principal strategic factors that will drive needed
Air Force capabilities during this time and factors relevant to the
worldwide S&T arena that will impact the Air Force’s ability to
maintain superior technological capabilities.
■■ Enduring Realities: Key drivers that will remain largely un-
changed and that will act to constrain the ability of the Air Force
to shape itself through S&T investments as it might otherwise be
able to do in an unconstrained environment.
■■ Overarching Themes: Specific dominant themes that will be central
for meeting Air Force needs resulting from the strategic context
and enduring realities and that will form the essential foundation
for the most important Air Force S&T during 2010–30.
■■ Potential Capability Areas: A set of technologically achievable
capability areas that is well aligned with the overarching themes
described above and that identifies key enabling technologies
 summary │ 129

projected to be among the highest-value S&T investments dur-

ing this time.
■■ Key Technology Areas: Cross-cutting technology areas that will
be among the most essential for enabling key potential capabili-
ties such as those above and that will be among the most impor-
tant areas to emphasize in Air Force S&T over the next decade
and beyond.
■■ Grand Challenges: A set of challenge problems to focus Air Force
S&T over the next decade on many of the key enabling technology
areas identified above, and to drive innovative approaches for
solving the most important technical issues in these areas.
■■ Implementation Plan and Recommendations: The proposed plan
for implementing the S&T vision from Technology Horizons, in-
cluding actionable recommendations to vector Air Force S&T
over the next decade, together with corresponding primary and
supporting organizations to implement them.

Essential Focus Areas for Air Force S&T Investment

A major insight to emerge from Technology Horizons is that Air
Force S&T over the next decade will need to focus as much on advanc-
ing technologies that enable reduced Air Force operating costs as on
technologies that support more traditional development of new sys-
tems or capabilities. This includes technologies to reduce manpower,
energy, and sustainment costs. Of these, manpower costs are by far the
largest. Yet research specifically directed at increasing manpower effi-
ciencies or reducing manpower needs has to date received substantially
less attention as an identifiable Air Force S&T focus area.
While research into increased energy efficiency, improved energy
storage, and alternative energy sources must continue, as must research
to enable reduced sustainment costs, a significant new focus must be
placed on technologies to achieve reduced manpower needs and greater
manpower efficiencies. Regarding the latter, Technology Horizons has
identified several areas in which substantial advances will be possible
in the next decade through properly focused Air Force S&T invest-
130 │ Technology Horizons

ments: (1) autonomy and autonomous systems, (2) human perfor-

mance augmentation, (3) freedom of operations in contested environ-
ments, and (4) intelligent sensors, laser and high-power microwave
systems, persistent SSA, satellite systems, and gas turbine systems. All
offer enormous potential for achieving capability increases and operat-
ing cost savings via improved manpower efficiencies and reduced man-
power needs.

Increasing the Use of Autonomy and Autonomous Systems

A key finding is the need, opportunity, and potential to dramatically
advance technologies that can allow the Air Force to gain capability
increases, manpower efficiencies, and cost reductions through far
greater use of autonomous systems in essentially all aspects of Air Force
operations. Flexibly autonomous systems can be applied far beyond the
current RPAs, operational flight programs, and other implementations
in use today. Dramatically increased use of autonomy—not only in the
number of systems and processes to which autonomous control and
reasoning can be applied but especially in the degree of autonomy that
is reflected in them—can offer the Air Force potentially enormous in-
creases in its capabilities and, if implemented correctly, can do so in
ways that enable manpower efficiencies and cost reductions.
Beyond the efficiency increases and associated manpower cost re-
ductions that are achievable through such greater use of highly adap-
tible and flexibly autonomous systems and processes, significant time-
domain operational advantages can be gained over adversaries who are
limited to human planning and decision speeds. The increased ops
tempo that is possible through greater use of autonomous systems itself
represents a significant capability advantage.
Achieving these gains from greater use of autonomous systems will
require development of entirely new methods for enabling “trust in au-
tonomy” through V&V of the near-infinite state systems that result from
high levels of adaptibility and autonomy. In effect, the number of possible
input states that such systems can be presented with is so large that not
only is it impossible to test all of them directly, but also it is not even pos-
sible to test more than an insignificantly small fraction of them. Proper
development of such highly adaptive autonomous systems is thus inher-
 summary │ 131

ently unverifiable by today’s methods; as a result, their operation in all

but comparatively trivial applications is uncertifiable.
Already today it is technically possible to imagine and build systems
having immense levels of autonomy. But it is the lack of suitable V&V
methods that prevents errors in the development of such systems from
being detected, thereby keeping all but relatively low levels of au-
tonomy from being certified for use. Potential adversaries, however,
may be entirely willing to field systems that benefit from far higher
levels of autonomy without imposing any need for certifiable V&V and
could gain potentially significant capability advantages over the Air
Force by doing so. The ease with which such highly autonomous sys-
tems can be designed and built in comparison with the substantial bur-
den required to develop V&V methods for certifying them creates an
inherent asymmetry that favors adversaries. Countering this asymmet-
ric advantage will require access to as-yet-undeveloped methods for
achieving certifiably reliable V&V.
Developing certifiable V&V methods for highly adaptive autono-
mous systems is one of the major challenges facing the entire field of
control science and one that may require the larger part of a decade or
more to develop a fundamental understanding of the underlying theo-
retical principles and various ways that they could be applied. The Air
Force, as one the greatest potential beneficiaries of more highly adap-
tive and autonomous systems, must be a leader in the development of
the underlying S&T principles for V&V.

Broadening the Augmentation of Human Performance

A second key finding to emerge from Technology Horizons is that
natural human capacities are becoming increasingly mismatched to the
enormous data volumes, processing capabilities, and decision speeds
that technologies either offer or demand. Although humans today re-
main more capable than machines for many tasks, by 2030 machine
capabilities will have increased to the point that humans will have be-
come the weakest component in a wide array of systems and processes.
Humans and machines will need to become far more closely coupled
through improved human-machine interfaces and by direct augmenta-
tion of human performance.
132 │ Technology Horizons

The field of human performance augmentation has made consider-

able advances over the past two decades and—with appropriate focused
research efforts over the next decade—will permit significant practical
instantiations of augmented human performance. Such augmentation
may come from increased use of autonomous systems as noted above,
from improved man-machine interfaces to couple humans more closely
and intuitively with automated systems, and even from direct augmen-
tation of humans themselves. The latter includes neuropharmaceuticals
or implants to improve memory, alertness, cognition, or visual/aural
acuity, as well as screening of individuals for speciality codes based on
brainwave patterns or genetic correlators, or even genetic modification
itself. While such methods may be inherently distasteful to some, po-
tential adversaries may be entirely willing to make use of them.
Developing acceptable ways of using S&T to augment human per-
formance will become increasingly essential for gaining the benefits
that many technologies can bring. The current technical maturity of
various approaches in this area varies widely, but significant steps to
advance and develop early implementations are possible over the next
decade. Performance augmentation provides a further means to in-
crease human efficiencies, allowing reduced manpower needs for the
same capabilities or increased capabilities with given manpower.

Advancing Freedom of Operations in Contested Environments

A further key theme from Technology Horizons is the need to focus a
greater fraction of Air Force S&T investments on research to support
increased freedom of operations in contested or denied environments.
Three main research areas are found to be of particular importance in
this connection:
Cyber Resilience. Research into technologies for increased cyber re-
silience differs in subtle but important ways from the current emphasis
being placed on cyber defense. While defense is focused on preventing
adversaries from entering cyber systems, resilience refers to technologies
that inherently make cyber systems far more difficult for an adversary
to exploit once entry is gained, or that allow cyber systems to operate
more effectively even when under overt cyber attack. Cyber resilience
 summary │ 133

thus supports “fighting through” approaches that seek to maintain mis-

sion assurance across the entire spectrum of cyber threat levels.
Technologies such as massive virtualization, agile hypervisors, and
inherent polymorphism can enable cyber systems that are fundamen-
tally more resilient to intrusions. They greatly complicate a cyber ad-
versary’s ability to plan and coordinate effective cyber attacks by reduc-
ing the time over which our networks remain essentially static. In so
doing they may also cause a cyber intruder to leave behind greater fo-
rensic evidence for attribution. It is likely that potential adversaries will
also recognize the value of resilience in their own cyber networks,
though our current greater dependence on cyber systems makes our
development of such technologies more imperative.
The role of cyber operations will continue to grow as one of the foun-
dational components of conflict escalation control and warfare. Be-
yond the defensive benefits of inherently resilient cyber environments,
such technologies can also provide new means for expressing changes
in defensive posture and signaling levels of escalation during periods of
tension. For instance, progressively increasing the rate of network poly-
morphism as tensions increase permits the trading off of greater net-
work performance to gain increased network resilience in a way that is
readily detectable by an adversary and that allows signaling an in-
creased state of preparedness to survive cyber attacks.
Precision Positioning, Navigation, and Timing in GPS-Denied
Environments. The second focus area needed to enable increased free-
dom of operations is research on technologies to augment or supplant
current precision PNT in GPS-denied environments. These include
chip-scale IMUs and atomic clocks, as well as currently less mature
“cold atom” INSs and timing systems based on compact matter-wave
interferometry approaches.
The latter make use of various phenomena associated with Bose-
Einstein condensates that can be realized with magneto-optical traps
and other approaches currently being explored. The resulting ultra­
precise position and timing capabilities may allow GPS-like accuracies
relative to an initial reference to be maintained for sufficiently long
periods to offset much of the benefit to an adversary of local GPS de-
nial. In addition to such ultraprecise PNT augmentation, there is a
134 │ Technology Horizons

need for research into improved terrain matching and other less accu-
rate but robust approaches that can provide position information un-
der broader GPS denial. The dependence of current Air Force systems
on availability of PNT information makes research efforts to develop
GPS surrogate technologies essential.
Electromagnetic Spectrum Warfare. The third research area to
support freedom of operations in contested environments is in tech-
nologies for dominant EM spectrum warfare capabilities. These include
various approaches for enabling greater spectral mutability to increase
waveform diversity, including methods for pulse-to-pulse radar wave-
form encoding that can increase resilience to spoofing and resistance to
signal injection. Dynamic spectrum access methods may also provide
greater resilience to jamming and other modes of electronic attack and
can give resilience to lost spectrum as bands are transferred to com-
mercial uses. New methods for electronic attack are also needed to off-
set increasing adversary use of advanced integrated air defenses. Re-
search on ultrawideband RF aperture technologies will be needed to
allow spectrum warfare capabilities to be cost-effectively integrated
into platforms.

