Five universities selected for defense science initiative

The Department of Defense (DoD) recently selected five university-industry teams for the Defense Enterprise Science Initiative (DESI).

The initiative’s goals are to identify technological gaps and apply new discoveries and knowledge on existing capabilities and to accelerate the basic research of innovative technologies complementing DoD’s other basic research programs.

These programs include the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative and the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship.

“Programs like DESI are vital to foster collaboration in the research ecosystem and accelerate the transition of ground-breaking basic science to transformative capabilities,” Dr. Bindu Nair, deputy director for basic research, said. “I look forward to seeing how these teams can help us address our unique and challenging defense problem sets.”

The teams are The Boeing Company, Arizona State University, and Syracuse University; Stanford University and Skydio; Northwestern University and TERA-print, LLC; Duke University, University of Washington, and Northrop Grumman; and Stanford University, University of California, and Merced Visor Corp.

Teams receive up to $1.5 million over two years and will complete research in one of five areas.

Research areas are metamaterial-based antennas, soft active composite materials, power beaming, highly-maneuverable autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles, and an alternate topics section for innovative proposals unaligned to the defined themes.

DESI is a pilot program under the secretary of defense for research and engineering.