Defense Research and Development From the Warfighter to the American Consumer, Redefining Everyday Lives Through Innovation

FEdERAL InvEsTmEnT sERIEs mARCh 2014

ContentsIntroduction ...................................................... 3

By the numbers: R&d spending ....................... 4

The Cell Phone .................................................. 6

medical science ................................................ 8

The modern Automobile ................................. 10

The Flat screen Television .............................. 11

Appendix

Liquid crystal display (LCd) under magnification: LCD technology traces its origins in part to investments made in defense technology during the 1960s and 1970s.

Electronics and computer technologies have revolutionized the conduct of modern stock exchanges.

Federal investments in science and technology research and development are threatened by the current budget environ-ment. The Aerospace Industries Association is embarking on an education effort to inform policymakers, elected leaders and the American public on the impact of federal R&D dollars on the innovations that redefine our everyday lives.

This report – the first in a series that examines the impact of federal investment programs – highlights four case studies of private sector technologies and products that have been largely defined or influenced by defense R&D spending. These case studies include the cellular smart phone, the hospital operating room, the modern automobile and the flat screen television. Each case study provides a narrated illustration of the product and its connections to defense R&D.

The President’s budget for fiscal year 2015 requests a reduc-tion in science and technology funding across both defense and non-defense discretionary accounts. This would reinforce existing reductions from the past several budget cycles. If se-questration is not addressed in fiscal year 2016 and beyond, this downward angle could turn into a nosedive. AIA believes policymakers must ensure a robust and balanced defense research program, not only for the substantial benefits it provides to America’s warfighters, but also for the resulting commercial innovations that help grow our productivity and our economy.

Over the past six decades, federal investment in R&D programs has acted as an incubator for innovation, pro-ducing an immeasurable array of technological advance-ments that have come to define modern life and society at large. These investments have provided the basis for a revolution in electronic systems, communications, materi-als and medical science, the results of which have served as the building blocks for today’s most common technol-ogies, including transistors, the Internet, GPS navigation and liquid crystal technology, to name a few.

The connection between research programs and com-mercial deployment of technologies is often multi-faceted. Program requirements can provide both the research impetus and critical opportunity for technology to mature through production and continual improvement. How-ever, not all technologies that follow this path spill into the private market. Those that do are defined both by market demand and by calculated private investments that enable them to emerge as profitable products. These disparate paths demonstrate how investments made in advanced research can result in enormous contributions to the nation’s economy and industrial competitiveness.

3

Introduction

Current and historical defense R&d FundingThroughout most of its history, the Defense Department has been engaged in some form of science and technology devel-opment; however it was not until World War II that a dominant paradigm of R&D activities emerged. This paradigm is charac-terized by the establishment of a critical relationship between universities, industry and defense laboratories on a number of fronts including electronics, communications, materials, weap-ons and medical sciences.

The watershed moment for this era occurred in 1957 when the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite unleashed an unprecedented acceleration of domestic research budgets and the establishment of R&D organizations including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Aero-nautics and Space Administration.

After the 1960s, federal R&D funding for both defense and non-defense accounts slowed and decreased as a share of the total federal budget. During this period, two buildups characterized the trajectory of R&D expenditures: the first occurred in the 1980s during the Reagan Administration; the second was in the 2000s, after September 11, 2001.

Presently, DOD’s research program is organized into several functional categories under the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation program, the core of which is the Science and Technology program. Science and Technology program activi-ties include those in basic research (noted as 6.1 in the chart below) including particle physics and material sciences; applied research (6.2) including hardware development; and advanced technology development (6.3). The remainder of research activities and associated funding under RDT&E and other DOD accounts are utilized for medical research, full-scale develop-ment, test and evaluation and management support.

By the numbers

4

defense, nondefense R&d and defense R&d as a share of Total Budget, FY 1976-2014 (budget authority in billions of constant 2013 dollars)

50

100

150

200 NondefenseDefense

2014

**

2013

**

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

1988

1987

1986

1985

1984

1983

1982

1981

1980

1979

1978

1977

1976

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

Defense R&D as a % of Federal Budget

BILL

IONS

OF C

ONST

ANT

2013

DOL

LARS

DEFE

NSE

R&D

AS %

OF F

EDER

AL B

UDGE

T

Source: AAAS R&D report series, based on OMB and agency R&D budget data Includes conduct of R&D and R&D facilities.* Between FY 1991 and 1992, R&D from ADAMHA (HHS) transferred to NIH. ADAMHA R&D included in NIH totals for all years. ** Latest estimates. FY 2014 is the President’s request.

