The U.S. Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) office has awarded a $1.2M, 18-month Phase II Small Business Innovative Research contract to Verus Research to enable the development of compact and inexpensive, plasma-based, widely-tunable frequency impedance elements (a.k.a. plasma switches and antennas).

The effort will produce articles capable of sustained high-power operation in contested and denied electromagnetic environments by maturing Verus Research’s novel designs for a sub-10 nanosecond microwave broadband limiter-switch.  Deliverables include an environmentally qualified prototype.

Under the rubric of “High Power Electromagnetics (HPEM) Empirical Effects” support, Verus Research has been awarded a competitively selected $19.5M, 5-year effort aimed at advancing the understanding and quantifying of HPEM effects on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate.

The effort includes the performance of indoor and outdoor effects tests to generate vulnerability data on electronic systems to determine the effectiveness of different HPEM waveform parameters. The goal is to identify waveforms and the systems that generate them that meet effectiveness requirements while also adhering to size, weight, and power constraints.

In addition, Verus Research will study fundamental effects mechanisms, supporting the development of techniques and models to predict the effectiveness of HPEM waveforms which will augment empirical testing and modeling.

The Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) at Patuxent River, Maryland, in conjunction with the Naval Research Laboratory NRL), has awarded Verus Research a $4.7M, 2-year contract to design, develop, and integrate an ultra-wideband (UWB) high-power microwave test and evaluation (T&E) system.

This program was originally scoped to deliver only an antenna array capable of accepting the output from NRL’s Time Reversal Pulse Compression (TRPC) Cavity Oscillator and broadcasting power at the tens of megawatts level across a bandwidth of almost 6 gigahertz.  This objective capitalized on a novel antenna design developed by Dr. Sameer Hemmady, Verus Research Senior Director of Advanced Concepts.

Upon further consideration, though, the NRL added additional scope and funding to the effort such that Verus Research will now also perform the full integration of the T&E source which is projected to support NAWC testing requirements at MIL-STD-464 levels for 10 years.

Following a competitive selection process, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Verus Research a $2.2M, 2-year follow-on contract for the Waveform Agile RF Directed ENergy (WARDEN) project.

The DARPA WARDEN program is advancing the state of the art on extreme power, broadband amplifiers and agile waveform techniques to improve electromagnetic coupling and disruptive effects on targeted electronics, extending the range of high-power microwave systems by a factor of 10 beyond current technologies.

Under the first phase of this program, Verus Research developed and adopted a scientific process for designing agile waveforms that exploit fundamental vulnerabilities in the physics-based engineering design rules of electronic targets. This process established a robust predictive capability that can be applied across a multitude of electronic targets

In the newly awarded second phase, Verus Research will refine and augment our susceptibility characterization techniques and agile waveform prescriptions to exploit engineering design vulnerabilities in a broader set of integrated targets.

Dr. J. Mark DelGrande, Verus Research Chief Technology Officer, said this new effort “continues to solidify Verus Research’s recognized excellence in radio frequency effects and the understanding of their underlying mechanisms to benefit national defense objectives.”

Verus Research has been awarded over $40M in new contracts supporting two efforts under the auspices of the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation.

The first, a 42-month, $25.3M program, will build on existing Verus Research deuterium-based dense plasma focus technology (DPF) to deliver a tritium-based test capability to White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). Verus Research will design, build, and do factory acceptance testing at our Albuquerque laboratory and then transport the tritium-based DPF components to WSMR for final installation and acceptance testing. When operational, this new DPF system will close a national capability gap in ultra-short pulse neutron testing.

One of the longest running programs at Verus Research, DPF is also one of the Company’s most complex technical endeavors.  As noted by Dr. J. Mark DelGrande, Verus Research Chief Technology Officer, DPF “is a superb example of state-of-the art in science and engineering coming together to advance technologies by providing analysis, design, development, integration, and test for the aerospace and defense community.”

On the second program, Verus Research will work under a 60-month, $16.5M contract called the “Agile Sources Advancement Program” (ASAP) to meet the needs of the Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center.  ASAP centers on the design, modeling, assessment, and capability development of non-kinetic systems and diagnostics. The effort includes injecting added agility into the nation’s test and evaluation capabilities to address rapidly emerging requirements.