Focusing on Additional High-Priority Technology Areas

Technology Horizons has further identified the following as being
among key priority areas where S&T investment will be needed over
the next decade to enable essential capabilities:
■■ Processing-Enabled Intelligent Sensors: ISR sensors with backplane
processing for data synthesis and fusion to permit cueing-level PED
functions to be performed on the sensor itself, reducing bandwidth
otherwise consumed in transferring large amounts of raw data to
the ground and manpower consumed for cueing-level processing.
■■ Directed Energy for Tactical Strike/Defense: Laser and high-power
microwave systems with sufficient power and beam control for tacti-
cal strike, air vehicle defense, and active air base defense applications.
■■ Persistent Space Situational Awareness: Birth-to-death detec-
tion, tracking, and characterization of objects in orbit from tradi-
tional large satellites to picosatellites and orbital debris at LEO,
 summary │ 135

MEO, and GEO altitudes using ground- and space-based assets

with data fusion from other sources into an integrated database.
■■ Rapidly Composable Small Satellite Systems: Satellites that can
be assembled, tested, and launched within days of operational re-
quirement, based on a plug-and-play/open-architecture approach
using standards for self-describing components within a discov-
erable and autoconfiguring system.
■■ Next-Generation High-Efficiency Gas Turbine Systems: A wide
range of technology advances that collectively can enable substan-
tial improvements in turbine engine fuel efficiency needed for
long-range strike and long-endurance ISR systems.
Several further key themes can be identified in the results from Tech-
nology Horizons. These include technology-derived means for achiev-
ing substantial fuel cost savings, in part through nontraditional flight
vehicles such as hybrid wing-body aircraft, HALE airships, and par-
tially buoyant cargo airlifters. While some such systems may not be
fielded by the 2030 horizon date of this study, research to advance these
technologies is appropriate to provide options when fuel prices become
incompatible with the fuel efficiencies achievable by more conventional
flight vehicles.

The future is here. It is just not widely distributed yet.

—William Gibson
  Science fiction author who coined
  the term “cyberspace” in 1984
 Chapter 9

Implementation Plan and Recommendations

An implementation plan is presented with specific actionable rec-

ommendations for vectoring S&T in directions consistent with
findings from Technology Horizons to maximize the technology
advantage of the US Air Force over the next decade and beyond.

Recommendation #1:
Communicate Results from Technology Horizons
The first step involves communicating the rationale, objectives, and
process for this study and the key elements of the resulting S&T vision
across the Air Force in order to build broad awareness, understanding,
and support for its implementation.

Brief Technology Horizons to Key Air Force Organizations

Technology Horizons should be offered as a brief to all HAF offices,
MAJCOMs, and product centers, as well as to the AFRL and elsewhere,
as appropriate, as a further means for disseminating its findings and
seeking additional inputs.

Disseminate Technology Horizons Report

This report should be disseminated widely across key Air Force or­
ganizations beyond the HAF offices, MAJCOM and product center
leadership, and Air Force S&T leadership that have provided inputs to
the study. This effort should include operational and supporting com­
ponents as a way of developing broad awareness, understanding, and
support for Air Force S&T goals over the next decade.
Technology Horizons should also be disseminated across the DOD,
including the director of defense research and engineering and DARPA;
the other services, including the Office of Naval Research, Naval Re­
search Laboratory, Army Research Office, and US Special Operations
138 │ Technology Horizons

Command; NASA and other federal agencies; as well as FFRDCs, aca­

demia, and industry organizations.
This may include briefings made to these organizations, industry
groups, and others outlining the goals and S&T focus areas identified
in Technology Horizons. These organizations will want to coordinate
their S&T efforts with those of the Air Force and are likely to be part­
ners in implementing some aspects of the Air Force S&T vision.
■■ Communicate Technology Horizons rationale, objectives, process,
and key elements via briefings offered to all HAF offices, MAJCOMs,
and product centers, as well as to the AFRL.
■■ Build broad awareness, understanding, and support for the Air
Force S&T vision from Technology Horizons.
■■ Disseminate Technology Horizons across all relevant organizations
beyond those that provided inputs to this effort.

Effectively communicating the Air Force S&T vision from Technology Horizons
is the first step in developing broad awareness, understanding, support, and
embracement of its objectives in order to enable its subsequent implementa-
tion steps.

Recommendation #2:
Assess Alignment of S&T Portfolio
with Technology Horizons
The second implementation step is for the AFRL to assess the align­
ment of its current S&T portfolio with the broad research directions
and technology focus areas outlined in this report. This analysis would
determine the extent to which the current portfolio is aligned and the
fraction of the portfolio that should be aligned with these goals.

Determine Alignment of Current S&T Portfolio

with Technology Horizons
Many of the technology focus areas where Air Force S&T should be
focused to meet emerging Air Force needs are already being empha­
 implementation plan and recommendations │ 139

sized to various degrees in research that the AFRL is currently accom­

plishing. In other areas, insufficient or no work is being done on the
S&T needed to enable these PCAs. Alignment of the current Air Force
S&T portfolio with Technology Horizons should be assessed.

Identify Fraction of Portfolio to be Aligned

with Technology Horizons
As noted throughout this report, no effort such as Technology Hori-
zons can usefully list all S&T that is important for the Air Force to pur­
sue. It must therefore be recognized that the KTAs identified here rep­
resent only a fraction of the overall research portfolio that the AFRL
should pursue. In addition to assessing the alignment of its current
S&T efforts with Technology Horizons, the Air Force should identify the
fraction of its total S&T portfolio that it believes should be aligned with
the focus areas identified here.
■■ Assess alignment of the AFRL’s current S&T portfolio with the
broad research directions and technology focus areas outlined in
Technology Horizons.
■■ Identify the target fraction of the total Air Force S&T portfolio to
be aligned with the research directions and technology focus areas
identified in Technology Horizons.

An appropriate fraction of Air Force S&T efforts should be consistent with key
areas identified in Technology Horizons as being essential to meet Air Force
needs for 2010–30 and beyond.

Recommendation #3:
Adjust S&T Portfolio Balance As Needed
The third step is for the AFRL to highlight research efforts in its cur­
rent S&T portfolio that require redirection or realignment with the vi­
sion in Technology Horizons, as well as new research that must be
started to support these goals. These changes will redirect focus and
emphasis in key areas.
140 │ Technology Horizons

Identify Current Efforts Requiring Realignment or Redirection

For the portion of its research portfolio that should be aligned with
Technology Horizons, the AFRL will use its existing corporate process
to identify current research efforts that are not well aligned with this
vision. Furthermore, it will determine if an area can be redirected or
realigned appropriately, or if it should be terminated to accommodate
a more constructively formulated effort that achieves the needed direc­
tion and emphasis.

Determine New S&T Efforts That Must Be Started

Also using the existing corporate process, the AFRL will define new
research efforts that enable the key goals identified in Technology Hori-
zons to be effectively pursued. The resources needed to equip these pur­
suits may come from either the areas identified for realignment, re­
direction, or termination or from new resources dedicated specifically
to enabling the vision in Technology Horizons.
■■ Identify research efforts in the current S&T portfolio that must be
redirected or realigned with the research directions and technology
focus areas in Technology Horizons.
■■ Determine which of these efforts should be realigned, redirected,
or terminated to accommodate new research efforts that achieve
the needed direction and emphasis.
■■ Define new research efforts that will be started to allow broad re­
search directions and technology areas identified in Technology
Horizons to be effectively achieved.
■■ Implement changes in the AFRL S&T portfolio to initiate new re­
search efforts identified above, and to realign, redirect, and termi­
nate existing efforts identified above.

A mix of “buy, hold, and sell” positions will be needed among research ef-
forts in the current Air Force S&T portfolio to achieve the S&T vision in Tech-
nology Horizons.
 implementation plan and recommendations │ 141

Recommendation #4:
Initiate Focused Research on
“Grand Challenge” Problems
As the next step after adjusting the current S&T portfolio, the
AFRL should evaluate and refine a set of “grand challenge” prob­
lems similar to those identified here and use these to focus major
technology development efforts in key areas identified in Technology
Horizons. The specific challenge problems to be undertaken will be
defined by the AFRL corporate process. However, they should be of
a comparable scale and scope as those identified here, be structured
to drive advances in key areas identified here as being essential for
meeting emerging Air Force needs, and emphasize demonstrations
that require sets of individual technology areas to be integrated at
the whole-system level.
■■ Evaluate, define, and focus a set of grand-challenge problems of
sufficient scale and scope to drive major technology development
efforts in key areas identified here.
■■ Structure each grand challenge to drive advances in research di­
rections identified in Technology Horizons as being essential for
meeting Air Force needs in 2030.
■■ Define specific demonstration goals for each challenge that re­
quire sets of individual technology areas to be integrated and
demonstrated at the whole-system level.
■■ Initiate sustained research efforts in the AFRL S&T portfolio
as necessary to achieve each of the grand-challenge demon­
stration goals.

Properly choosing and sustaining a set of grand challenges is a key step in

implementing the S&T vision identified in Technology Horizons and for
advancing a range of technologies that will be essential for meeting Air
Force needs.
142 │ Technology Horizons

Recommendation #5:
Improve Aspects of the Air Force
S&T Management Process
The final step involves improvements in two key aspects of the pro­
cesses that the Air Force uses for planning and managing its S&T efforts.