In fiscal year 2012, total DOD RDT&E activities accounted for $80.4 billion or 55 percent of the total federal expenditure on R&D ($145.5 billion). This figure is down from a peak of $92.5 billion in fiscal year 2008 and represents its lowest percent share of the overall federal budget since the 1960s, starting from a high of more than 10 percent in 1962 and ending at a low of 2.1 percent in 2012. Congressionally-directed medical research activities undertaken by DOD, which are appropriated outside of RDT&E, represent a much smaller proportion of the budget but have experienced steady growth over the past de-cade, starting from a base of $50 million in fiscal year 1999 and reaching a peak of $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2012.

By the numbers

“ some of the Agency’s greatest contribu-tions - things we now take for granted and as having been inevitable - were, at their inception, often considered impossible... But these seemingly impossible things were turned to the improbable and then to the inevitable by people with vision and determination to make their vision real.”

— Ken Gabriel, deputy director of dARPA, February 2012

Trends in department of defense science and Technology, FY 1990-2014 (budget authority in billions of constant 2013 dollars)

BILL

IONS

OF C

ONST

ANT

2013

DOL

LARS

5

10

15

2020

14**

2013

**

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

Medical Research*Advanced Technology Development [6.3]Applied Research [6.2]Basic Research [6.1]

Source: AAAS Reports and agency budget data. Constant dollar conversions based on OMB’s GDP deflators from the FY 2014 budget.* Medical research is appropriated outside RDT&E; appropriated in “6.2” accounts before 1999. ** Latest estimates. FY 2014 is the President’s request.

micro-Electro-mechanical Gyroscope & AccelerometerThe smart phone’s ability to measure pitch, roll, yaw and ac-celeration is due to a microchip that replicates the function of an accelerometer and gyroscope. Though gyroscopes and accelerometers were in use in the early 20th century, the push to miniaturize them for an array of defense applica-tions during the Cold War stimulated significant innovations in their design. By the 1990s, Micro-Electro-Mechanical technology, funded in part by DARPA and the U.S. Air Force, enabled gyroscopic and accelerometric functions to be microscopically replicated onto the surface of an inte-grated circuit. With no moving parts, MEM devices operate through electromechanical vibration, which is utilized to detect changes in relative motion.

Transistors & Integrated CircuitsIn the 1950s and 1960s, pressure from the Cold War stimu-lated significant investment into technologies that would improve defense computers and communications systems. As one of the most critical of these breakthroughs, Bell Labs and Texas Instruments developed the first silicon transis-tors in the early 1950s after a series of advancements in semiconductor materials processing. Transistors ultimately replaced vacuum tubes in everything from radios to com-puters and enabled their significant reduction in size and cost. By the 1960s, further advancements in semiconduc-tors enabled transistors to be miniaturized and placed by the thousands on microscopic integrated circuits. These circuits coupled with other advancements ultimately enabled the range of modern electronics that we use today.

digital Camera TechnologyA cell phone camera operates by converting light into elec-trical signals thanks to a light-sensitive chip called a CMOS-APS sensor. Pioneered in defense-funded laboratories during the 1960s, CMOS technology enabled the packing of thousands (and later millions) of transistors onto a single chip, which served as the basis for numerous technolo-gies including solid-state memory and computer proces-sors. However, it was not until the early 1990s that NASA researchers adapted CMOS into a miniature image sensor using active pixel sensing, or APS. In 1993, CMOS-APS technology was spun-out from NASA and quickly became the standard for a majority of digital-imaging applications. Random Access memoryIn the 1950s, MIT researchers working for the U.S. Navy realized the first breakthrough in random access memory, called magnetic core memory. Magnetic core replaced unreliable relays and vacuum tubes in early computers as a form of temporary data storage utilized for calculations. In the 1970s, advancements in magnetic core gave way to semiconductor memory, a key technology that enabled the commercialization of modern computers and cell phones in the following decades.

PlasticsFirst synthesized in the late 19th century, plastics were not fully realized as a practical material until the height of World War II after a chemical process discovered in the 1930s enabled the production of plastic that could insulate battle-field electronics. Subsequent research on plastic in the late 1940s, led to its commercial boom in the consumer market-place, resulting in its now ubiquitous use in daily life.

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defense R&d Related Technology: The Cell Phone

Liquid Crystal display The electronic display of a mobile phone consists of a liquid crystal display, or LCD, that uses an electric field to adjust the visual characteristics of liquid crystals. Though knowl-edge of the properties of liquid crystals had been around since the early 20th century, it was not until a renewed interest driven in part by defense funding in the 1960s that spurred R&D into its practical applications. Over the subse-quent years advancements were made to the technology and by the 1990s, LCDs were commonplace in early laptop screens, flat screen displays, calculators, watches and of course, the display on a mobile phone.

