Enhanced Mapping and Positioning System (EMAPS)
EMAPS, a portable mapping system carried in a backpack, uses sensors and lasers to create annotated maps in spaces where GPS is not available, such as underground or on ships.
Enhancing Naval Readiness with Onboard 3D Printing Solutions
Implementing onboard 3D printing systems to enable ships to produce essential parts at sea, thereby enhancing operational readiness and reducing maintenance delays
Enlisting eDNA to Understand Ecosystems
APL researchers are using genetic information to observe animals, plants, and microbes in their natural environments, and pioneering environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis methods to study marine ecosystems that the world relies on as the foundation of global food webs.
Ensuring Resilient Enabling Capabilities in Denied Environments
On behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, APL is merging technical capabilities with acquisition strategy to mitigate adversary threats to command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) in the maritime, terrestrial, air, space, and cyber domains.
Europa Clipper
A mission to survey Jupiter’s icy moon Europa and determine whether it has conditions suitable to harboring life.
EZIE
The Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) will characterize the electrojets that flow high in Earth’s atmosphere to reveal the underlying processes that form them.
GenWar Sim
Integrating large language models with AFSIM—making high-fidelity simulations accessible to users through natural language interaction
Golden Horde
Achieving networked, collaborative offensive weapons systems that will learn from their environment and autonomously work together to defeat integrated air and missile defenses.
Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent
APL has a significant evaluation role in the Air Force program to replace the aging Minuteman III system.
Health Surveillance
APL’s leadership in electronic disease surveillance is making a difference for both warfighter health protection and readiness and civilian populations.
Ice Giant Research and Exploration
In the decades since NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft explored the solar system’s ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, APL has made concerted efforts to underscore the scientific value of these planets and provide innovative conceptual missions to return to their azure skies. Through research, workshops, and seminars, APL researchers and engineers are helping establish a framework and community that will maximize the scientific returns of a potential future mission.
IMAP
NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, which APL built in partnership with Principal Investigator David McComas of Princeton University, will study the boundary of our heliosphere, decoding the messages in particles from the Sun and beyond our cosmic shield.
Integrated Adaptive Cyber Defense (IACD)
APL conceptualized, prototyped, and published a framework enabling the integration and automation of diverse cybersecurity solutions to dramatically increase the speed and scale of cyber defense.
Integrated Undersea Surveillance Systems
We are solving critical challenges for the Navy’s undersea surveillance community, making contributions such as active and passive sonar processing algorithms for inclusion in the Advanced Surveillance Build tactical sonar modernization program.
Lifelong Learning Machines
Enabling intelligent systems that continuously adapt to changing conditions and missions in the real world