A team of scientists working under an Air Force Office of Scientific Research-funded effort may have found a “simple, reliable, and cost effective” way to manipulate a laser beam to sustain high data rates under a variety of conditions, reports Maria Callier of AFOSR. Their wave optics simulation could prove useful for space communications, optical tracking, and other Air Force applications. “If successful, our work can lead to free space communication systems that can carry high bandwidth data, that are almost impossible to intercept,” said team leader David Voelz with New Mexico State University.
Unmanned aerial vehicles and autonomous aircraft may provide a solution to operating in heavily contested domains such as the Taiwan Straits, according to a panel of expert who suggested operationalizing artificial intelligence for such purposes sooner rather than later. The group gathered virtually to help launch the Mitchell Institute for…