Lithium Ion Polymer BatteryIn the 1970s, the U.S. Army’s requirement for a new and more energy-dense power source for battlefield devices spurred research and development into lithium-ion technol-ogy. Though expensive and difficult to work with, lithium chemistry provided greater energy densities while being smaller and lighter in weight than traditional alkaline batter-ies. By the 1990s, the commercial market opened up for lithium-ion batteries and the technology became a critical component of modern wireless electronics and devices.

Personal voice Assistant [“sIRI”]During the 2000s, DARPA conducted research on a voice command interface to help military commanders organize data and make sense of fast moving situations. The re-sult was the Personalized Assistant that Learns or PAL, a voice-recognition program that could retrieve and synthesize information while learning from a user’s queries. In 2008, the technology was spun-out and later integrated in the iPhone 4s and subsequent generation iPhones as the SIRI (Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) voice assistant.

The InternetAs one of the most significant innovations of its era, the Internet traces its origins to an experimental concept pioneered at an ARPA (DARPA’s predecessor) lab in the 1960s. At the time, researchers had envisioned a computer technology that would allow them to share data and com-municate between computers anywhere in the country. The first iteration of this early internet was called ARPANET, which grew over decades to include dozens of computers at research centers and universities across the country. By the early 1990s, the popularity of the network had grown so significantly that it was opened up for commercial traffic in 1995.

GPs Enabled navigationIn the late 1950s, researchers realized that they could pin-point the location of a terrestrial object by analyzing signals transmitted from satellites in space. From this research, the U.S. Navy and DARPA developed a constellation of satel-lites, called TRANSIT that could aid in the navigation and positioning of nuclear submarines, aircraft or ICBM launch-es. By the 1970s, an upgraded navigation system called the Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) was developed, which was opened for public use in the early 1990s.

Radio Transmission TechnologyMobile phones operate by utilizing radio signals to connect and receive data from cell phone towers over long distanc-es. The concept for a hand-held communication device was first developed decades earlier by the defense department for long and short-range field communication equipment, such as “walkie-talkies.” By the early 1980s, improvements in the cost and size of the technology made the concept commercially viable, and the first cell phone was manufac-tured and marketed to the civilian public in 1984.

defense R&d Related Technology: medical science

medical diagnostics and ProceduresA large array of medical advancements and diagnostics have been developed or facilitated as a result of defense research activities. Most notably, ultrasound was devel-oped to detect gallstones in the late 1940s after the Navy’s work on sonar technology during WWII; ultrasound is now used in a wide variety of medical and diagnostic contexts. Other technological advancements include telesurgery and telerobotics, image processing technology and surgical laser technology.

modern Computer TechnologyEnabled by decades of defense advancements, computer technologies play a critical role in modern medicine by al-lowing medical professionals to analyze the human body and manage information in ways never before possible. Computer technologies provide critical medical functions such as monitoring vital signs and running MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and CT (Computed Tomography) scans. More recently, defense research has made advance-ments in related fields such as health informatics, which connect patients to doctors and pharmacies and facilitates the exchange of information about prescriptions and health records.

PlasticsOnce used to insulate and protect sensitive battlefield elec-tronics in WWII, plastics have become one of today’s most commonly used materials. Although they are quite common, plastics play an especially important role in hospitals. Found in everything from IVs to Pacemakers, the non-reactivity, sterility and insulative properties of plastics make the mate-rial indispensable in medical applications.

Emergency medical PracticesThe nature of injuries and emergency treatment in the battle-field has led to a steady stream of private sector innovations that benefit civilian emergency medicine. These advance-ments include plasma substitutes that can be kept at room temperature; improved EMS practices, including gauze treated with clotting agents; and standard practices for tour-niquet and intravenous therapy uses. Other advancements include emergency first responder robots; GPS enabled situational awareness for first responders; and patient-wear-able devices that give medical personnel instant access to medical records without physical contact.

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vaccines and Bio-surveillanceThe nature of global conflicts has resulted in decades of research aimed at protecting service members from for-eign pathogens and infectious diseases. This research has resulted in numerous civilian vaccines and medical practices that are now commonplace in modern medicine. Research has also focused on understanding the spread of infectious diseases by developing a computerized bio-surveillance system to aid in tracking and analysis for both civilian and military use.

Artificial LimbsDefense research has been at the forefront of advancing artificial limb technologies in the fields of neuroscience, robotics, sensors and power systems. This research has focused on creating prosthetics that match the strength and dexterity of a natural limb and can be cognitively controlled. Other artificial limb advancements have focused on materi-als that are more durable and comfortable for the user.

defense R&d Related Technology: The modern Automobile

GPs navigationOnce developed to provide positioning and navigation data to nuclear submarines and ICBMs during the Cold War, satellite-enabled navigation, now GPS, has led to a com-mercial revolution in transportation and electronics. Either through smart phones, stand-alone devices or through stan-dard equipment installed in a vehicle, users can receive real time information on their current location and distance and route information to a particular destination.

