The Air Force Institute of Technology is home to many centers, which bring together experts from diverse disciplines to focus efforts on specific interdisciplinary challenges. By sharing expertise, facilities, and equipment, centers provide the synergy required to solve difficult problems.
AFIT hosts two Air Force level centers, five Graduate School centers, and co-hosts a center with the Air Force Research Laboratory.
The Air Force Center for Systems Engineering
Established per a Secretary of the Air Force directive, the Air Force Center for Systems Engineering focuses on entire weapon system life cycles. Providing program assessments, performing gap analyses, evaluating technical planning, and developing case studies are just a few examples of services we offer.
Through research, education, and consultation, we help solve present Department of Defense systems engineering challenges with the goal of devising new systems engineering methods.
As the Air Force standard bearer for effective system development, the Center’s mission is to shape the future of systems engineering in the Air Force and Department of Defense.
The Air Force Cyberspace Technical Center of Excellence
On June 19, 2008, the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force designated the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Center for Cyberspace Research as the Air Force's Cyberspace Technical Center of Excellence (CyTCoE). The CyTCoE is chartered to be a unifying and synergistic body for promoting cyberspace education, training, research, and technology development. The CyTCoE will facilitate development of Air Force education and training in support of cyber operations as well as identify and provide subject matter experts that understand doctrine, techniques, and technology to ensure dominance and superiority in cyberspace.
This designation enhances CCR's ability to be a clearinghouse for "who does what" and "who needs what" in cyber. The center will develop and strengthen relationships with, and maintain awareness about the activities of, various cyber-related research, education, and training communities within the Air Force, our service partners in the Department of Defense (DoD), various federal agencies, and civilian academic and commercial research organizations around the globe.
The Advanced Navigation Technology Center is a forward-looking navigation research center seeking to identify and solve tomorrow's most challenging navigation problems. The ANT Center's goal is to develop navigation technology that ensures we can navigate anywhere at any time. Under Air Force Research Laboratory sponsorship, the ANT Center designed and built a GPS-based relative navigation system that determines cm-level relative positions between two flying aircraft. The Center also developed autonomous formation flight control algorithms and successfully flew the entire system at the USAF Test Pilot School, accomplishing the first fully autonomous precision formation flight appropriate for aerial refueling.
The Center for Cyberspace Research is a National Security Agency designated Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education. Many of the concepts developed by student research in the CCR are transitioned to customers outside AFIT. For example, a student research-developed method for understanding network intrusion detection and evasion is now used by network analysts across DoD to assist in training and assessment of threats. The Air Force Research Laboratory has also adopted, among other things, a student research-developed innovative technique for identifying insider threats.
The Center for Directed Energy supports Air Force and DoD agencies in transitioning high energy lasers and high power microwaves to the battlefield through vigorous scientific and engineering research, graduate education programs, and diverse consulting activities. The CDE developed the world's most comprehensive simulation package of atmospheric effects on the propagation of HELs. Called HELEEOS, for High Energy Laser End-to-End Operational Simulation, the simulation has over 100 DoD users and can model DE weapons of current genre or those still in conception. The CDE is working on transferring the capability of HELEEOS to the analysis teams at the Air Force Research Laboratory and within the intelligence community.
The Center for MASINT Studies & Research (CMSR) is focused on Air Force and DoD MASINT (Measurement And Signature Intelligence) scientific, technical, and operational activities through our graduate research programs. The CMSR works with measurement and signature intelligence from technically advanced systems, a tremendous asset to combat operations. For example, a CMSR student recently deployed in support of the US Army Mortar Detection System. Using an aerostat, which contains a mortar detection sensor, the student was able to pinpoint the mortar launch location and photograph the attackers. Such real-time notification allows ground troops to quickly eliminate threat and saves lives.
The Center for Operational Analysis, expanding the mission of the former Center for Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis, is dedicated to research and education in operational analysis with an emphasis on enhancing warfighter efficiency and effectiveness at all levels. Research at the COA is defining and enhancing how we do operational analysis at home and in the AOR. Student projects focus on developing techniques and tools to transform data into decision quality information, and the Center is producing operator and warfighter analysts across career fields as future senior AF leaders.
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