Obtain HAF-Level Endorsement of a Stable

S&T Planning Construct
The “focused long-term challenges” process that the AFRL uses to
manage its S&T portfolio was developed to enable effective near-, mid-,
and long-range planning of research efforts. Some have suggested that
a process organized around SCFs should replace this to better allow
coordinating S&T efforts with broader Air Force objectives. Since tran­
sition to any new planning construct will entail substantial effort that
will not directly contribute to research progress, such change should be
done with deliberation and lead to HAF-level endorsement of the re­
sulting planning construct. Air Force S&T will benefit significantly
from the stability that such endorsement of an AFRL planning con­
struct can bring, since this can provide the continuity of mid- and long-
range planning needed to develop technologies that will be essential a
decade or more from now.

Increase MAJCOM and Product Center Inputs

in the AFRL Planning Process
Although the planning construct used by the AFRL over the past five
years involves regular inputs from all MAJCOMs and product centers,
the level of involvement in providing such inputs has varied widely. For
any AFRL planning construct to be effective in directing S&T to meet
Air Force needs, it is essential that processes be established and consis­
tently followed for obtaining such inputs. Regardless of the particular
planning construct, this will require a formal process for obtaining pe­
riodic inputs from MAJCOMs and product centers to make adjust­
ments at higher levels of S&T planning and programming, as well as a
more frequent and less formal process at lower levels. The method for
providing such inputs should be designed to ensure an appropriate
 implementation plan and recommendations │ 143

balance between nearer-term responsiveness to the needs of MAJCOMs

and product centers and longer-term responsiveness to S&T opportu­
nities envisioned by the AFRL for meeting Air Force needs.
■■ Obtain HAF-level endorsement of an AFRL planning construct
for S&T to provide the stability needed for effective mid- and
long-range development of technologies.
■■ Define and implement a formal process for obtaining high-level
inputs from MAJCOMs and product centers in periodic adjust­
ments within the AFRL S&T planning construct.
■■ Develop and implement an informal process to obtain more fre­
quent inputs from MAJCOMs and product centers for lower levels
of the AFRL S&T planning construct.

These improvements to the S&T management process will ensure that

research efforts over the next decade and beyond will properly account for
MAJCOM and product center needs to maximize the technology advantage
of the US Air Force.
 Appendix A

Proposed Study for SECAF/CSAF Approval

 appendix a │ 147

USAF Chief Scientist Office

Proposed Study

Technology Horizons and Capability

Implications for the Air Force

Background
The rapid “flattening” of the world from a technology perspective is
allowing science and technology advances made anywhere to be ex-
ploited globally for developing militarily significant new capabilities.
Many countries already have, or soon will have, the ability to translate
worldwide technology advances into new offensive and defensive capa-
bilities in the air, space, and cyber domains, and across domain bound-
aries. International markets in military systems will diffuse these capa-
bilities rapidly and broadly. As a result, over the next two decades the
U.S. will face a growing number of nations having near-peer or peer
capabilities, and may find it increasingly difficult to maintain the tech-
nology superiority over potential adversaries that it has had in the past.
Correctly anticipating those science and technology advances that will
have greatest potential military significance—and the capabilities and
counter-capabilities that may be derived from them—can help avoid
technology surprise and ensure U.S. capability dominance.
This study will seek to identify key advances in science and tech-
nology that are likely to occur over the next 10 years that could in the
following 10 years be developed into significant military capabilities.
The use of this “10+10 technology-to-capability” forecasting process
distinguishes this study from others in the Air Force and elsewhere that
aim to understand various aspects of the opportunities and threats that
emerging technologies present. Using this process, the study will develop
a forward-looking yet realistic assessment on a 20-year horizon of po-
tential offensive and defensive capabilities and counter-capabilities of
the Air Force and its possible future adversaries.
148 │ Technology Horizons

Study Products
Briefing to SAF/OS & AF/CC in December 2009. Publish report in
February 2010.

Charter
The study will:
■■ Conduct a “next-decade” (2020) assessment of technology advances
that will be key to future air, space, and cyber domain capabilities,
and to potential cross-domain capabilities.
■■ Provide a “following-decade” (2030) assessment of U.S. and adver-
sary capabilities that could be developed from these technology ad-
vances, focusing on potential “leapfrog” and “game-changing” capa-
bilities that may substantially alter future warfighting environments.
■■ Determine counter-capabilities that the Air Force will need in 2030
to be effective against these potential new adversary capabilities.
■■ Identify the underlying technologies that the Air Force will need in
2020 in order to develop the counter-capabilities it needs in 2030.
■■ Identify the science and technology research efforts that the Air
Force must start today to develop the technologies it needs in
2020 to obtain the counter-capabilities it needs in 2030.
 Appendix B

SECAF/CSAF Tasking Letter

 Appendix C

Chief Scientist of the Air Force

Transmittal Letter
 DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
HEADQUARTERS OF THE AIR FORCE
WASHINGTON DC

Office of the
USAF Chief Scientist
15 May 2010

The Honorable Michael B. Donley General Norton A. Schwartz

Secretary of the Air Force Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force
Air Force Pentagon Air Force Pentagon
Washington, DC 20330 Washington, DC 20330

Re: “Technology Horizons”: A Vision for Air Force Science & Technology

Secretary Donley, General Schwartz:

I am pleased to present the “Technology Horizons” final report for your consideration. This
culminates a very substantial effort undertaken by the office of the Air Force Chief Scientist
in accordance with your memorandum of 18 June 2009. “Technology Horizons” presents our
vision of the key areas of science and technology that the Air Force must focus on over the
next two decades to enable technologically achievable capabilities that can provide it with the
greatest U.S. Joint force effectiveness by 2030.

The Air Force is at an undeniably pivotal time in its history, as the confluence of strategic
changes, worldwide technological advancements, and looming resource constraints cause some
to wonder how we will maintain our technological advantage. The “Technology Horizons”
vision was crafted to help the Air Force vector its science and technology investments over the
coming decade to focus more closely on addressing the complex strategic, technological, and
budget challenges of 2010-2030.

The most essential insights from “Technology Horizons” regarding specific research focus areas
may be summarized in approximate order of priority as follows:

1. During the coming decade, Air Force science and technology efforts will need to be focused
as much on advancing technologies that can enable reduced Air Force operating costs as on
technologies supporting more traditional development of new systems or capabilities.

2. These include technologies to reduce manpower, energy, and sustainment costs; of these,
manpower costs are the largest, yet research specifically directed at increasing manpower
efficiencies or reducing manpower needs has to date received substantially less attention as
an identifiable Air Force focus area.

3. Two key areas in which significant advances are possible in the next decade with properly
focused Air Force investment are: (i) increased use of autonomy and autonomous systems,
and (ii) augmentation of human performance; both can achieve capability increases and cost
savings via increased manpower efficiencies and reduced manpower needs.

4. Flexibly autonomous systems can be applied far beyond remotely-piloted aircraft,

operational flight programs, and other implementations in use today; dramatically increased
156 │ Technology Horizons

use of autonomy -- not only in the number of systems and processes to which autonomous
control and reasoning can be applied but especially in the degree of autonomy reflected in
these -- offers potentially enormous increases in capabilities, and if implemented correctly
can do so in ways that enable manpower efficiencies and cost reductions.

5. Greater use of highly adaptible and flexibly autonomous systems and processes can provide
significant time-domain operational advantages over adversaries who are limited to human
planning and decision speeds; the increased operational tempo that can be gained through
greater use of autonomous systems itself represents a significant capability advantage.

6. Achieving these gains from use of autonomous systems will require developing new methods
to establish “certifiable trust in autonomy” through verification and validation (V&V) of the
near-infinite state systems that result from high levels of adaptibility; the lack of suitable V&V
methods today prevents all but relatively low levels of autonomy from being certified for use.

7. The relative ease with which autonomous systems can be developed, in contrast to the burden
of developing certifiable V&V methods, creates an asymmetric advantage to adversaries who
may field such systems without any requirement for certifiability; countering this asymmetry
will require access to as-yet undeveloped methods for establishing certifiably reliable V&V.

8. Developing V&V methods for highly adaptive autonomous systems is a major challenge
facing the field of control science that may require a decade or more to solve; the Air Force,
as one the greatest potential beneficiaries of such systems, must be a leader in developing the
underlying science and technology principles for V&V.

9. Although humans today remain more capable than machines for many tasks, natural human
capacities are becoming increasingly mismatched to the enormous data volumes, processing
capabilities, and decision speeds that technologies offer or demand; closer human-machine
coupling and augmentation of human performance will become possible and essential.

10. Augmentation may come from increased use of autonomous systems, interfaces for more
intuitive and close coupling of humans and automated systems, and direct augmentation of
humans via drugs or implants to improve memory, alertness, cognition, or visual/aural acuity,
as well as screening for speciality codes based on brainwave patterns or genetic correlators.

11. Further key emphasis must be placed on research to support increased freedom of operations
in contested or denied environments; three main research areas are found to be of particular
importance in this connection: (i) cyber resilience, (ii) PNT in GPS-denied environments, and
(iii) electromagnetic spectrum warfare.

12. While cyber defense seeks to prevent adversaries from entering cyber systems, resilience
involves technologies that make cyber systems more difficult to exploit once entry is gained;
cyber resilience supports “fighting through” to maintain mission assurance across the entire
spectrum of cyber threat levels, including large-scale overt attacks.

13. Massive virtualization, agile hypervisors, and inherent polymorphism are technologies that
can enable cyber systems to be fundamentally more resilient to intrusions; they complicate an
adversary’s ability to plan and coordinate attacks by reducing the time over which networks
remain static, and cause an intruder to leave behind greater forensic evidence for attribution.
 appendix C  │ 157

14. Beyond defensive benefits of inherently resilient cyber systems, the underlying technologies
can also enable entirely new means in the cyber domain for expressing changes in defensive
posture in ways that are intentionally detectable by an adversary to signal levels of escalation;
such technologies offer new tools for cyber escalation control during periods of tension.

