Rome Laboratory (Rome Air Development Center until 1991) is the US "Air Force 'superlab' for command, control, and communications"[1]research and development and is responsible for planning and executing the USAF science and technology program.
Organization
Rome Lab includes or included the following entities:
Information Directorate
The Information Directorate develops information technologies for air, space and ground systems, partnering with other federal agencies, allied nations, state and local governments, and more than 50 major universities.[2] The Rome Laboratory Technical Library is located at 525 Brooks Road, Rome, NY.[3]
Divisions and laboratories of the former Rome Air Development Center (RADC) included the Electronic Warfare Laboratory, High Power Laboratory, Photonics Laboratory, 1968 Electronics Laboratory (dedicated 25 October), RADC Systems Division, and the Communications and Control Division which moved from building 106 to building 3 in March 1976. (RADC computer facilities were in bldg 3, which in August 1974 had "a new $2.8 million communications research laboratory".)[4]
History
The Rome Air Depot established 5 February 1942 built USAAF versions of the Norden bombsights and tested/rebuilt large airplane engines, and Army Air Field, Rome, was established as a WWII USAAF airfield in New York on 4 Nov 1942. World War II technical squadrons included the "600 Engrg Sq" (10 Oct 44-30 Oct 44) and the "1 Acft Assembly Sq" (21 Aug 45-6 Nov 45).[5] Renamed Griffiss Air Force Base on 23 Jan 1948[5], the World War II installation's buildings were used as post-war offices and laboratories, e.g., for testing units that arrived beginning in 1948 from Pennsylvania's Middletown Air Depot[4] (Griffiss had the "2 Msl Trpt Sq" 26 Jan 48-3 Sep 48.)[5]
The "Rome Air Development Center" headquarters officially opened on June 12, 1951, with the personnel of the headquarters for the 2751st Wing and 3171st & 3151st groups, which were "discontinued"[4]—the 6530th Air Base Wing with subordinate units, e.g., Maintenance and Support Group, activated on the same date for support through August/November 1952.[5] RADC was for USAF "applied research, development and test of electronic air-ground systems such as detection, control, identification and countermeasures, navigation, communications, and data transmission systems, associated components, and related automatic flight equipment".[9] RADC constructed the 1,205 ft (367 m) Forestport Tower in 1951 for low-frequency communications experiments. On 1 January 1953, RADC reorganized into the Engineering Support Division, Electronic Warfare
and Techniques Division, Equipment Development Division, and Systems Division (a Plans and Operations Office at the HQ provided guidance.)[4]
RADC developed a 1960s machine translation for Russian language documents and in the late 1960s, RADC coordinated the Ling-Temco-Vought AN/TRN-26 deployable TACAN[21] development for the Vietnam War (1st units went to Israel and Camp David's "DVD" site.)[citation needed] In the 1970s War On Drugs, RADC COMPASS TRIP research investigated "multispectral reconnaissance techniques to locate opium poppy fields".[4] By December 1977 RADC had developed[4] the 322 watt "solid state transmitter and receiver module"[22] while "responsible for [PAVE PAWS] design, fabrication installation, integration test, and evaluation" (through 1980).[4]
ESD assignment
Emblem of Rome Laboratory
On 1 September 1975, RADC was reassigned to AFSC's Electronic Systems Division (ESD).[17] At Hanscom AFB on 1 January 1976, RADC's Detachment 1 was activated for "Electronic Technology" with the personnel and equipment of the 1960 AFCRL's Microwave Physics and Solid State Sciences divisions[17] ("RADC East" colloq.)
In the 1980s and 1990s RADC funded a significant amount of research on software engineering, e.g., the Knowledge Based Software Assistant (KBSA) program.[23]
^ abcdefghijkSmith, John Q.; Byrd, David A (c. 1991). Forty Years of Research and Development at Griffis Air Force Base: June 1951 – June 1991(PDF) (Report). Borky, Col. John M (Foreword). Rome Laboratory. Archived from the original on April 8, 2013. Retrieved 2014-03-10. Nineteen ninety-one saw both the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of a major Air Force Laboratory at Griffiss Air Force Base, the Rome Air Development Center (RADC), and the first anniversary of the redesignation of RADC as Rome Laboratory. (also available at Google Books)
^ abcdefghijkMueller, Robert (1989). "Edwards Air Force Base"(PDF). Air Force Bases (Report). Vol. I: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982. Office of Air Force History. p. 600. ISBN0-912799-53-6. Retrieved 2013-08-15.
^Greenslit, Chuck. Bendix Radio Radars (Report). Based on a newly developed Litton klystron and the experience of Bob Davis, a new high powered radar, the FPS-20, was conceived. This was developed, first as a GPA-27 kit to upgrade the FPS-3 and later manufactured as the FPS-20, FPS-20a, FPS-66-67, and FPS-100.
^Bate, Mueller, and White (1971) [origyear tbd]. Fundamentals of Astronautics(Google books). ISBN9780486600611. Retrieved 2014-03-05. BMEWS…fan-shaped beams, about 1° in width and 3½° in elevation… The horizontal sweep rate is fast enough that a missile or satellite cannot pass through the fans undetected.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)