Computer TechnologyWith the advent of fuel injection technology in the late 1980s, computers have played an ever-growing role in mod-ern automobiles. They determine fuel mixture, monitor criti-cal engine and vehicle performance, provide GPS-enabled directions and run sophisticated music and entertainment systems. These computers, like the computers we have in our phones or on our desktops at home, have resulted from decades of defense related advancement in computer tech-nologies such as memory, circuitry and software.

Aluminum AlloysModern automobiles owe much of their construction – in-cluding frame and engine components – to aluminum alloys. Defense research played a key role in advancing the state of the art for aluminum manufacturing and compositions throughout many decades in the pursuit of alloys for aero-space and defense applications.

Plastics and CompositesPlastics and other lightweight composites are an essential material in modern automobiles and owe much of their early heritage to defense investments made in the 1940s and 1950s. Today plastics can be found in a variety of areas in-cluding engine components, bumpers, side panels, airbags, interior paneling and signal lights

Lithium-Ion BatteryIn the 1970s, the U.S. Army invested in lithium-ion battery technology to replace the bulkier and less energy dense al-kaline-based batteries in battlefield electronics and devices. Today these investments have resulted in the prevalence of lithium ion battery technology in modern technologies and have enabled the commercial development of gasoline-electric hybrid and full electric vehicles that are on the roads today.

Tire TechnologyIn the mid 2000s, the need for tires on battlefield vehicles to withstand adverse events such as explosions or punctures spurred a number of advancements in tire construction and materials resulting in run-flat and airless tire technology. To-day many of these advancements have found their way into the commercial market for civilian automobiles.

defense R&d Related Technology: The Flat screen Tv

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LCd screenFor many flat screen televisions in use today, the screen typ-ically consists of a liquid crystal display, or LCD, that uses an electric field to adjust the visual characteristics of liquid crystals. Though there had been knowledge of the proper-ties of liquid crystals since the early 20th century, it was not until a renewed interest driven in part by defense funding in the 1960s that spurred R&D into its practical applications. Over the subsequent years, advancements were made to the technology and by the 1990s LCD displays were commonplace in early laptop screens, flat screen displays, calculators, watches and mobile phones.

Plastics / PolyethylenePlastic plays an important role in modern electronics and appliances, including the television. Not only does it pro-vide structure, its ability to hold any color and take any shape make plastic ideal for designing and manufacturing this staple of household appliances. DVD players and even your remote control also rely on plastic to protect inner electronics from damage, which makes this material an essential component in the living room of millions of Ameri-can families. Many of these plastics can trace their heritage to defense investments made in their manufacture in the 1940s and 1950s.

Transistors & Integrated Circuits In the 1950s and 1960s, Cold War pressure stimulated significant investment into technologies that would improve defense computers and communications systems. As one of the most critical of these breakthroughs, Bell Labs and Texas Instruments invented silicon transistors in the 1950s after a series of advancements in semiconductor materials processing. Transistors ultimately replaced vacuum tubes in everything from radios to computers and enabled their significant reduction in size and cost. By the 1960s, further advancements in semiconductors enabled transistors to be miniaturized and placed by the thousands on microscopic integrated circuits. These circuits coupled with other ad-vancements ultimately enabled the range of modern elec-tronics that we use today.

The InternetMany flat screen televisions available on the market are able to connect to the Internet in order to view multimedia or download content. In concert with the Internet, the applica-tions, websites and platforms we use enable endless en-tertainment and even facilitate commerce. Unlike its current interactive and creative capacity, the Internet was created as an experimental concept for defense researchers to ex-change data between computers across the country in the 1960s. Its popularity grew steadily over the decades, and in 1995 the network was opened up for commercial traffic. Today, the Internet serves as the public’s primary source for entertainment, research and communication.

Liquid Crystal display TechnologyA liquid crystal display (LCD) is made up of a fixed array of cells. Each cell has a single red, blue and green sub-pixel. Three sub-pixels make up a single pixel and millions of these pixels make up an image.

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APPEndIXAPS Active Pixel SensorCMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyDOD Department of DefenseGPS Global Position SystemICBM Inter-Continental Ballistic MissileLCD Liquid Crystal DisplayMEM Micro Electro Mechanical machine MIT Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyNASA National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationPAL Personalized Assistant that LearnsRAM Random Access Memory R&D Research and DevelopmentRDT&E Research Development Technology and EvaluationS&T Science and TechnologyTBI Traumatic Brain Injury