In the early 1950s, a huge hole was dug into the Cumbrian coast and lined with concrete. Roughly the length of three Olympic swimming pools and known as B30, it was built to hold skip loads of spent nuclear fuel. Those highly radioactive rods came from the 26 Magnox nuclear reactors that helped keep Britain's lights on between 1956 and 2015. When B30 was first put to work, it was designed to keep the fuel rods submerged for only three months before reprocessing work was carried out. But when 1970s miners' strikes shut down coal power stations and forced greater reliance on nuclear plants, more spent fuel than could be quickly reprocessed was generated.

Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane), Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the NavalX Midwest Tech Bridge (MTB) recently announced the winners of the Artificial Intelligence for Small Unit Maneuvers (AISUM) Prize Challenge. EpiSys Science, Inc. (Episci) took first place and Draper, Inc. (Draper) took second place. According to their website, Episci is "a multidisciplinary innovation company that develops next-generation autonomous technologies for defense, aerospace, and commercial applications." Draper's website says the organization "serves our nation's interests and security needs; advances technologies at the intersection of government, academia, and industry; cultivates the next generation of innovators; and solves the most complex challenges." "The overall goal of this challenge was to move the technology needle," said Amy Ross, Program Manager for the AISUM Prize Challenge.

On Thursday, Sept. 30, from 10:30 a.m. to 11:50 a.m., senior naval and congressional leaders will participate in a special Office of Naval Research (ONR)-sponsored virtual event to discuss "The Future of Warfare." Held in honor of ONR's 75th anniversary, the event is titled "ONR at 75: Reimagine Naval Power." It will feature remarks from the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday, and from the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, the Hon. A panel discussion will follow, featuring two members of the U.S. Congress-Rep. The panel, titled "The Future of Warfare," will be led by Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Lorin C. Selby.

One thing about airplanes--especially ones that fly from aircraft carriers, where they're battered by saltwater and tough deck landings--is that they need lots of spare parts that are not always on hand. Instead of flying in new parts, though, future Navy ships may be able to make new ones to order. Picutre an intelligent, laser-wielding robot that can analyze the damage and 3D-print the needed titanium alloy parts from an onboard supply of metallic dust. This is one glimpse of the future proposed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), which today announced a two-year, $5.8 million contract to create a new generation of super-smart 3D printers. The printers would not only make parts on order wherever they are needed, but can "observe, learn and make decisions by themselves," according to Lockheed.

Senvol, a 3D printing data specialist based in New York City, is developing data-driven machine learning additive manufacturing (AM) software for the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR). The software will help the Navy cut out the process of trial and error during material development. New York's Senvol creates additive manufacturing software that analyzes the relationships between AM process parameters and material performance. With this software to hand, ONR will be able to develop what Senvol describes as "statistically substantiated material properties" in order to reduce the conventional material characterization and testing that is needed to develop design allowables (the statistically determined material property values ascertained from test data). "Our software's capabilities will allow ONR to select the appropriate process parameters on a particular additive manufacturing machine given a target mechanical performance," commented Senvol President Annie Wang.

Semester exams are looming, with an extended holiday break on their heels. But before Dr. Andrea Thomaz closes the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology for the season, the lab hosted a few more visitors last week for the final experiment of the semester. The lab welcomes guests to interact with Simon, a humanoid robot developed with seed funds from the Office of Naval Research (ONR). These interactions allow student-researchers to adjust software models for Simon's learning and behavior generation. And it all starts once Thomaz and her team wake the resting robot.

Drone boats belonging to the U.S. Navy have begun learning to work together like a swarm with a shared hive mind. Two years ago, they would have individually reacted to possible threats by all swarming over like a chaotic group of kids learning to play soccer for the first time. Now the drone boats have showed that they can cooperate intelligently as a team to defend a harbor area against intruders. The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) held its latest robot swarm demonstration in the lower Chesapeake Bay off the Virginia coast for about a month. Four drone boats showed off their improved control and navigation software by patrolling an area of 4 nautical miles by 4 nautical miles. If they spotted a possible threat, the swarm of roboboats would collectively decide which of them would go track and trail the intruder vessel.

While the US Navy's new state-of-the-art USS Zumwalt destroyer struggles to remain functional, the service branch's R&D department has been busy investigating cutting-edge tech at a much smaller scale. Back in October, the Office of Naval Research (OCR) demonstrated the harbor defense capabilities of a group of prototype small autonomous boats, aka "swarmbots," in Chesapeake Bay. The ONR used four rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB) -- think of the larger soldier-ferrying Zodiacs -- to show off the drone squad's ability to patrol, investigate approaching unknown crafts and relay that information back to a human supervisor. Using autonomous vehicles for dull yet important tasks such as harbor defense is cheaper than using human crews, especially since some of the drone tech used in the demo is off-the-shelf. The ONR's autonomous system, Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS), was first demonstrated in RHIBs back in 2014, according to the department's press release.