Features of the work will include, among other technical areas, airborne and ground-based surrogate high-power microwave (HPM) systems, airborne and ground-based HPM instrumentation testing capabilities, and customized HPM measurement technologies to address ever expanding frequency ranges. Dr. DelGrande noted “these tasks derive from our previous research efforts and are a testament to the viability of an ‘acorns to oaks’ approach where small ideas can become major programs.”

Verus Research is again on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America, the firm’s second consecutive year on the list.

Coming in at number 3,250 in the nation, Verus Research’s growth rate from 2018 through 2021 was 163 percent.

Verus Research is proud to join 6 other NM-based firms representing the Land of Enchantment on the list.

Please visit the Inc. 5000 site to see the full list.

Verus Research is again on the New Mexico’s “Fastest Growing Companies” list published by Albuquerque Business First.  Qualifying in the large company category based on revenue over $10M, this is Verus Research’s fifth consecutive year to be so honored.

Companies had to experience growth over the three-year period from 2019-2021 in order to qualify as a Fastest Growing Company.

Each organization also had to be a privately held for-profit company — including wholly-owned subsidiaries — and be locally owned and headquartered in New Mexico. Companies had to have sales or revenue of at least $500,000 in 2021 and been in business throughout all of 2019.

Rankings will be revealed on 9/22/2022 at a public event and will also be featured in the 9/23/2022 edition of Albuquerque Business First.

In support of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at Patuxent River, MD, Verus Research is starting a Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer program for “Modeling Platform Level Electromagnetic Compatibility Performance Based on Component Level Testing.”  The program objective is to develop a simulation tool that will evaluate the risk to an airborne platform where a component may have been unable to meet its electromagnetic compatibility test requirements.

For this effort, Verus Research has teamed with Missouri University of Science and Technology.  Together, the team represents decades of research into electromagnetic interactions with electronic systems in the context of high-power microwave (HPM) effects prediction and leverages multiple prior efforts that assessed system susceptibility to HPM. The end product will be the Platform-level Electromagnetic Compatibility Simulator (PECS) and will provide important new testing and analysis tools for the Navy.

“The award marks a noteworthy migration of prior HPM-specific effects modeling to now support an understanding of the more generalized concerns of the Navy,” said Dr. J. Mark DelGrande, Verus Research Chief Technology Officer.  Dr. DelGrande also commented on the potential for adjacency in applications across the defense community.

Under the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Advanced Electromagnetic Technology (AET) family of programs, Verus Research has been awarded a 4-year, $4.1M award for “High Power Electromagnetic (HPEM) Material and Plasma Science and Technology.”

This technical area represents much of the cutting-edge technologies being studied at AFRL to advance the state-of-the-art in new HPEM capabilities.  It includes fundamental physical understanding of the interaction of millimeter-wave radiation with high-temperature materials and the atmosphere.  The resulting knowledge will aid in developing an essential understanding of the initiation and sustainment of low-pressure plasmas using HPEM, as well as the design, fabrication, and test of a wide range of related HPEM components.

In addition to its collaboration with leading University teammates possessing complementary capabilities in materials interaction, modeling, and experimentation, Verus Research will leverage its unrivaled expertise and deep domain knowledge in the physics-based theoretical development of predictive modeling frameworks.  The end result will describe the interaction of HPEM and millimeter-wave with semiconductor and composite materials for power beaming applications and plasma interaction studies.

According to Verus Research’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. J. Mark DelGrande, “the HPEM Material and Plasma Science and Technology effort will be a great way to study HPEM regimes that have yet to be explored and is a perfect fit for Verus Research as it continues to create solutions that matter.”

Verus Research has recently been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research contract supporting the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at Patuxent River, MD.  The program will study “Electromagnetic (EM) Interactions Between Cables, Antennas, and Their Environments.” The objective is to create a simulation tool for analyzing Navy aircraft to ensure they have sufficient electromagnetic compatibility as well as resilience in the face of electromagnetic interference and external EM radiation, including electromagnetic pulse, high-intensity radiated fields, and lightning.

To meet these requirements, Verus Research has teamed with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to develop a set of software tools that will analyze these interactions, from a simple multi-conductor transmission line to complex cable networks and exchanges with antennas in complex aircraft environments.

Chief Technology Officer Dr. J. Mark DelGrande cited the award as another example of how “Verus Research’s world-class EM modeling and simulation capabilities can transition smoothly into adjacent technical domains, producing high-value outcomes for our customers.”