Everything about Naval Electronics Laboratory totally explained
The
U.S. Navy Electronics Laboratory (
NEL) was created in
1945, with the consolidation of the
Navy Radio and Sound Lab and its wartime partner, the
University of California Division of War Research. NEL’s charter was “
to effectuate the solution of any problem in the field of electronics, in connection with the design, procurement, testing, installation and maintenance of electronic equipment for the U.S. Navy.” Its
radio communications and
sonar work was augmented with basic research in the propagation of
electromagnetic energy in the
atmosphere and of
sound in the
ocean.
Projects
Shipboard Antenna Model Range
As one of its first projects, NEL began building its
Shipboard Antenna Model Range. The non-
metallic arch of this structure supports a transmitting antenna which is positioned toward a
brass model ship on a turntable. The
ground plane under the arch simulates the electrical characteristics of the ocean. Allowing research on the properties of shipboard antennas to be carried out.
Arctic submarine exploration
It also began conversion of a
World War II mortar emplacement,
Battery Whistler, into an
Arctic Submarine Laboratory. Scientific exploration of the
Arctic Basin, and particularly providing the capability to operate attack submarines in the Arctic under the
ice canopy, would become a key NEL mission.
World headlines came early in this program from several events—the submerged voyage of
USS Nautilus from the
Pacific to the
Atlantic, via the
North Pole, in
1958, and the surfacing at the pole of
USS Skate the
following year, both with NEL’s Dr.
Waldo Lyon aboard as chief scientist and ice pilot.
Bathyscaphe Trieste
NEL also plunged into the undersea environment, acquiring the
Bathyscaphe Trieste and directing its
1960 dive over 35,000
feet (10.7
km) down into the
Challenger Deep of the
Marianas Trench near
Guam.
Radio telescopes
Interested in radio physics in general, the lab built a 60-foot-diameter
radio telescope on
Point Loma, and in
1964, NEL began construction of the
La Posta Astro-Geophysical Observatory on a 3,900-foot site in the
Laguna Mountains, 65 miles east of
San Diego. The observatory played a major role in solar
radio mapping, studies of environmental disturbances, and development of a
solar optical videometer for
microwave research. Its 60-foot dish, which could both transmit and receive, was used for important Center research programs in propagation and
ionospheric forecasting which was used during a number of
Apollo space launches to predict
solar activity that might hamper communications from the ground to the space capsules.
Communications
In the area of communications, NEL developed
Verdin, a
low-frequency/
very-low-frequency (LF/VLF) system to provide information to deeply submerged
Polaris missile submarines, and began development of
satellite communication capabilities.
Requirements for handling the vast amount of shipboard communications during the intensifying
Vietnam War led to tasking for an internal message handling system. In response, the lab developed the
Message Processing and Distribution System (MPDS), installing it aboard the
Seventh Fleet flagship
USS Oklahoma City a month ahead of schedule. The lab improved substantially on that system later and installed it aboard
Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.
Computer science
The programming language dialect
NELIAC was developed by and named after the lab.
NELIAC was the brainchild of Harry Husky, at the time Chairman of the ACM, who had a keen interest in porting applications in a machine-independent form. ALGOL 58 gave NEL the framework for an implmentation, and work commenced in 1958, but wasn't fully developed until 1961.
NELIAC was used at NEL to support experimental anti-submarine systems and Command and Control Systems development, and later, at the Navy Command Systems and Support Activity (NAVCOSSACT) in Washington DC in support of the National Emergency Command Post Afloat (NECPA) project which was installed on many large ships starting in 1966.
This was the world's first self-compiling compiler and was ported to many other computers in the Department of Defense, it also included the NELOS operating system development used for large scale applications (unique to the USQ-20 Navy shipboard computer and its commercial version, the UNIVAC 490).
Many other versions existed for a variety of computers because the ease of portability and the rapid one-pass compile times.
Naval Command, Control and Communications Laboratory Center and beyond
In
1967, as part of the general Navy laboratory re-organization, NEL became the
Naval Command, Control and Communications Laboratory Center. The name was never fully accepted, and in about six months it was changed to
Naval Electronics Laboratory Center (NELC).
In
1997, with the disestablishment of
NCCOSC and the establishment of direct oversight by
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, the Center assumed its current name,
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego (SSC San Diego).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Naval Electronics Laboratory'.
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