15. Research is needed on technologies to augment or supplant current precision navigation and
timing (PNT) in GPS-denied environments; these include chip-scale inertial measurement
units and atomic clocks, as well as currently less mature “cold atom” inertial navigation
systems and timing systems based on compact matter-wave interferometry approaches.

16. Research is also needed into improved terrain matching and other less accurate but robust
approaches that can provide position information under broader GPS denial; the dependence
of current Air Force systems on availability of PNT information makes efforts to develop
such GPS surrogate technologies essential.

17. Technologies to support dominant electromagnetic spectrum capabilities should include

focus on methods for enabling greater spectral mutability to increase waveform diversity;
critical among these are technologies for pulse-to-pulse radar waveform encoding that can
increase resilience to spoofing and resistance to signal injection.

18. Development of dynamic spectrum access technologies in ways compatible with Air Force
systems can give resilience to jamming and other modes of electronic attack, and provide
flexibility needed when spectrum bands are lost to commercial uses; wideband RF aperture
technologies will be needed to allow spectral mutability to be cost-effectively integrated.

19. Additional high-priority technology areas include: (i) processing-enabled intelligent sensors,
(ii) directed energy for tactical strike/defense, (iii) persistent space situational awareness,
(iv) rapidly composable small satellite systems, and (v) next-generation high-efficiency gas
turbine engines; further technology areas to support fuel cost savings include hybrid wing-
body aircraft, high-altitude long-endurance airships, and partially-buoyant cargo airlifters.

Beyond identifying these focus areas, “Technology Horizons” articulates a vision for Air Force
science and technology that provides sufficient context and breadth to be a guiding document
for the next decade and beyond. That vision consists of the following elements:

1. Strategic Context
2. Enduring Realities
3. Overarching Themes
4. Potential Capability Areas
5. Key Technology Areas
6. Grand Challenges
7. Vision Summary
8. Implementation Plan and Recommendations

While a properly hedged investment strategy is clearly called for, I believe that this vision will
guide Air Force science and technology in areas that address the greatest challenges being faced
during 2010-2030, and will help build broad awareness, understanding, and support throughout
the Air Force for the increased technology focus that is needed to address these challenges.
158 │ Technology Horizons

Many individuals from a wide range of organizations provided inputs to “Technology Horizons.”
These spanned from MAJCOM and Air Staff level to operational squadron level, and included
our sister Services, Department of Defense agencies, other Federal agencies, FFRDCs, national
laboratories, industry and academia. This wealth of information and perspectives was distilled to
identify the “disproportionately valuable” technology areas suited to the strategic, technological,
and budget environments of 2010-2030. The results are presented in three volumes. Volume 1
presents the vision for Air Force S&T; two further volumes and an appendix provide additional
supporting information.

In his 1945 “Towards New Horizons” report, Theodore von Kármán told General Hap Arnold
that “only a constant inquisitive attitude toward science and a ceaseless and swift adaptation to
new developments can maintain the security of this nation”. That commitment to technological
superiority has served the United States Air Force well over the intervening decades. Today, a
vigorous and properly focused science and technology program remains absolutely essential to
advancing the capabilities that the Air Force will need to fulfill its mission.

We must remain as committed as we were in 1945 to pursuing the most promising technological
opportunities for our times, to having the scientific and engineering savvy to bring them to
reality, and to having the wisdom to transition them into the next generation of capabilities that
will allow us to maintain our edge. While we face substantial challenges in the coming decade,
“Technology Horizons” has laid out a clear vision for the science and technology efforts that will
be most essential for the Air Force. There is no greater organization than the United States Air
Force to carry out this vision.

Very respectfully,

Werner J.A. Dahm

Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force (AF/ST)
Air Force Pentagon

Attachments:
As stated

cc:
The Honorable E.C. Conaton (Under Secretary of the Air Force)
General C.H. Chandler (Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force)
LtGen W.C. Shelton (Assistant Vice Chief of Staff; U.S. Air Force)
 Appendix D

SECAF/CSAF Cover Letter

 Appendix E

Working Groups
 appendix E  │ 165

Appendix E

Working Groups
One source of inputs to Technology Horizons was a set of working
groups specifically formed to provide a broad range of information,
ideas, and viewpoints toward this effort.

Role of the Working Groups

Informal working groups were assembled for each of the air, space,
and cyber domains, and an additional working group was assembled to
address cross-domain topics. Each group served as a forum in which
technical opinions of experts were provided to the Air Force chief sci-
entist (AF/ST) and were discussed for possible further consideration in
later phases of the effort, along with data and inputs from other sources.
Based on guidance from the Air Force general counsel (SAF/GC) to
permit the free exchange of ideas and viewpoints that was essential to
developing Technology Horizons while remaining consistent with fed-
eral rules that would otherwise apply to formal advisory committees,
all working groups were formed on an ad hoc basis and were managed
in a way that allowed sharing of individual opinions while specifically
avoiding all efforts to reach any formal consensus among the group
participants. Participants were involved in a strictly individual capacity;
the opinions they expressed were their own views and did not neces-
sarily represent the views of their organization. In addition, partici-
pants were specifically instructed not to discuss any proprietary
contractor information. Discussions were of a broad, crosscutting na-
ture, and no current contracts or specific Air Force requirements were
discussed. There was no access to source selection information, con-
tractor bid information, or proposal information. Operating the work-
ing groups in this manner gave the benefits of a broad range of views
among the inputs to Technology Horizons without the rigid require-
ment of formal consensus that would have applied to formal advisory
committees, which would have risked limiting the insights from these
groups to largely predictable views.
166 │ Technology Horizons

Composition of the Working Groups

Participants for the working groups were selected in part for the
combination of their scientific and technical background and knowl-
edge, direct experience and knowledge of Air Force science and tech-
nology and Air Force operations, and ability to contribute effectively in
a fast-paced, idea-intensive group environment. Participants were also
selected to achieve reasonable coverage of the technical areas relevant
to each domain. Each group was limited to roughly a dozen partici-
pants to allow for exchange of ideas and opinions. Working group par-
ticipants were selected from the
■■ Air Force science and technology community,
■■ intelligence community,
■■ major commands,
■■ product centers,
■■ federally funded research and development centers,
■■ defense industry, and
■■ academia.
Since all participants strictly represented their own opinions and not
their organizations’ views, no attempt was made to achieve any specific
target balance among types of organizations or to seek comprehensive
representation of all organizations within any of these sectors.
The following describes the functions of each of the working groups
and lists their contributors.

Air Domain Working Group

This working group considered technologies, concepts, and systems
relevant to air domain functions, such as remotely piloted aircraft; frac-
tionated strike system architectures; electronic warfare; bandwidth;
GPS-denied environments; air domain threat systems; low-observable/
counter-low-observable technologies; sensors; intelligence, surveil-
lance, and reconnaissance systems; low collateral damage munitions;
 appendix E  │ 167

air mobility; lighter-than-air and hybrid airships; base defense and

force projection; power and thermal management; air-breathing hyper­
sonic systems; near-space systems; and numerous other topics relevant
to the air domain.
■■ Dr. Werner J. A. Dahm, Chair
■■ Col Eric Silkowski, PhD, Vice Chair
■■ Dr. Edward H. “Ned” Allen
■■ Douglas L. Bowers
■■ Dr. Gregory K. Crawford
■■ Dr. Donald R. Erbschloe
■■ Dr. Janet S. Fender
■■ Col Robert S. Fredell, PhD
■■ Dr. Mark A. Gallagher
■■ Dr. Thomas T. Hamilton
■■ Dr. Brian M. Kent
■■ Dr. Michael A. Kuliasha
■■ Betsy S. Witt
■■ Dr. John C. Zolper

Space Domain Working Group

This working group examined technologies and systems for space
launch; communications; space system architectures; precision naviga-
tion and timing; space situational awareness; space protection; orbit
transfer and maneuver; space-based intelligence, surveillance and re-
connaissance; space radar; missile warning and intercept; space
weather; space debris; small satellites; responsive space; laser commu-
nications; and other topics relevant to space domain functions.
■■ Dr. Werner J. A. Dahm, Chair
■■ Col Eric Silkowski, PhD, Vice Chair
■■ Dr. William L. Baker
■■ Dr. Alok Das
■■ Dr. Roberta Ewart
■■ Dr. Jonathan Gordon
■■ Dr. David A. Hardy
■■ Dr. Daniel Hastings
■■ Dr. Michael A. Kuliasha
168 │ Technology Horizons

■■ Gary A. O’Connell
■■ Dr. Jim F. Riker
■■ Dr. Lara S. Schmidt
■■ Dr. Dwight C. Streit

Cyber Domain Working Group

This working group examined offensive and defensive technologies
and concepts relevant to the cyber domain, such as cyber situational
awareness, cyber forensics and attribution, data protection, polymor-
phic networks, mobile ad hoc networks, information assurance, super-
visory control and data acquisition systems, honeypots, deterrence,
continuity of operations, mission assurance, cyber agility, attack con-
tainment, recovery, fight-through approaches, encryption, quantum
key distribution, quantum computing, and other considerations rele-
vant to the cyber domain.
■■ Dr. Werner J. A. Dahm, Chair
■■ Col Eric Silkowski, PhD, Vice Chair
■■ Dr. John S. Bay
■■ Richard J. Byrne
■■ Dr. Chris Colliver
■■ Jon Goding
■■ Dewey Houck
■■ Jeff A. Hughes
■■ Dr. Kamal T. Jabbour
■■ Dr. Michael A. Kuliasha
■■ Richard Mesic
■■ Dr. Marc Zissman

Cross-Domain Working Group

This working group considered technologies and systems that (1) have
expected effects spanning across two or more of the air, space, and cy-
ber domains, (2) have unexpected effects in a domain other than that
in which expected effects occur, (3) may require key supporting func-
tions from another domain, or (4) fall between these classical domains
but have implications in one or more of these.
 appendix E  │ 169

■■ Dr. Werner J. A. Dahm, Chair

■■ Col Eric Silkowski, PhD, Vice Chair
■■ Dr. Edward H. “Ned” Allen
■■ Dr. William L. Baker
■■ Richard J. Byrne
■■ Dr. Alok Das
■■ Dr. Richard P. Hallion
■■ Jeff A. Hughes
■■ Dr. Brian M. Kent
■■ Dr. Michael A. Kuliasha
■■ Dr. Jim F. Riker

Working Group Participant Biographies

The biographical summaries of the working group participants be-
low give an overview of their respective expertise and background.

