Office of Naval Research

The Office of Naval Research (ONR), headquartered in Arlington, Virginia (Ballston), is the office within the United States Department of the Navy that coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps through schools, universities, government laboratories, nonprofit and for-profit organizations.

ONR, as it is frequently referred to, reports to the U.S. Secretary of the Navy through the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. The Chief of Naval Research (CNR) is Rear Adm. Mathias W. Winter and the Vice Chief of Naval Research is BGen Kevin Killea, United States Marine Corps, who also serves as Director of USMC Futures Directorate and Commanding General of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL).

ONR executes its mission through:

In 2007, a Naval S&T Strategic Plan was developed to describe how ONR will enable the future operational concepts of the Navy and the Marine Corps. This plan was updated in 2009 and 2011. By design, it is a broad strategy that provides strong direction for the future, but it is aimed to retain sufficient flexibility and freedom of action to allow ONR to meet emerging challenges or alter course as directed by senior Naval leadership.

Laser Weapon System

The Laser Weapon System or LaWS is a directed-energy weapon developed by the United States Navy. The weapon was installed on USS Ponce for field testing in 2014. In December 2014 the United States Navy reported the LaWS system works perfectly, and that the commander of the Ponce is authorized to use the system as a defensive weapon.

Purpose

The LaWS is a ship-defense system that has so far publicly engaged an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or drone) and a simulated small-boat attacker. LaWS uses an infrared beam from a solid-state laser array which can be tuned to high output to destroy the target or low output to warn or cripple the sensors of a target. Among the advantages of this device versus projectile weapons is the low cost per shot, as each firing of the weapon requires only the minimal cost of generating the energetic pulse; by contrast ordnance for projectile weapons must be designed, manufactured, handled, transported and maintained, and takes up storage space.

Office

An office is generally a room or other area where administrative work is done, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it (see officer, office-holder, official); the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the term "office" may refer to business-related tasks. In legal writing, a company or organization has offices in any place that it has an official presence, even if that presence consists of, for example, a storage silo rather than an office. An office is an architectural and design phenomenon; whether it is a small office such as a bench in the corner of a small business of extremely small size (see small office/home office), through entire floors of buildings, up to and including massive buildings dedicated entirely to one company. In modern terms an office usually refers to the location where white-collar workers are employed. As per James Stephenson,"Office is that part of business enterprise which is devoted to the direction and co-ordination of its various activities."

Research

Research comprises "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications." It is used to establish or confirm facts, reaffirm the results of previous work, solve new or existing problems, support theorems, or develop new theories. A research project may also be an expansion on past work in the field. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects, or the project as a whole. The primary purposes of basic research (as opposed to applied research) are documentation, discovery, interpretation, or the research and development (R&D) of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge. Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences. There are several forms of research: scientific, humanities, artistic, economic, social, business, marketing, practitioner research, etc.