Projects

Explore APL’s Critical Contributions to Critical Challenges

  • Radar screen (Credit: Bigstock)

    Testing Air and Missile Defense Radar

    APL teamed with industry and the Above Water Sensors Directorate of Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems on two successful tests of the AN/SPY-6(V), a wideband digital beam-forming sensor known as the Air and Missile Defense Radar.
    Learn more about Testing Air and Missile Defense Radar
  • September 18, 2013: An SM-3 Block 1B interceptor is launched from the USS Lake Erie during an MDA test and successfully intercepted a complex short-range ballistic missile target off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. (Credit: MDA)

    Test Target Prototyping

    A cross-APL team of engineers, working with the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Target and Countermeasures Directorate and other government and industry partners, develops cost-effective solutions for MDA to support live-fire testing of interceptors, sensors, and fire control systems.
    Learn more about Test Target Prototyping
  • Autonomous swarming unmanned surface vessels (SUSVs) — equipped with Johns Hopkins APL-developed hardware and autonomy software

    Uncrewed Surface Vessel Perception

    International regulations for preventing collisions at sea require vessels to operate within certain distances based on the visual identification of other vessels.
    Learn more about Uncrewed Surface Vessel Perception
  • APL FSO operators check the monitors on Sea Hunter as a third operator monitors operations.

    Optical Communications at Sea

    We successfully demonstrated a high-bandwidth free-space optical (FSO) communications system between two moving ships, proving operational utility of FSO technology in the maritime environment.
    Learn more about Optical Communications at Sea
  • Abstract view of police lights (Credit: Bigstock)

    Situational Awareness for First Responders

    Under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, APL partnered with the New York City Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit in April 2017 to field-test and evaluate a commercial Mobile Ad-hoc Networking (MANET) system.
    Learn more about Situational Awareness for First Responders
  • A team of APL engineers, working with the Missile Defense Agency and sailors aboard USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53), an Aegis baseline 9.C1 equipped destroyer, successfully fired a salvo of two SM-6 Dual I missiles against a complex medium-range ballistic missile target, demonstrating the Sea Based Terminal endo-atmospheric defensive capability and meeting the test’s primary objective. (Credit: MDA)

    Standard Missile-3: The Next Generation

    APL led key “end-to-end” system-level performance analysis in collaboration with the government–industry team for the SM-3 Block IIA missile, cooperatively developed by the United States and Japan.
    Learn more about Standard Missile-3: The Next Generation
  • Swarming unmanned surface vehicles

    Swarming Uncrewed Surface Vehicles

    APL, in collaboration with the Naval Air Warfare Center Port Hueneme Weapons Division, led a swarming uncrewed surface vehicle demonstration of advanced multivehicle autonomy at tactically relevant speeds.
    Learn more about Swarming Uncrewed Surface Vehicles
  • EMAPS technology allows operators to map areas and confined spaces that GPS cannot "see."

    Enhanced Mapping and Positioning System (EMAPS)

    We continue to strengthen EMAPS, a portable mapping system carried in a backpack, for the Department of Defense’s Chemical and Biological Defense Program.
    Learn more about Enhanced Mapping and Positioning System (EMAPS)
  • Johnny Matheny uses APL's Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) to take a drink

    Revolutionizing Prosthetics

    Revolutionizing Prosthetics is an ambitious multiyear program—funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—to create a neurally controlled artificial limb that will restore near-natural motor and sensory capability to upper-extremity amputee patients.
    Learn more about Revolutionizing Prosthetics