Dr. Edward H. “Ned” Allen

Dr. Allen is chief scientist of the Skunk Works at Lockheed Martin
Aeronautics Company’s Advanced Development Programs in Palm-
dale, CA, where he is also a corporate senior fellow. In his role as chief
scientist, he represents the Skunk Works in various forums and serves
as senior advisor for science and technology across the corporation. He
is the principal inventor on more than two dozen patents and currently
conducts research in areas that include energy, quantum information,
hypersonic systems, hybrid airships, and micro air vehicles. After a de-
cade on the tenured faculty of Utah State University and two years as a
Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, he founded and ran his own commuter
airline, now called Horizon Air, and then founded Daedalus Research
Inc., an aeronautical research and development firm. In 1998 he brought
his firm’s key assets into Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. He has de-
grees in physics from Stanford University, in mathematics and litera-
ture from Swarthmore College, and in applied mathematics and inter-
national relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
170 │ Technology Horizons

Dr. William L. Baker

Dr. Baker was chief scientist of the Directed Energy Directorate in
the Air Force Research Laboratory, where as an internationally recog-
nized leader in the entire spectrum of directed-energy technologies he
has led research and development on high-energy laser weapons tech-
nology and the application of advanced optics to space situational
awareness. He served as an Air Force nuclear research officer prior to
becoming a civilian scientist at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory. He
initially performed and led research on high-energy plasmas and pulse
power systems for simulating nuclear weapon effects and then began
work on high-energy particle beams for directed-energy weapon tech-
nologies. He led a joint effort to develop a unique accelerator that dem-
onstrated stable beam propagation in open air. He then created and led
the Air Force high-power microwave weapon technology program,
which became the center of excellence for the nation and has demon-
strated multiple military applications. He is a fellow of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers and president of the Directed En-
ergy Professional Society. He has received the DOD Distinguished Ci-
vilian Service Award and the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award.
He has BS and MS degrees in physics from Ohio State University and a
PhD in nuclear physics from Ohio State University.

Dr. John S. Bay

Dr. Bay served as chief scientist of the Information Directorate in the
Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), directing the planning and
technical execution of information systems science and technology
and its transition to air, space, and cyberspace systems. Prior to joining
AFRL he was a program manager in the Information Exploitation Of-
fice (IXO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an engi-
neering fellow at Raytheon Company, and a professor of electrical and
computer engineering at Virginia Tech. His research focus is on control
systems, robotics, biomechanics, machine learning, and embedded
systems. He is an author of more than 65 publications, a fellow of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a winner
of the 2009 IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award for
his work in embedded systems. He is a former IEEE Computer Society
 appendix E  │ 171

Distinguished Visitor and is a 2005 recipient of the Office of the Secre-

tary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. He holds a BS
degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech and MS and PhD
degrees from Ohio State University.

Douglas L. Bowers
Mr. Bowers is director of the Propulsion Directorate in the Air Force
Research Laboratory (AFRL), where he oversees the Air Force’s science
and technology program in propulsion and power for space, missile,
and aircraft applications. He previously was associate director for air
platforms in AFRL’s Air Vehicles Directorate, responsible for fixed-
wing and rotary-wing technologies, hypersonics, turbine engines, and
power. He has served in a variety of senior technical positions within
the Air Force, leading the development and fielding of advanced highly
survivable engine inlets and exhaust nozzles. He was a technical con-
sultant on the C-17, F-15E, F-16, and B-1 development programs. He
has served as a member of and as US national coordinator for the NATO
Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development’s fluid dy-
namics panel. As the sole Air Force staff member for the Commission
on the Future of the US Aerospace Industry, he developed recommen-
dations for aerospace industry health and national security. He has a BS
degree in aerospace engineering from Purdue University, an MS degree
in aerospace engineering from Ohio State University, and an MS de-
gree in engineering management from the University of Dayton.

Richard J. Byrne
Mr. Byrne is a vice president at the MITRE Corporation with nearly
30 years of experience developing computing, communications, net-
works, information technologies, and systems engineering products
and prototypes. His responsibilities include technical centers, research
programs, and other engineering activities in the command and con-
trol center, as well as exploring solutions to national security problems
with emphasis on improved information interoperability, systems inte-
gration, and cyber assurance, including net-centric strategies, complex
systems engineering, and information technologies. He has held vari-
ous positions at MITRE supporting the Air Force and DOD, including
172 │ Technology Horizons

vice president for all Air Force programs and, previously, technical di-
rector for the Air Force Electronic Systems Center and executive direc-
tor of innovation. He was a founder and engineering manager at a
semiconductor startup, leading design and production release of more
than 150 products over five years. He was technical manager of very-
large-scale integration design methods for telecommunication at ITT’s
Advanced Technology Center. He has a BS in electrical engineering
and an MS in electrical engineering and computer science from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Chris Colliver

Dr. Colliver is the technical advisor for command, control, commu-
nications, and computer systems/information operations (C4/IO)
analysis at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC),
where he leads intelligence analysis and production of foreign C4 intel-
ligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and cyberspace capabilities
to support joint operations, acquisition, and policy making. He has
worked in a number of analytic, advisory, and supervisory positions
responsible for foreign space and counterspace systems analysis. He es-
tablished a Counterspace Analysis Division and expanded NASIC’s de-
fense intelligence space order of battle to help lead the transformation
of NASIC into a more space-centric organization. He served as the
space topic manager for the National Intelligence Priorities Framework
from 2004–8 and was named an exceptional intelligence analyst by the
director of Central Intelligence. He has experience in analog and digital
communications via high frequency, microwave, and satellite, as well as
in network operations. He holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees, all in elec-
trical engineering from the University of Dayton.

Dr. Gregory K. Crawford

Dr. Crawford is the director for integration of intelligence, surveil-
lance, and reconnaissance (ISR) at MITRE, focused on ISR sensing,
sensor data and signal processing, exploitation algorithm development
and prototyping, and enterprise systems engineering. He also leads
work on integrated sensing, processing, and exploitation as part of the
MITRE corporate challenge, in which he guides 30 research and devel-
 appendix E  │ 173

opment (R&D) projects focused on operationally motivated capabili-

ties directed at difficult problems within this domain. He has led mul-
tiple projects, with contributions ranging from basic R&D to system
design and end-to-end systems engineering. Recently, he served as
project leader and chief engineer for space radar battle management
command and control, addressing a wide variety of ISR exploitation
and enterprise-level systems engineering issues seeking to develop
“dual-use” (tactical-national) capabilities. He is an author of more than
20 papers on a broad array of geophysical topics in leading journals and
has written numerous technical papers on applied topics. He has a BS
in physics and BA in chemistry from California State University, Fresno,
an MS in geophysics and space physics from the University of Califor-
nia, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a PhD in space plasma physics from
UCLA.

Dr. Werner J. A. Dahm

Dr. Dahm is the chief scientist of the US Air Force. He is the principal
advisor for science and technology to the Air Force chief of staff and
the secretary of the Air Force. He is on leave from the University of
Michigan, where for the past 25 years he has served as a professor of
aerospace engineering. His work has principally been in areas related
to aerodynamics and propulsion. He is an author of over 180 journal
articles, conference papers, and technical publications; a holder of sev-
eral patents; and a prolific lecturer who has given over 120 invited, ple-
nary, and keynote presentations worldwide on aerospace engineering
topics. He has been a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory
Board and has served on numerous task forces for the Defense Science
Board and as a member of the Defense Science Study Group. He is a
fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Insti-
tute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a recipient of the William F.
Ballhaus Aeronautics Prize from Caltech, as well as major research
awards from the University of Michigan. He has served extensively in
advisory and organizational roles in his field and as a consultant for
industry. He has BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from
the University of Alabama and University of Tennessee Space Institute
and a PhD degree in aeronautics from Caltech.
174 │ Technology Horizons

Dr. Alok Das

Dr. Das is senior scientist for design innovation at the Air Force Re-
search Laboratory (AFRL). As chief innovation officer at AFRL, he is
the principal advisor for technology and process innovation strategies
and leads the rapid reaction team that utilizes innovation and collabo-
ration to develop near-term solutions to urgent war-fighter needs. He
previously was chief scientist in AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, fo-
cusing on revolutionary space mission architectures, satellite designs,
and technologies to reduce cost and increase capability and operating
flexibility of space systems. He first was an engineer in the Indian Space
Research Organization and then joined the Air Force Rocket Propul-
sion Laboratory to become technical lead for large space structures. He
was instrumental in developing and transitioning smart structures
technology from conceptual demonstrations to applications in space
systems, giving satellite designers an array of space-proven technolo-
gies. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astro-
nautics and an author of more than 60 technical articles on space tech-
nologies. He has a BS degree in electronics and communications
engineering, an MS in aeronautical engineering from the Indian Insti-
tute of Science in Bangalore, and a PhD in aerospace engineering from
Virginia Tech.

