Lockheed Martin was awarded a $1.7 million defense contract to build a tiny, nanotechnology-based aircraft capable of flying undetected into previously inaccessible locations and collecting military intelligence.
The Bethesda-based company won the contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the arm of the Department of Defense focused on high-risk, high-payoff projects.
“The whole area of collecting military intelligence is moving toward novel and radical ideas, and this is a novel and radical idea,” said Martin Apple, president of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents.
The Department of Defense “is moving in the right direction. Clearly this is a next generation idea. It’s wonderful to see the military moving to agility instead of size,” Apple said.
The contract tasks Lockheed with developing a remote-controlled nano air vehicle, or NAV. The project is still in its conceptual phase, said a spokesman for the company.
Lockheed expects to begin building a prototype in about 18 months. The NAV will weigh less than one ounce and incorporate sophisticated monitoring equipment, including a camera and imaging sensors.
Lockheed Martin characterized the project as “revolutionary” and one that will deliver new technologies.
“The challenges are both exciting and daunting, because some of the technologies vital to our success have yetto be discovered,” said James Marsh, director of Lockheed’s Advanced Technology Laboratories. “We know going in that we need some of the best minds in manufacturing technology and in the development and integration of highly sophisticated, software-driven control technologies and mission systems.”
This is the first project from Lockheed’s Advanced Technology Laboratories involving nanotechnology, but the company is exploring the emerging science in other divisions.
“It’s a focus area for us,” said Sharon Smith, director of Advanced Technology for Lockheed Martin. “It’s something we’ve been looking at for a few years now. Nanomaterials are in a number of our business areas.”
Smith said nanotechnology will ultimately touch most of the company’s divisions in some way. While she declined to discuss specific projects or clients, Smith said much of Lockheed’s nanotechnology work is for Department of Defense clients.
