NUWC Division Newport spotlights cutting-edge technologies at 2024 Blue Tech Demo Day

NUWC Division Newport spotlights cutting-edge technologies at 2024 Blue Tech Demo Day

By NUWC Division Newport Public Affairs

NEWPORT, R.I. -

More than 30 technology companies showcased their products during the 2024 Blue Tech Demo Day, which was held at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport and Sail Newport on Aug. 29.

The daylong event, hosted by Division Newport's Northeast Tech Bridge, alongside nonprofit partner 401 Tech Bridge, connected innovative small businesses with U.S. Navy scientists and engineers and Department of Defense (DoD) stakeholders to facilitate rapid delivery of capabilities to the warfighter.

"At Division Newport, wartime readiness is a priority," Division Newport Technical Director Marie Bussiere said. "As we aim to deliver undersea capabilities to the warfighter, we can't do it alone. We must team up with outside organizations, including research and development centers, academia and industry. We can accomplish this through demonstration events like the one, where the scientists and engineers at Division Newport, as well as government agencies and non-government stakeholders, get a firsthand look at state-of-the-art technologies."

Demonstrations were held at Division Newport's Narragansett Bay Test Facility (NTBF) and at Sail Newport, a sailing school located at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island.

Bussiere served as one of the keynote speakers for the event. She was joined at Sail Newport by U.S Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse; Christian Cowan, executive director of the University of Rhode Island Research; Erik Brine, 401 Tech Bridge director; and Scott Bewley, deputy director of NavalX, which oversees the Navy's tech bridges. Earlier in the day at Sail Newport before the keynote speeches, U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo stopped by as well to talk with demo day participants.

"It was really a top-notch event. Our industry partners have been very pleased, and they've met some good, relevant potential customers and partners," Julie Kallfelz, director of the Northeast Tech Bridge, said. "For NUWC, this has been very productive. We had quite a few of our engineers and scientists either out on the water or on shore, at Sail Newport or at the Narragansett Bay Test Facility, observing some of the experiments and demonstrations.

"From our perspective, our engineers were able to see technology firsthand that they otherwise might have had a hard time getting a hold of. They're actually able to talk to the engineers of various companies, and nothing replaces a face-to-face discussion over a device or piece of equipment. Nothing better clarifies these capabilities and what's in the development pipeline. These face-to-face interactions are very, very valuable to our workforce."

One of those engineers paying particular attention was Brian Sperlongano, a senior undersea warfare analyst for Division Newport's Undersea Warfare (USW) Engineering and Analysis Department.

"It's always difficult to know what's emerging out in the private sector. We don't always get to interact with companies we don't normally have defense contracts with," Sperlongano said. "This lets us expose the needs we have or missions we're trying to solve to companies that might not normally be in this space or might have commercial products that aren't intended for military applications but could be if we make those connections. It's also valuable to see if different companies might interact with each other to create a better piece of technology."

Sperlongano was responsible for creating the cross-domain mission each participating company executed throughout the day.

Companies were tasked with finding and characterizing an object of interest, exfiltrating that data to the surface and to shore, providing data analysis of that object and determining a course of action.

Two teams launched from the NBTF, and four departed from Sail Newport. Each group was assigned one of three operational areas, and all executed the same defined mission serially.

"I just started a few months ago so this is all still new to me, but also really beneficial to see and connect our analysis side of things with the actual technology that's out in the field right now," Ashley Gigon, an engineer in the USW Engineering and Analysis Department, said. "These new, emerging technologies that we're interested in could really help our missions going forward."

The mission planning was just one part of the event, though. Equally critical was testing the technology and evaluating how well it executed the task.

"It was great to be out here on the water on Narragansett Bay and do some testing because once you get something in the water, that's when the problems happen," Sean Perry, Division Newport's deputy director for Test and Evaluation, said. "There's only so much testing you can do at a lab bench or on a computer screen. It's here when you bring something to Narragansett Bay to test that we can then get that data back to our lab spaces to develop those new and updated capabilities."

Like Perry, Michelle Estaphan Owen, a technical project manager for experimental payloads in the USW Platforms and Payload Integration Department, also was excited to see these emerging technologies in action.

"Our group is based in subsea robotics with a lot of experimental platform opportunities, and we came here to learn," Estaphan Owen said. "We're very excited to learn about new research, see what industry is doing. There are a lot of great start-ups here so it's a good opportunity for collaboration, good discussions and ways to brainstorm about the future."

When the mission portion of the event was completed, each company had the opportunity to individually present its capability to an audience of more than 150 people, including representatives from Division Newport, the Office of Naval Research, industry and academia.

"While today was the culmination of many months of work, for sure, our hope is for what's next," Kallfelz said. "What are the follow-on opportunities, interactions and work we'll do with these companies and work other agencies will be able to do."

The 2024 Northeast Tech Bridge Demo Day was the final phase after smaller technology presentation events that occurred over the past several months and focused on four mission areas - cross-domain communications in March; modeling and simulation/digital twins in April; persistent sensors and monitoring in May; and uncrewed vehicles in June.

Those demonstrations were held virtually at the 401 Tech Bridge office in Middletown, Rhode Island, where a broad cross-section of stakeholders had the opportunity to ask questions. A panel of government and other stakeholders scored the products using a rubric, and the top firms were invited to participate in the Blue Tech Demo Day event.

"We appreciate the time and effort you've invested in being here to demonstrate your extraordinary capabilities, which are helping the U.S. Navy remain ahead of its adversaries," Bussiere said.

"Working with small companies has been the focal point for contracting here at Division Newport. In fact, our warfare center has awarded more dollars to small businesses in each of the past five years, including $354 million in fiscal year 2023. This is a metric Division Newport is really proud of.

"What we do matters to the warfighter, the U.S. Navy and our national security depends on it," she said. "Thank you all for your outstanding work."

A video highlighting the 2024 Blue Tech Demo Day is posted here:

NUWC Newport is the oldest warfare center in the country, tracing its heritage to the Naval Torpedo Station established on Goat Island in Newport Harbor in 1869. Commanded by Capt. Chad Hennings, NUWC Newport maintains major detachments in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Andros Island in the Bahamas, as well as test facilities at Seneca Lake and Fisher's Island, New York, Leesburg, Florida, and Dodge Pond, Connecticut.

Join our team! NUWC Division Newport, one of the 20 largest employers in Rhode Island, employs a diverse, highly trained, educated, and skilled workforce. We are continuously looking for engineers, scientists, and other STEM professionals, as well as talented business, finance, logistics and other support experts who wish to be at the forefront of undersea research and development. Please connect with NUWC Division Newport Recruiting at this site- https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NUWC-Newport/Career-Opportunities/ and follow us on LinkedIn @NUWC-Newport and on Facebook @NUWCNewport.