Dr. Donald R. Erbschloe

Dr. Erbschloe is the chief scientist for Air Mobility Command
(AMC), where he advises the AMC commander and key leadership on
scientific issues and technological enhancements of AMC capabilities.
He has had a 28-year military career in the Air Force balanced among
three primary thrusts: operations, academia, and scientific and techni-
cal management. He was a command pilot with 3,900 flying hours in
the C-141, the TG-7A, and the UV-18. He has served as an associate
professor of physics at the US Air Force Academy, chief scientist of the
European Office of Aerospace Research and Development in the Air
Force Office of Scientific Research, and director of faculty research at
the Air Force Academy. He later served as military assistant to the chief
scientist of the Air Force, and most recently he was acting chief opera-
tions officer for the Office of Science in the Department of Energy,
 appendix E  │ 175

which manages 10 world-class laboratories and is the single largest

supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States.
He has a BA degree in physics and mathematics from the University of
Virginia, an MS degree in physics from the Air Force Institute of Tech-
nology, and a PhD degree in physical electronics from Oxford Univer-
sity in England.

Dr. Roberta M. Ewart

Dr. Ewart is the chief scientist for the Air Force Space and Missile
Systems Center in El Segundo, California. Her responsibilities include
the identification, maturation, and transition of key technologies for
national security space missions. Her career experience spans space
flight operations with NASA and the USAF, as well as research, devel-
opment, and acquisitions positions. Her research focus areas include
solid-state lasers, photonics, laser communication, and dynamic radia-
tion response modeling of spacecraft. She was named the 2008 Air
Force Space Command senior civilian manager of the year. She holds a
BS degree in physics from the United States Air Force Academy, de-
grees in theoretical physics and philosophy from Oxford University,
and a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Dr. Janet S. Fender

Dr. Fender is the chief scientist in Air Combat Command (ACC),
serving as scientific adviser to the commander and providing scientific
expertise and technical guidance throughout ACC. She serves as the
primary interface for ACC to the scientific community to identify tech-
nologies and catalyze enhancements to ACC’s war-fighting capabili-
ties. Her career in science and technology includes basic laboratory
research, fielding new capabilities, key technical positions in major
programs, and support to operations. Recently she led Air Force stud-
ies on “Day without Space” and the “Value of Stealth.” She previously
was chief scientist for the Space Vehicles Directorate in the Air Force
Research Laboratory and senior scientist for directed energy and ad-
vanced imaging. She has authored over 100 technical papers, is a fellow
of the Optical Society of America and the International Society of Op-
tical Engineers, and serves on the executive committee of the board of
176 │ Technology Horizons

directors of the American Institute of Physics. She has a BS degree in

physics and astronomy from the University of Oklahoma and MS and
PhD degrees in optical sciences from the University of Arizona.

Col Robert S. Fredell, PhD

Colonel Fredell is chief scientist and director of research at the US
Air Force Academy, where he directs 13 scientific and engineering re-
search centers and two institutes in the largest undergraduate univer-
sity research program in the United States. He has performed basic and
applied research in aircraft structural fatigue and composite structural
repair and has taught engineering mechanics at the academy. He has
expertise in advanced metallic and composite materials, with particu-
lar focus on fiber metal laminates and their application to new and ag-
ing aircraft. He previously served as the military assistant to the Air
Force chief scientist in the Pentagon, deputy director of engineering at
the Warner Robbins Air Logistics Center, director of faculty research at
the US Air Force Academy, and technical director of the European Of-
fice of Aerospace Research and Development of the Air Force Office of
Scientific Research. He has BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineer-
ing from Oklahoma State University and a PhD degree in aerospace
engineering from Delft University in the Netherlands.

Dr. Mark A. Gallagher

Dr. Gallagher is technical director in Studies and Analyses, Assess-
ments, and Lessons Learned (AF/A9) in Headquarters Air Force. In
this role he supports analyses across the spectrum of Air Force mis-
sions and develops and applies modeling and simulation to support Air
Force war-fighting and force structure capability and sufficiency assess-
ments. He previously was a member of the full-time faculty at the Air
Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), where he continues to serve as
an adjunct associate professor. He has had prior assignments in the
Cost Analysis Improvement Group of Program, Analysis, and Evalua-
tion in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and as chief of the Missile
Defense and Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities
Division at US Strategic Command. He founded the Information Op-
erations Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manual, which he also chaired for
 appendix E  │ 177

four years. He is serving a second term on the Military Operations Re-

search Society board of directors as vice president of society services.
He holds BS degrees in operations research and computer science from
the US Air Force Academy and MS and PhD degrees in operations re-
search from AFIT.

Jon Goding
Mr. Goding is a principal engineering fellow with Raytheon’s Net-
work Centric Systems business. He presently serves as chief engineer
for Raytheon’s cyber initiative, where he is responsible for coordinating
research and development in computer network operations technology
across the company. In 23 years at Raytheon, he has designed comput-
ing and network systems for many DOD and federal government cus-
tomers and was the architect for information assurance on the Navy /
Marine Corps Internet from pre-award through initial operations. At
the time it went operational, this was the largest integrated secure net-
work in use. When Raytheon formed a new Secure Networks product
line in 2003, he was named its technology director. During recent years,
he has participated in many government and industry working groups
and sponsored and advised numerous university research projects. He
has a BS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida
and an MS degree in electrical engineering from the University of
South Florida.

Jonathan D. Gordon
Mr. Gordon is a program area chief engineer for the Advanced Con-
cepts and Technology group at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems
(SAS), with engineering oversight for all the company’s radio-frequency
(RF) technology development programs and internal research and de-
velopment efforts in this business area. He is also responsible for the
development of long-range and “white space” technology roadmaps
that guide internal investment and program pursuits. He has 30 years
of technical and programmatic leadership at Raytheon and Hughes
Aircraft Company. His primary expertise is active array subsystem de-
sign, integration, and test for both space and airborne applications.
Prior to his chief engineer assignment, he was the manager of advanced
178 │ Technology Horizons

RF space programs in SAS, where he was involved in numerous space

RF programs, including the European Space Agency front-end proces-
sor technology development program (space-based radar), innovative
space-based radar antenna technology, Technical Satellite of the 21st
Century (TechSAT 21), and Discoverer II, and has served as a technical
and integrated product team lead for several active array subsystem
engineering efforts. He has BS degrees in physics and in electrical engi-
neering from the University of Southern California (USC) and an MS
degree in electrical engineering from USC.

Dr. Richard P. Hallion

Dr. Hallion is an internationally recognized aerospace historian and
founder of Hallion Associates, which evaluates emerging technologies
and assesses their potential for application to meet civil and military
aerospace needs. He retired from the United States Air Force in 2006 as
senior advisor for air and space issues, served also as the Air Force his-
torian for over a decade, and held the Harold Keith Johnson Visiting
Chair in Military History at the US Army Military History Institute,
Army War College. He was a founding curator of the National Air and
Space Museum and subsequently held the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair
in Aerospace History and an Alfred Verville Fellowship in aeronautics.
He has written over a dozen works on the history of flight and military
and civil aviation, teaches and lectures widely, and is a fellow of the
Earth Shine Institute and a fellow of the American Institute of Aero-
nautics and Astronautics. He holds a BA degree and a PhD degree, both
from the University of Maryland.

Dr. Thomas T. Hamilton

Dr. Hamilton is senior physical scientist in national security at the
RAND Corporation, where since 1996 he has worked on a variety of
issues for the DOD, with a focus on unmanned aircraft, airport secu-
rity, aircraft test facilities, and force modernization. In particular, his
work has addressed the future of USAF technology, aircraft survivabil-
ity issues, unmanned aircraft system procurement and operations,
USAF tanker modernization, force modernization and employment,
aircraft test facilities, and airport security. Prior to joining RAND, from
 appendix E  │ 179

1986 to 1996 he was a research astrophysicist at Harvard University,

Columbia University, and the California Institute of Technology, and
from 1981 to 1983, he developed satellite guidance software at Martin
Marietta Corporation. He also served on the faculty in the Department
of Astronomy at Caltech. He has an AB degree in physics from Harvard
University and a PhD in physics from Columbia University.

Dr. David A. Hardy

Dr. Hardy is associate director for space technology in the Space Ve-
hicles Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). He is
responsible for oversight of space science and technology investments
and for the senior civilian management of the Space Vehicles Director-
ate’s science and technology portfolio. He leads AFRL’s efforts across
the full range of existing and emerging space technologies needed to
support present and future space systems for the Air Force and DOD,
including science and technology related to sensors, materials, infor-
mation technology, space vehicles, directed energy, propulsion, and
human effectiveness. He also serves as an adviser on space science and
technology to Air Force Space Command, the Space and Missile Sys-
tems Center, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and
other organizations and develops and maintains coordination in the
growth and execution of space science and technology by national and
international governmental agencies and academia. He has a BS degree
in physics from Duke University and MS and PhD degrees in space
physics and astronomy from Rice University.

Dr. Daniel Hastings

Dr. Hastings is a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and serves as MIT’s dean
for undergraduate education. He has taught courses in plasma physics,
rocket propulsion, space power and propulsion, aerospace policy, and
space systems engineering. He was the chief scientist of the US Air
Force from 1997 to 1999, serving as the chief scientific adviser to the
Air Force chief of staff and secretary of the Air Force. He led several
influential studies on where the Air Force should invest in space, global
energy projection, and options for a science and technology workforce
180 │ Technology Horizons

for the twenty-first century. His research is on space systems and space
policy and has also focused on issues related to spacecraft environmental
interactions, space propulsion, space systems engineering, and space
policy. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and As-
tronautics, a fellow of the International Council on Systems Engineer-
ing, a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, a past
member of the National Science Board, and a former chair of the Air
Force Scientific Advisory Board. He has a BA in mathematics from Ox-
ford University in England and SM and PhD degrees in aeronautics
and astronautics from MIT.

Dewey R. Houck II
Mr. Houck is a senior technical fellow working in Boeing’s Integrated
Defense Systems for the Mission Systems organization and, since July
2008, has been the director of the Mission Systems organization. He
previously served as the chief technical officer for Mission Systems
with primary responsibilities in the areas of technology strategy devel-
opment, research planning, and integration of Mission Systems intel-
lectual property into other Boeing programs. Mission Systems is the
Boeing business unit that serves intelligence community customers in-
cluding the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency,
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and director of National In-
telligence, with its focus on developing and deploying information man-
agement systems to facilitate tasking, collection, sharing, and analysis
of intelligence. He previously served on the senior management team
of Autometric, Inc. as vice president for technology development,
where he administered all research and product development activities,
including several geospatial, photogrammetric, and visualization ini-
tiatives. He has BS and MS degrees in civil engineering with specializa-
tion in photogrammetry and geodesy from Virginia Tech.

