Office seeks to quickly field counter-terrorism technologies.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: IN FOCUS: DEFENSE AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS - Defense Department's rapid reaction technology office

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Ben Riley, director of the Defense Department's rapid reaction technology office, wants to tell vendors, laboratories or anyone else who has a gadget that can help defeat terrorists, insurgents or other bad guys, that he's here to help.

The office has two test beds available to those who want to try out technologies in a simulated urban or maritime environment.

About five times per year, the office opens up the national counter-insurgency counter-terrorism test site in the confines of the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona to those wishing to see how their technologies operate in a mock city.

The site is open to "small companies that might not have the resources to afford range time and test time," Riley said in an interview.

The office will cover almost all expenses and include a test report on the data collected, he said. The site features roads, buildings, four-lane highways, including a cloverleaf turnoff, and simulates the electromagnetic environment found in major cities.

Companies developing intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance sensors, communication devices, and canine teams have used the facility.

The office will install culverts, dig ditches, and if truly needed, build a bridge--"within reason," he added. "Your expense if you're that company, is to get that system or whatever it is out there," Riley said.

"If it absolutely does not work, we won't hold it against you," Riley said. Companies and labs are welcome to return after they make refinements. Many have done so, and he has seen how they have taken the data and improved their products, Riley said.

The office's focus is on technologies that can mature in six to 18 months and be applied to the so-called global war on terrorism.

Bits and pieces of the now defunct office of force transformation were folded into the rapid reaction technology office. One of the programs inherited was Stiletto, an experimental boat that has found a second life as a platform for testing in sea environments. Like the Yuma site, the boat is available to labs and companies who wish to use it as a way to collect data.

"So we now have a maritime test bed," Riley said.

Now based in Norfolk, Va., it is at sea 123 days per year to conduct tests.

The 80-foot long, 40-foot wide Stiletto vessel, developed by M Ship Co. of San Diego, was better known for its unique hull design that could reach speeds of 50 to 60 knots.

It recaptures the bow wave and uses its energy to lift the boat to...