Army Research Laboratory S&T Campaign Plans 2015-2035

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is the Department of the Army’s corporate laboratory, strategically placed within the Army Materiel Command (AMC), an institutional Army Command (ACOM). ARL is also the Army’s sole fundamental research laboratory focused on scientific discovery, technological innovation, and transition of knowledge products; it impacts the Army and broader DoD science and technology (S&T) communities through transition of knowledge products to its sister Research, Development, and Engineering Centers (RDECs) within the Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM) – an AMC Major Subordinate Command (MSC), Army PMs/PEOs, the other services, and industry. ARL executes fundamental research, defined as Basic Research (BA 1) and Applied Research (BA 2), to address enduring S&T challenges that have been identified by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology [ASA(ALT)] and priorities articulated by the Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA). In addition, the laboratory conducts research in emerging fields that hold promise in realization of novel or vastly improved Army capabilities into the deep future; performs research on behalf of other Army activities and, where specifically qualified, for other agencies of the DoD; and, in defense-related efforts, for other government agencies (OGAs). Explicitly, ARL’s mission is to “Discover, innovate, and transition science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power”; to achieve these goals, the laboratory maintains a broad-based, multidisciplinary technical portfolio dedicated to fundamental research to support the Army’s strategic land power dominance through new and greatly improved methodologies, techniques, and materials.Founded on the tenets of discovery, innovation, and transition, ARL drives opportunities in power projection, information, lethality & protection, and Soldier performance for the Army of 2030 and beyond using a framework of eight S&T Campaigns – a systematic course of aggressive science and technology activities envisioned to lead to enhanced land power capabilities in the deep future. These S&T Campaigns – in Extramural Basic Research; Computational Sciences; Materials Research; Sciences-for-Maneuver; Information Sciences; Sciences-for-Lethality & Protection; Human Sciences; and Assessment & Analysis – operate in concert to provide ARL with a robust technological foundation to execute its mission. More, each of these S&T Campaigns is designed to explore, better understand, mature, and exploit S&T developments leading to Power Projection Superiority, Information Supremacy, Lethality & Protection Superiority, and Soldier Performance Augmentation that are essential to the future Army. This document defines each of ARL’s S&T Campaign Plans and is an appendix to the Army Research Laboratory Technical Strategy (April 2014). It is intended to provide additional insight into the technical areas that ARL believes are critical to the Army’s assured land power dominance into the deep future. Each S&T Campaign Plan provides a high-level overview of the campaign’s technical landscape; a taxonomic breakdown of the campaign; descriptions of the technical areas constituting the campaign; and defines ARL’s S&T Footprint in these areas including the laboratory’s posture relative to the S&T area – whether we will LEAD, COLLABORATE, or WATCH.