Jeff A. Hughes
Mr. Hughes is chief of the Autonomic Trusted Sensing for Persistent
Intelligence (ATSPI) Technology Office in the Sensors Directorate of
the Air Force Research Laboratory, where he leads research on complex
system decomposition, vulnerability, and risk analysis to develop
 appendix E  │ 181

trusted systems. He was selected to establish the ATSPI Technology Of-

fice to support the Office of the Secretary of Defense software protec-
tion initiative to prevent unauthorized distribution and exploitation of
application software and associated data critical to national security.
ATSPI is the field office for the DOD Anti-Tamper Executive Agent,
with the mission to deter the reverse engineering and exploitation of
the US military’s critical technologies. His prior work has included de-
veloping and deploying combat identification capabilities and low ob-
servable / counter-low observable radio-frequency and electronic war-
fare technology to Air Force weapons systems. He has served on
numerous NATO and US government interagency committees and
DOD working groups and has received numerous awards for his work.
He has BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Ohio State
University and has completed work toward his PhD at the Air Force
Institute of Technology.

Dr. Kamal T. Jabbour

Dr. Jabbour is senior scientist for information assurance in the Infor-
mation Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL),
where he serves as principal scientific advisor for information assur-
ance, including defensive and offensive information warfare and tech-
nology. He plans and advocates major research and development ac-
tivities, guides the quality of scientific and technical resources, and
provides expert technical consultation to organizations across the Air
Force, the DOD, government agencies, universities, and industry. He is
program director of the Advanced Course in Engineering Cyber Secu-
rity Boot Camp for developing future Air Force cyber warfare officers
and leaders. He began his professional career on the computer engi-
neering faculty at Syracuse University, where he taught and conducted
research for two decades, including a three-year term as department
chairman. In 1999 he joined the Cyber Operations Branch at AFRL
through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act and transitioned gradu-
ally from academia to his current position. He has a BS degree in elec-
trical engineering from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon
and a PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of Sal-
ford in England.
182 │ Technology Horizons

Dr. Brian M. Kent

Dr. Kent is chief scientist of the Sensors Directorate in the Air Force
Research Laboratory, where he serves as principal scientific and techni-
cal adviser with primary authority for the technical content of the sen-
sors research portfolio, identifying gaps and analyzing advancements
in a variety of scientific fields. From 1985 to 1992 he conducted classi-
fied research that made pioneering contributions to signature measure-
ment technology and established international standards for radar sig-
nature testing. He previously worked in the Passive Observables Branch
of the Avionics Laboratory and later in the Air Force Wright Aeronau-
tical Laboratory Signature Technology Office. He is an author of more
than 85 archival articles and technical reports and has written key sec-
tions of classified textbooks and design manuals. He has delivered more
than 200 lectures and developed a DOD Low Observables Short Course
that has been taught to more than 2,000 scientists and engineers since
1989. He has served as a technical consultant to a wide range of federal
agencies, as an international technical adviser for the DOD, and as a
guide for basic research methods to leading academic institutions. He
has a BS degree in electrical engineering from Michigan State Univer-
sity and MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Ohio State
University.

Dr. Michael A. Kuliasha

Dr. Kuliasha is the chief technologist at the Air Force Research Labo-
ratory (AFRL), where he is the principal technical adviser to the AFRL
commander on the Air Force’s $2 billion science and technology pro-
gram and the additional $2 billion customer-funded research and de-
velopment conducted at AFRL. As chief technologist, he also provides
technical guidance for the AFRL workforce of approximately 10,000
people. Prior to his current role, he had more than 30 years of experi-
ence in the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
where he held a variety of leadership positions including director of the
Computational Physics and Engineering Division, director for home-
land security, and acting associate laboratory director for computing,
robotics, and education, among others. He has technical expertise in
a broad range of scientific disciplines including nuclear science and
 appendix E  │ 183

technology, high-performance computing, modeling and simulation,

knowledge discovery, and energy technologies. He holds a BS degree in
mathematics and MS and PhD degrees in nuclear engineering from the
University of New Mexico.

Richard Mesic
Mr. Mesic is a senior policy analyst at RAND Corporation with over
39 years of professional experience in requirements definition, system
and operational concept development, and quantitative evaluation. His
recent work has focused on cyber security; irregular warfare; counter-
terrorism; and command, control, communications, computers, intel-
ligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) / space system studies,
including information operations and assurance, national intelligence
systems, critical infrastructure protection, counter–improvised explo-
sive devices, and special operations. He has studied Air Force opera-
tions in all recent conflicts and was principal investigator on the Project
Air Force study in support of the Air Force Cyber Command initiative.
He continues to colead a multiyear study for the Navy on advanced
C4ISR systems for littoral counterterrorism operations. His prior work
includes strategic nuclear deterrence and systems, concepts to counter
weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missile defense, arms control
and arms control verification requirements and capabilities, strategic
and tactical C4ISR, national-level intelligence issues, space, informa-
tion operations, and counterproliferation policy. He has a BA degree in
mathematics from Knox College and an MS degree in mathematics
from Michigan State University.

Gary A. O’Connell
Mr. O’Connell is chief scientist in the National Air and Space Intel-
ligence Center (NASIC), the Air Force and DOD center of excellence
for all-source air and space intelligence. He has over 30 years of experi-
ence in aerospace and intelligence fields ranging from electronic coun-
termeasures and tactics development to drafting national intelligence
estimates for national policy makers. As chief scientist at NASIC, he is
senior advisor to the commander and oversees analytic efforts to sup-
port Air Force and joint operational, acquisition, and policy-making
184 │ Technology Horizons

customers in the national intelligence community and serves on nu-

merous panels and committees in the national intelligence and scien-
tific communities. He began his career as an air-to-air missile analyst
in the Foreign Technology Division and held various management
positions until being appointed chief scientist for global threat in
1997. He served as the Air Force representative on the Weapon and
Space Systems Intelligence Committee’s Aerodynamic Missile Sys-
tems Subcommittee and as the Air Force representative on the Scien-
tific and Technical Intelligence Committee from 2001 to 2004. He has
a BS degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincin-
nati and an MS degree in national resource strategy from the Na-
tional Defense University.

Dr. Jim F. Riker

Dr. Riker is the chief scientist of the Space Vehicles Directorate in the
Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), where he directs technical re-
search in space situational awareness; defensive and offensive space con-
trol; responsive space; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance;
satellite communications; and satellite control. He has also served in a
variety of research roles in optical surveillance and space-based laser
system program offices. He is internationally recognized for contribu-
tions in the areas of laser beam control, atmospheric propagation, atmo-
spheric compensation, active and passive tracking, and imaging and is
an author of more than 50 scientific and professional publications. He
previously was technical director for the Optics Division of the Directed
Energy Directorate in AFRL and led the Active Track program that pro-
duced numerous first-ever technology demonstrations for the Missile
Defense Agency’s missile defense system. He is a fellow of the Society for
Photo-Optical and Instrumentation Engineering and the 2007 winner
of the Air Force’s Harold M. Brown Award. He has a BS in physics and
mathematics from the New Mexico Institute of Technology and an MS
and PhD in physics from the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Lara S. Schmidt

Dr. Schmidt is a senior statistician and defense analyst at RAND,
where her research focus is military space systems, the Global Positioning
 appendix E  │ 185

System (GPS), precise time and frequency systems, atomic timekeeping,

and risk assessment. Her recent work includes assessments of DOD
space systems in hostile environments; space control capabilities; space
vulnerability and dependence; weapon system use of space systems;
operational level command and control; military positioning, naviga-
tion, and timing systems; Air Force special operations; irregular war-
fare; counterspace threats; and risk to war fighters from attacks on
space systems. She is the RAND liaison to Air Force Space Command,
is on the advisory board for the DOD precise timing organization,
serves as a referee for several technical journals, and has held leader-
ship positions in the American Statistical Association, including chair
of the section on defense and national security. Prior to joining RAND,
she spent eight years as a government civilian working with GPS and
atomic timekeeping. She holds a BS in mathematics from Shepherd
College, an MS in mathematics from West Virginia University, and a
PhD in mathematics from American University.

Col Eric Silkowski, PhD

Colonel Silkowski is the military assistant to the chief scientist of the
US Air Force in the Pentagon. He supports the chief scientist in provid-
ing independent, objective, and timely scientific and technical advice
to the Air Force chief of staff and the secretary of the Air Force and in
evaluating technical issues of relevance to the Air Force mission. He
also supports the chief scientist in his contributions to supporting and
maintaining the technical quality of the research being conducted
across the Air Force. Previously, he led the Air Force Technical Appli-
cations Center’s Applied Physics Laboratory and ran worldwide opera-
tions for nuclear event detection and global atmospheric monitoring.
Other technical assignments include high-explosive testing, ballistic
reentry vehicle acquisition, and conceptual design of directed-energy
weapons systems. He has also served as executive officer to the J8 for
NATO Allied Command Operations at Supreme Headquarters Allied
Powers, Europe. He has a BA degree in physics from the University of
Chicago and has MS and PhD degrees in engineering physics from the
Air Force Institute of Technology.
186 │ Technology Horizons

Dr. Dwight C. Streit

Dr. Streit is the vice president for electronics and sensors at Northrop
Grumman Aerospace Systems. In this role he is responsible for all tech-
nology development required for advanced semiconductors, micro-
electronics, radars, communication systems and satellite payload elec-
tronics, and sensors and electronic systems for airborne and space-based
platforms. Prior to joining Northrop Grumman via its acquisition of
TRW, he was president of the TRW company that manufactured high-
performance chips for fiber-optic and wireless communication sys-
tems. He has contributed more than 300 technical publications and
conference presentations and has some 30 patents issued or pending.
He was made a member of the National Academy of Engineering for
his contributions to the development and production of heterojunction
transistors and circuits. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, a member of the NASA Space Foundation Tech-
nology Hall of Fame, and a fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. In 2003 he was named the University of Cali-
fornia, Los Angeles (UCLA) Engineering Alumnus of the Year. He has
BS degrees in engineering and chemistry from California State Univer-
sity and MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from UCLA.

