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Advancing defense innovation, education and leadership

Responding to America's evolving military and defense needs, Arizona State University is advancing a comprehensive approach to strengthening national security through technology development, training of future defense professionals and leadership in defense policy.

With an eye for helping the Department of Defense and U.S. military achieve critical goals, ASU leverages a diverse bench of renowned military leaders, seasoned defense experts and transdisciplinary researchers and educators. ASU’s university-wide effort to advance national security priorities builds on a long history of successful collaboration with DoD and military service branches, national networks of academic institutions and federal research labs, policymakers and leading defense contractors.

ASU’s comprehensive, transdisciplinary approach to defense and security includes:

$55 million
DoD sponsored project expenditures

81%
Increase in DoD sponsored project expenditures over six years

6x
Increase in DoD research expenditures over 20 years

250+
DoD sponsored projects across the university

200+
faculty experts implementing defense contracts

#1
DARPA young faculty awards since 2014

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The SWAP Hub: driving microelectronics innovation for defense

Led by Arizona State University, the Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub is one of eight regional innovation hubs established under the Department of Defense’s Microelectronics Commons, a national strategic initiative to accelerate the development and production of microelectronics technologies that are critical to U.S. security and defense. Leveraging ASU’s ability to convene and engage with diverse stakeholders, the SWAP hub drives collaboration between 130+ partners to accelerate the lab-to-fab transition between research, development and production and build the microelectronics workforce of the future through development of curriculum, learning opportunities and job pathways. The SWAP Hub’s partners include top semiconductor manufacturers and defense firms, national laboratories, leading academic institutions and numerous organizations and innovative startup companies.

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Irregular Warfare Center

Arizona State University has been selected by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to lead a national consortium of interdisciplinary experts that will work provide reputable academic research support to deepen the understanding of current and emerging global trends in non-traditional warfare.

The consortium will help the IWC accelerate the ability to understand and respond to changing trends in irregular warfare, forecast and track shifts in tactics, and assess the effectiveness of such approaches. The goal is to create a pool of national experts who can help the United States, through research, to develop effective irregular warfare solutions and tactics.

Irregular warfare refers to a broad spectrum of missions and activities that are often indirect and non-attributable, including unconventional warfare. The U.S. invests a great deal of money in maintaining its conventional and nuclear edge; the IWC led and ASU- support effort represents an intellectual investment to ensure America can compete effectively in irregular warfare, as well.

Dynamic Unmanned Threat Emitter: A case study of ASU’s innovation model

Accurate aerial threat representation is critical for military research, training and testing, but existing threat emitters often cost millions of dollars, are bulky and hard to move, and require significant infrastructure.

Working with partners at Luke Air Force Base, researchers at ASU developed the Dynamic Unmanned Threat Emitter (DUMTE), a low-cost alternative that enables dynamic, current training scenarios for fifth-generation aircraft across a larger number of threats. DUMTE is helping to fill the gaps that more expensive systems do not address at a fraction of the cost, with the added benefit of being lightweight, easily transportable and using off-the-shelf components. Selected as the winner of the Air Force Materiel Command’s Spark Tank competition in 2020, DUMTE exemplifies ASU’s approach to rapid, collaborative innovation that responds to DoD demand.