By Timothy L. Rider

PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. — The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Armaments Center launched a quarterly seminar series with Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, on July 22 where the visiting professors updated Army scientists, engineers and technical experts here on technologies relevant to ongoing and future conflicts.

Leveraging a 2024 Educational Partnership Agreement between the Armaments Center and Rutgers University, the inaugural Rutgers Innovation Showcase drew about 30 attendees. They explored advances in autonomy, guidance, navigation and control — technologies critical to countering emerging threats from drone swarms and autonomous systems.

Future sessions will cover energetics, manufacturing technology, electronics and sensors.
The exchange of ideas aims to accelerate the transition of these technologies from concept to battlefield capability.

“This is about breaking down barriers and seeing what good work is being done in academia that can address the challenges we’re facing,” said Carlos Quispe, an Armaments Center engineer in the Innovation and Strategic Relationships office who organized the event. “We want fresh perspectives on how to integrate unmanned systems within our formations and extend their performance in austere environments.”

The event showcased research with immediate battlefield applications. Laurent Burlion, a Rutgers mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor, presented patent-pending sensor technology that measures real-time aerodynamic disturbances on individual drone arms — a breakthrough that could enable swarms to operate in high winds and confined spaces where current systems fail.

Burlion also demonstrated prototype rocket-deployed drone swarms featuring innovative folding mechanisms, potentially extending operational range far beyond current capabilities.

“We're interested in pushing any flying machine to its limits in a very safe way, ” said Burlion, whose laboratory collaborates with the U.S. Air Force, Office of Naval Research, and National Science Foundation. "These innovations have applications for swarm operations, inspection drones in underground environments and high-speed flight compensation."

Daniel Burbano, a Rutgers electrical and computer engineering assistant professor, presented bio-inspired algorithms derived from studying fish collective behavior. His research enables autonomous systems to navigate without GPS, estimate team size through distributed sensing and make collective decisions — capabilities essential for operations in GPS-denied or communications-degraded environments.

“Fish schools navigate complex environments with limited cognitive capabilities, yet they integrate multisensory information effectively,” Burbano explained. “We’re translating those biological principles into algorithms for multi-agent systems.”

The autonomous technology has potential dual-use applications: helping military forces better understand and counter adversary drone swarms while enabling friendly autonomous systems to operate more effectively in challenging conditions.

The seminar format emphasized networking and collaboration over formal presentations. Within minutes of the event’s conclusion, Army engineers from the Munitions Engineering and Technology Center offered Burlion a tour of their wind tunnel facility.

The discussions could open pathways for formal collaboration, including Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, Broad Agency Announcement submissions and engineering service agreements.

The quarterly seminar series will rotate through different technical areas, with energetics scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026, followed by manufacturing technology, electronics and sensors. “We’re creating a sustainable pipeline of knowledge sharing,” Quispe said. “This isn’t a one-time event — it’s a continuous battle rhythm of collaboration that keeps our warfighters at the cutting edge of technology.”

The initiative reflects the Army’s broader strategy of leveraging intellectual resources from academia to solve real-world military problems. The partnership seeks to accelerate technology development by exposing researchers to Army operational challenges while giving Army scientists access to emerging academic technologies, Quispe said.

“This is critical technology, and it’s timely,” said Ralph Tillinghast, senior scientific technical manager for future intelligence and Armaments Graduate School professor, referencing recent drone threats observed in overseas conflicts.