Page 34: of Marine Technology Magazine (June 2014)

Inside ONR issues. The fi rst one we had back in January was on autonomy.

It was hugely successful. We’re probably going to do our next one on information/C4I, and we think that’s probably appro- priate for the time, based on our focus on the electromagnetic spectrum and cyber. We want to share what we’re focusing on. And we want to know “what are you focusing on?” We have a general discussions in the morning, and one-on-one opportunities in the afternoon to present a proposal, a white paper, or do a poster board. We have a large Tech Expo every two years, but now we’re allowing these focus area forums to happen with the general, technical, research community about once every 3 to 4 months.

You had mentioned underwater systems and connectivity. How are we making it so that our underwater systems and distributed underwa- ter sensors can communicate? We’re looking at all sorts of different mediums to move data in the undersea domain. I will tell you that we have successfully done it—I can’t say the ranges or the times—but

I’ll just tell you we’ve done it. I’m feeling more and more confi dent as we understand the dynamics of the water and all those kind of obstacles underneath the water, that we’ve got a pretty good understanding on how we can move that data in real time. And it’s not only, it’s through the water medium, but it’s also through the air-sea interface medium as we might port it up to airborne assets or to a maritime operational cen- ter. You may want just one vehicle out there all alone, which has advantages, but we think there are advantages in being able to distribute in a netted kind of way of those undersea vehicles and sensors.

You mentioned the air-sea boundary. What kinds of progress are we making, or what’s new and exciting about our understanding of the atmosphere and the ocean so that we can be masters of those domains. We’ll never be the “masters” because Mother Nature still holds that in her precious hands. But ocean science is part of our heartbeat here. The Arctic used to be described as a frozen maritime desert, a lot of ice but not a dynamic environ- ment. In the last few years, however, the Arctic has become

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