Advanced Concepts Laboratory

The Advanced Concepts Laboratory provides innovative, tailored solutions to challenging problems for our customers, including Department of Defense, Intelligence Agencies, and industry.

ACL identifies and transitions advances in basic research for use in real-world applications, with particular emphasis on antennas, electromagnetics, counter-proliferation technologies, and integrated analysis of signals and systems. ACL possesses extensive capabilities for numerical modeling, experimentation, and characterization to prove new technologies and concepts.

ACL conducts research and development over a broad range of topics, most notably:

Electromagnetic analysis and measurements
Radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR) signatures
Antennas, radomes, and frequency selective surfaces
Materials science and characterization
Counter-proliferation technologies
Integrated analysis of signals and systems

ACL maintains world-class numerical modeling, experimental, and characterization capabilities, with facilities devoted to:

Computational electromagnetics
Radar cross-section measurements
Antenna characterization
Electromagnetic materials characterization
Experimental ion trapping for quantum computing and technology development
Optical measurements

Specific ACL prototypes that have recently extended the state-of-the-art include: electrically thin, broadband antennas; low-power consumption agile beam antennas for communications; software-defined antennas; radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR) custom meta-material structures for management/control of signatures.