Betsy S. Witt
Ms. Witt is technical director of the Air and Cyberspace Analysis
Group of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, the Air Force
and DOD center of excellence for all-source air and space intelligence
to support USAF and joint operations, acquisition, and policy-making
customers in the national intelligence community. The Air and Cyber-
space Analysis Group is the intelligence community focal point for
analyses of foreign air and air defense systems and for analyses of cyber
intrusions into Air Force computer networks. In her capacity as tech-
nical director, she provides technical oversight of analysis on foreign
fixed-wing fighters and air armaments, remotely piloted vehicles, air-
craft avionics, ground-based early warning radars, command and con-
trol, integrated air defense systems, and foreign computer network at-
tack. She began her career in the Foreign Technology Division and has
over 31 years’ experience in intelligence community assignments with
 appendix E  │ 187

the Air Force. She has BS and MS degrees in mathematics from Wright
State University, as well as extensive undergraduate and graduate-level
courses in engineering.

Dr. Marc A. Zissman

Dr. Zissman is the assistant head of the Communications and Infor-
mation Technology Division at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory. He leads the laboratory’s cyber protec-
tion activities and shares responsibility for research, development,
evaluation, and technology transfer in the areas of advanced military
communications, wideband tactical networking on the move, and lan-
guage processing. He joined the laboratory in 1983, with his early re-
search focused on digital speech processing, including parallel com-
puting for speech coding and recognition, co-channel talker interference
suppression, language and dialect identification, and cochlear-implant
processing. After his subsequent research interests expanded to include
information assurance technologies, he served for four years as a US
technical specialist to the NATO task group that studies military ap-
plications of speech technology and for four years on the Speech Pro-
cessing Technical Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Elec-
tronics Engineers Signal Processing Society. He also served four years
on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Information Sci-
ence and Technology Study Group. He holds SB, SM, and PhD degrees
in electrical engineering from MIT.

Dr. John C. Zolper

Dr. Zolper is vice president, corporate research and development,
and deputy for corporate technology and research for Raytheon Com-
pany. In this role he is responsible for strategic technology planning
and technology innovation across the enterprise, through which he has
been involved in development and execution of an integrated enterprise-
wide technology and research vision and strategy. Before joining
Raytheon he was the director of the Defense Advanced Research Proj-
ects Agency’s (DARPA) Microsystems Technology Office, where he
was responsible for the strategic planning and execution of research
programs covering all areas of advanced component technology, in-
188 │ Technology Horizons

cluding electronics, photonics, microelectromechanical systems, algo-

rithms, and component architecture. Prior to joining DARPA he was a
program officer at the Office of Naval Research, where he managed a
portfolio of basic and applied research in advanced electronics, was a
senior member of technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories, and
was a postdoctoral fellow conducting research on high-efficiency sili-
con solar cells at the University of New South Wales in Australia. He is
a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has a BA in
physics from Gettysburg College and MEE and PhD degrees in electrical
engineering from the University of Delaware.
 Abbreviations
AAM air-to-air missile
ACC Air Combat Command
AESA active electronically scanned array
AFGSC Air Force Global Strike Command
AFOSR Air Force Office of Scientific Research
AFRL Air Force Research Laboratory
AFSOC Air Force Special Operations Command
AFSPC Air Force Space Command
AMC Air Mobility Command
AOARD Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development
ASAT antisatellite
CBO Congressional Budget Office
CEP circular error probable
DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
DE directed energy
DOD Department of Defense
DRFM digital radio frequency memory
EELV evolved expendable launch vehicle
EM electromagnetic
EMP electromagnetic pulse
EOARD European Office of Aerospace Research and Development
EO-IR electro-optical-infrared
EW electronic warfare
FFRDC federally funded research and development center
GDP gross domestic product
GEO geosynchronous Earth orbit
GLONASS Global Navigation Satellite System
GPS Global Positioning System
GRAM GPS receiver application module
HAF Headquarters Air Force
HALE high-altitude long-endurance
HELLADS High-Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System
190 │ Technology Horizons

HEO highly elliptical orbit

IADS integrated air defense system
IARPA Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency
ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IMU inertial measurement unit
INS inertial navigation system
IP Internet protocol
IRST infrared search and track
ISR intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
JPADS joint precision airdrop system
kg kilogram
KTA key technology area
LEO low Earth orbit
LIDAR light detection and ranging
LO low observable
M&S modeling and simulation
MANPADS man-portable air defense system
MDA MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates
MEO medium Earth orbit
MMOG massively multiplayer online game
MRBM medium-range ballistic missile
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
OPR overall pressure ratio
PCA potential capability area
PED processing, exploitation, and dissemination
PLAAF People’s Liberation Army Air Force
PNT positioning, navigation, and timing
PRSEUS pultruded, rod-stitched efficient unitized structure
QKD quantum key distribution
R&D research and development
RF radio frequency
 abbreviations │ 191

RPA remotely piloted aircraft

S&T science and technology
SAM surface-to-air missile
SBSS space-based space surveillance
SCF service core function
SOARD Southern Office of Aerospace Research and Development
SSA space situational awareness
SST space surveillance telescope
STEM science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
T&E test and evaluation
TPS thermal protection system
TRL technology readiness level
TSTO two stage to orbit
V&V verification and validation
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 bibliography │ 197

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 bibliography │ 201

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202 │ Technology Horizons

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Site Visits, Briefings, and Discussions

Technology Horizons also made use of a broad range of inputs gained
from numerous site visits, briefings, and discussions involving organi-
zations within the Air Force and elsewhere in the Department of De-
fense, as well as other federal agencies, federally funded research and
development centers, national laboratories, and companies. A partial
list of these organizations is given below.

Air Staff, Headquarters Air Force (HAF)

■■ Manpower and Personnel (AF/A1)
■■ Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (AF/A2)
■■ Operations, Plans, and Requirements (AF/A3/5)
■■ Logistics, Installations, and Mission Support (AF/A4/7)
■■ Strategic Plans and Programs (AF/A8)
■■ Studies, Assessments, and Lessons Learned (AF/A9)
■■ Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration (AF/A10)
■■ Air Force Historian (AF/HO)
■■ Air Force Reserve (AF/RE)
■■ Air Force Safety (AF/SE)
■■ Air Force Chief Scientist (AF/ST)
■■ Air Force Surgeon General (AF/SG)
■■ Air Force Test and Evaluation (AF/TE)
■■ Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (AF/SB)
■■ CSAF Strategic Studies Group

Air Force Secretariat, HAF

■■ Administrative Assistant (SAF/AA)
■■ Acquisition (SAF/AQ)
■■ Small Business Programs (SAF/SB)
■■ General Counsel (SAF/GC)
 bibliography │ 207

■■ Installations, Environment, and Logistics (SAF/IE)

■■ Public Affairs (SAF/PA)
■■ Warfighting Integration and Chief Information Officer (SAF/XC)

Air Force Major Commands (MAJCOM)

■■ Air Combat Command (ACC)
■■ Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC)
■■ Air Force Space Command (AFSPC)
■■ Air Education and Training Command (AETC)
■■ Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC)
■■ Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC)
■■ Air Mobility Command (AMC)
■■ Air National Guard (ANG)
■■ Pacific Air Forces (PACAF)

Air Force Product Centers

■■ Air Armament Center (AAC)
■■ Electronic Systems Center (ESC)
■■ Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC)

Direct Reporting Units (DRU)

■■ US Air Force Academy (USAFA)

Field Operating Agencies (FOA)

■■ Air Force ISR Agency (AFISRA)
■■ Air Force Medical Support Agency (AFMSA)

Other Air Force Agencies

■■ Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC)
■■ Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC)
■■ Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT)
■■ Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)
■■ Air Force Unmanned Systems ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Re-
connaissance) Innovations (AF/A2U)
■■ Air Force Warfare Center (USAFWC)
■■ Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (AFNWC)
■■ Air Force A8 Futures Game 2009
208 │ Technology Horizons

■■ Distributed Mission Operations Center (DMOC)

■■ Space Innovation and Development Center (SIDC)
■■ National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC)
■■ Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (OC–ALC)
■■ Eighth Air Force (8AF)
■■ 505th Command and Control Wing (505CCW)
■■ 688th Information Operations Wing (688IOW)
■■ 67th Network Warfare Wing (67NWW)
■■ 46th Test Wing (46TW)

Federal Agencies
■■ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
■■ Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)
■■ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
■■ Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)

Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC)

■■ RAND Corporation
■■ Lincoln Laboratory

National Laboratories
■■ Argonne National Laboratory
■■ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
■■ Sandia National Laboratories

Companies
■■ Aernnova
■■ Aerojet
■■ Astrox
■■ Blue Origin
■■ Boeing Integrated Defense Systems
■■ General Atomics Aeronautical Company
■■ General Atomics Photonics Division
■■ Honeywell Aerospace
■■ Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company
■■ Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
■■ Pratt & Whitney
■■ Raytheon Company
 bibliography │ 209

■■ Rolls Royce Liberty Works

■■ VMware

Other
■■ Air Force Red Team
■■ Air Force Studies Board (AFSB)
■■ Office of Net Assessment (ONA)
■■ Office of Naval Research (ONR)
■■ Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
 Technology Horizons
A Vision for Air Force Science and Technology
2010–30

Air University Press Team

Chief Editor
Jeanne K. Shamburger

Copy Editor
Sherry Terrell

Cover Art and Book Design

and Illustrations
Daniel Armstrong

Composition and
Prepress Production
Ann Bailey

Print Preparation and Distribution

Diane Clark