Winter/Spring 2008

THE GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH INSTITUTE’S (GTRI) Huntsville Research Laboratory (HRL) is observing a major anniversary: 30 years of service at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., supporting U.S. Army missile technology.

photo by Dennis Keim Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough, left,and GTRI Director Steven Cross, right, present an award to the Army’s William McCorkle.

Since its modest beginning as “Huntsville Operations,” the laboratory’s impact has grown, branching out into a variety of defense fields. Moreover, its location on a key Army installation has helped enhance communication between its parent organization, GTRI, and its military stakeholders.

“Our Huntsville Research Laboratory is an extremely important part of our overall strategy,” says Stephen E. Cross, GTRI’s director and a Georgia Institute of Technology vice president. “It has delivered outstanding technical assistance and real innovation on a consistent basis, which is reflected in the positive feedback we get from our stakeholders.”

HRL’s milestone was celebrated at a Feb. 26 Huntsville event that drew some 200 attendees, including Georgia Tech officials, researchers and alumni, and representatives from the Army and other U.S. military branches.

Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough presented a GTRI award to William McCorkle, executive director of the Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) and an early proponent of a permanent GTRI presence in Huntsville. McCorkle is the first recipient of the GTRI Award for Exceptional Innovation and Leadership.

In making the award, Clough remarked on McCorkle’s many achievements in Army rocket and missile technology and praised him for his vision. “What we are celebrating today is Dr. McCorkle’s bold solution – to bring in Georgia Tech to Huntsville and establish the permanent presence of GTRI engineers at Redstone Arsenal,” Clough said.

Today, HRL focuses on software engineering and systems engineering for a variety of U.S. Department of Defense programs, said Barry Bullard, the lab’s director. HRL’s biggest customers include the Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (AMRDEC); the Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM); the Security Assistance Management Directorate (SAMD); the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC); the Army Program Executive Office Missile and Space; the Army Program Executive Office Aviation; and the Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency.

U.S. Army A Patriot missile launcher guards the Israeli skies during a 2005 exercise. GTRI researchers have helped support the missile defense program at the Redstone Arsenal.

These agencies keep HRL busy with research that covers air defense systems modeling, software testing and evaluation, war-game simulations and analysis, and weapons system modernization. The lab’s current work includes hardware/software-in-the-loop (H/SWIL) systems engineering and analysis of the Patriot air and missile defense system, as well as ongoing modernization of the Hawk air defense system, a legacy system still used by numerous U.S. allies.

“In our 30 years here, we’ve had the opportunity to work with the Army on its missile defense mission as well as grow our sponsor relationships into other areas,” says Bullard, HRL director since 1998. “Our expansion into the aviation mission area and several forms of systems engineering is keeping our staff of 33 very busy.”

William Craig leads AMRDEC’s Software Engineering Directorate, HRL’s biggest customer. Craig calls GTRI’s Huntsville lab “certainly one of the better contractors that we have.… You have unique expertise and very capable people, and you have given us valuable expertise in a number of areas.”

AMRDEC executive director McCorkle has been at Redstone Arsenal for nearly 50 years. He, too, expresses long-term satisfaction with the Huntsville lab’s work.

“It’s certainly true that we’re happy with GTRI’s work,” McCorkle says. “Over the years, it’s been a very good thing for both us and for Georgia Tech.… You have done important technical work on the Hawk system and assisted us in the air-defense arena, and that’s been a good arrangement.”

Richard Stanley, HRL’s first full-time director (1984-1998) and now director emeritus, recalls that McCorkle was indeed a major factor in bringing Georgia Tech to Huntsville.

“In the 1970s when GTRI was still known as the Engineering Experiment Station (EES), its personnel would often travel from the main campus in Atlanta to Huntsville to support Army technology,” Stanley relates. “During that period, World War II-era Army engineers were retiring in large numbers, and Redstone Arsenal needed additional technical support. McCorkle considered the issue and came up with the idea of a permanent Georgia Tech presence in Huntsville.”

HRL has also worked closely with other GTRI labs and has helped establish new research collaborations for them. In this way, HRL has acted as a kind of GTRI liaison in Huntsville, as well as a research facility in its own right.

“Huntsville Research Laboratory was a factor in GTRI’s becoming a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) in 1995,” Stanley recalls. “GTRI’s accomplishments at Redstone Arsenal added to Georgia Tech’s reputation within the Department of Defense.”

Adds Bullard: “The first 30 years, productive as they have been, may be only the beginning, and we look forward to growing in Huntsville and assisting the nation with its future science and technology defense needs.”