Nanotechnology, the All-Electric Ship and Future Warriors

By JAMES D. HESSMAN
Senior Writer & Editor Emeritus

Tiny sensors, smaller than a grain of sand, could detect the presence of hostile submarines. An infantryman's lightweight uniform could absorb the impact of an enemy's bullet, and also change its own camouflage pattern. An advanced-technology ship could have several combat advantages over current gas-turbine ships--and might also be cheaper to build and operate, with lower manning and maintenance requirements.

All are not only possible, but probable, thanks in large part to recent and extremely rapid advances in nanotechnology, a term defined in Nanosystems, by Dr. K. Eric Drexler of the Foresight Institute, as "Any technology related to features of nanometer scale"--on which a nanometer is one billionth of a meter, far too small to be seen by the human eye.

Scientists have devised ingenious ways to manufacture or create, and manipulate, nanosized materials. Many types of these materials already are used in manufacturing and medicine, agriculture and architecture, communications and space exploration, and in national defense. The U.S. Department of Defense is arguably the world's foremost user of nanotechnology, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

As an example, the fiscal year 2004 DOD budget includes funding for new studies and tests leading to the design, development, construction, and deployment of an all-electric ship, the building of which would have been much more difficult, and considerably more expensive, in the pre-nanotechnology era. The use of nanotechnology would permit the building of smaller, less complicated, and less costly components for hundreds of ship systems, both large and small. Moreover, those components would not only be easier to install and repair (or replace), but would also consume less of the ship's electric power.

An all-electric ship should be less complicated to design than today's gas-turbine ships, according to naval analyst and author Norman Polmar. Battle damage could be easier to control, he told Sea Power, and there would be more than enough electricity available to meet the power requirements of an electric rail gun--which, in Polmar's words, is one of the Navy's "weapons of the future."

The applications of nanotechnology are not restricted to major platforms and weapon systems such as Navy ships. The individual warrior, in fact, might well be the greatest beneficiary of future advances in this field. The previously mentioned infantryman's uniform, for example, could evolve quickly from an Army program, Future Warrior, managed by the U.S. Army's Soldier Systems Center (SSC) in Natick, Mass. The everyday working uniform of the soldier (or U.S. Marine) envisioned by Future Warrior would be relatively lightweight, waterproof, and possibly bulletproof as well. The uniform, fabricated using nanotechnology, could be loaded with an array of tiny sensors, and a communications system to tie it into military networks. According to Jean Louis "Dutch" DeGay, an SSC equipment specialist, the Future Warrior uniform could be fitted with an "Exoskeletal Subsystem" built of "mechanically active polymers and nanostructures" that would enhance the wearer's strength and agility.

DeGay told Sea Power that the Marine Corps is "represented" on the Future Warrior team, but "does not have an active role." The program "is primarily Army," he said, "but the Marine Corps continues to look at it to pull out applicable technologies for Marines." Future Warrior may or may not become an international effort, he said. "Most if not all of our allies are pursuing some advanced soldier system on their own. We work closely with the British on some soldier items and body armor."

The ability to design and manufacture items quickly and at relatively low cost is one of the most important advantages provided by nanotechnology. But this technology also permits the military to deploy micro-sensors that could "revolutionize" the Navy's undersea warfare systems and capabilities, according to Dr. Morton L. Wallach, president of PEL Associates (Groton, Conn.), which several months ago was awarded a contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop micro-sensors that could be scattered across an expanse of the ocean floor to detect enemy submarines.

PEL is already deep into the design phase of what is called the Anti-Submarine Sensor/Communication Package program. Wallach told Sea Power that, with potential follow-on funding, the building of prototypes could start within "a year or so," and that, following a rigorous but not overlong test and evaluation phase of the program, full production could start within another two years.

Similar sensors could be used, with some adaptations, in the field of mine warfare. It is "definitely possible," Wallach said, "using modern technology, to design and field a huge number of micro-sensors capable of detecting enemy mines in the littorals." The sensors could be surreptitiously "seeded," he said, in the approaches to enemy shores. The seeding could be carried out by unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) from safe standoff distances where the presence of the UUVs would not be detected. The UUVs could also carry several thousand of their own explosive devices that, on command, would attack--"in swarms, if necessary"--to destroy enemy mines.

As Wallach suggested, the infusion of additional federal funding will be needed, probably on a long-term basis, if the U.S. military is to improve its future combat capabilities through the use of nanotechnology.

In the Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003, introduced in the House in February of last year, Congress authorized the appropriation of $847 million for nanotechnology research and development programs. That total represents a 9.5 percent increase over the $774 million appropriated the previous year for nanotechnology research and development, under the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative. The primary goal of the initiative is "the ability to work at the molecular level, atom by atom, to create large structures with fundamentally new properties and functions," according to Dr. M.C. Roco of the National Science Foundation.

The largest subtotal of funding provided by Congress, $247 million, is to be allocated to the National Science Foundation. The DOD's share of the total is $222 million. The Departments of Energy ($197 million) and Commerce ($62 million) also are major players on the NNI team, as are the National Institutes of Health ($70 million) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ($31 million).

The Navy's share of nanotechnology funding is $29 million, with much of that expected to be allocated to research work on challenges extending over a 20 to 50 year time frame, according to Dr. Kristl Hathaway, director of the Electronics Division of the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The first of the so-called "Grand Challenges" seeks to describe the current and future naval battlespace, she told Sea Power.

Three other challenges, briefly described, are to develop safe, efficient, environmentally friendly nonpetroleum-based sources of power; to determine the procedures needed to manufacture future naval materials with "superior properties"; and to develop nanoscale devices to their "ultimate limits of high speed, small size, and low power."