Pentagon picks '05 projects

The Defense Department's top acquisition official announced last week he chose 15 technologies that DOD will rush to field this year.

Michael Wynne, acting undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, selected the 15 Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration projects for fiscal 2005 from almost 100 proposals submitted by officials in the military's services and agencies. The annual program aims to rapidly field new and promising technologies to troops, according to a Jan. 7 DOD statement.

Officials in the military's services and agencies reviewed the proposals and provided requirements for operational capabilities. The 15 technology projects for 2005 include:

Actionable Situational Awareness Pull: Access and tailor information.

Chemical Unmanned Ground Reconnaissance: Detect chemicals during operations to protecting warfighters.

Coalition Secure Management and Information System: Transmit secure command and control information among coalition partners.

Epidemic Outbreak Surveillance: Identify pathogens before a large dispersal and contamination.

Joint Coordinated Real Time Engagement: Operate within seconds across multicombatant commands, theaters and echelons.

Joint Enhanced Explosion Resistant Coating Exploitation: Protect against explosives and penetrating ordnance.

Joint Force Projection: Comprehensively plan deployments.

Medical Situational Awareness in Theater: Fuse health data and intelligence.

Rapid Airborne Reporting and Exploitation: Characterize, detect and identify targets.

Sea Talon: Find objects undersea near shores.

Sea Eagle: Monitor maritime areas.

Special Operations Command's Long Endurance Demonstrator: Test a drone that vertically takes off and lands and can fly for a long time.

Viper Strike: Target precisely with minimal damage to people and buildings.

Tactical Satellites-2 Roadrunner: Develop responsive and affordable tactical satellites.

Weapons Data Link: Re-target weapons in flight.