Research at the United States Naval Academy: More Than Meets the Eye

Well known as the primary source of commissioned officers for both the Navy and Marine Corps, the United States Naval Academy (USNA) is an undergraduate educational institution with emphasis on technical education. This technical education is supplemented with designand-build projects, hands-on demonstrations, and laboratory exercises using a wide variety of state-of-the-art test equipment. These laboratory facilities are leveraged by the civilian and military faculty to perform test and evaluation in support of cutting-edge research as well as answering operational questions from the Fleet. Of particular note are the modest costs associated with funded research at the Academy, the proximity of many other government agencies and laboratories in the Greater Washington, D.C., area, and the prior or current military experience of a significant fraction of the faculty. Described herein are several typical project efforts performed at the Naval Academy that were funded either by the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Research Laboratory, or the Naval Research Laboratory. These examples are provided as a means to showcase the research and test capabilities that can be found at the Naval Academy.