Photo/Ted Pitts AFRL Wright Brothers Institute (WBI), in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), is proud to host the awards presentation culminating the successful end to the sixth annual “Software Defined Radio University Challenge”. This event will feature an awards ceremony on Friday, April 19, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at WBI, 444 E. 2nd Street, Dayton. Software Defined Radio (SDR) is a platform deemed ideal for exploring communication, sensing and networking applications: it is expected that SDR architects will be in high demand because of the highly congested elec ..read more

In the face of a global crisis, innovation and collaboration have proven to be our greatest assets. Nowhere is this more evident than in the success story of the Vulcan Ventilator Project, a remarkable initiative born out of necessity and driven by the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 28, 2020 a pivotal moment occurred with the formation of the COVID-19 Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF). Just days later, on April 2, Vulcan V was given the green light to proceed with evaluating, testing, and prototyping the top five design solutions for ventilators. This rapid response was cruc ..read more

Photo courtesy of flydayton.com WBI's Crucial Role in Air Camp's Development The partnership between Air Camp and Wright Brothers Institute has been instrumental in shaping the program's trajectory. In March 2021, WBI was engaged to establish a pilot program aimed at developing and executing a mobile version of Air Camp for possible use by the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC). This initiative, piloted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, aimed to expand the program across AFMC bases. WBI played a crucial role in bridging local, regional, and national educational entities, along with the Air ..read more

Solve/Next, WBI, and AFRL participants at the Fall "ThinkWrong" intensive. In a dynamic week of collaboration, Nikolai Gregory Galle and his SolveNext team joined forces with the Wright Brothers Institute and the Air Force Research Laboratory teams for the third consecutive workshop. The intensive sessions centered around ThinkWrong, Solution Hypothesis, and Discovery Driven Development, aiming to bolster the development of a fully integrated product lifecycle operating model for digital transformation. This transformative initiative seeks to seamlessly integrate an innovation and performanc ..read more

Photo credit: Nick Graham, Journal-News On October 5th, 2023, a continued collaboration between academia and innovation unfolded as WBI's Technology Transition Manager presented during October’s open house event of Miami University's "Lee and Rosemary Innovation College@Elm."  The College@Elm facility is designed to support innovators from across industry and academia, not only as a physical space but as a transformative force for economic development in Oxford, Butler County, and Southwest. The College@Elm, in partnership with Wright Brothers Institute (WBI), offers a pipeline of in ..read more

In the dynamic landscape of technological advancements for national security and defense, it is heartening to celebrate success stories that exemplify innovation, collaboration, and excellence. In August 2023 Air Force Research Laboratory’s Dr. Dan Berrigan, AFRL, received the Google Cloud Customer Award winner in the government category. Developed as a pilot project, Wright Brothers Institute (WBI), established proof of concept prior to the COVID shutdowns of 2020, allowing a handful of AFRL scientists and engineers to continue working when other teams and divisions waited for a work-f ..read more

The Summer of Innovation FlexFactor winning team presents their product, Vitali-T, a sensor-rich shirt that monitors health. The team presentations wrapped up eight weeks of work for 37 area high-school STEM students. (Photo courtesy WBI) For most of the students in Wright Brothers Institute’s Summer of Innovation STEM internship program, a career in science, technology, engineering or math is a given. Even though the intensive eight weeks spent at WBI’s 444 East Second Street collaboration facility took them through a simulated real-world cycle of ideation, creation, production and market ..read more

Students from 13 area high schools are spending the summer with STEM at Wright Brothers Institute. Wright Brothers Institute is cultivating some scientists and engineers this summer, hosting 28 area high-school students for an eight-week paid internship program laser-focused on science, technology, engineering and math, better known as STEM. The students, representing 13 area high schools, applied for the program through the Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE). No experience needed: even an interest in STEM wasn’t required, because the WBI team that planned the curriculum ..read more

In February of 2023, Akron-based company MemPro USA Ltd visited the Air Force Research Laboratory's Materials and Manufacturing Directorate (AFRL/RX) to see a demonstration of the technology titled "Extruded Ceramic Nanofibers and Derived Materials." MemPro’s focus is reducing the cost of critical metals, including rare earths and catalysts. Demand for such metals is growing, while supply is limited. Thus, increasing the effective surface area is a good way to better satisfy demand with limited supply.  In the fall of 2022, Rene’ Meadors, WBI's Commercialization Program Manager caref ..read more

Photo courtesy of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. By: Laura Dempsey Wright Brothers Institute was engaged to facilitate the creation of a working group focused on small and medium turbine engines. Using its extensive roster of industry connections and capabilities in the world of turbine engines, WBI connected the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center to several companies – big and small – actively engaged in small and medium turbine engines. This working group, called the Small Medium Engine Working Group (SMEWG), will steer the long ..read more