Karl was honored for his efforts in developing a laser system for remotely detecting and characterizing clouds of biological agents.
Major General John Doesburg, commander of the Army's Soldier and Biological Chemical Command at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, presented Karl with the award. Doesburg said in his remarks that he was here to "honor a distinguished American," and went on to acknowledge the great accomplishments of Karl and his team.
Karl has been working since the early 1990s on a light detection and ranging, or LIDAR, system that mounts in a helicopter and provides rapid detection of airborne biological agents at distances up to 18 miles. In all, Los Alamos has built three deployed production units and delivered them to the Army's 310th Chemical Detachment in Fort McClellan, Alabama. The units also have been "type classified," meaning they are listed as a standard U.S. Army Defensive Inventory item available to protect troops or civilians.
Called Biological Standoff Detection Systems, the units are maintained in a high state of readiness for deployment anywhere in the world. The units are mounted on skids for easy insertion and removal from Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters; they can search about a million acres per hour.
As the helicopter travels across the field of interest, the BSDS fires pulses rapidly from a laser. When the laser light hits aerosols, some of the light is reflected back toward the helicopter. A telescope picks up this reflected energy and focuses it on a sensitive light detector. An onboard computer processes the signals and displays the results on a monitor.
After only a short period of training, soldiers have demonstrated their ability to effectively operate this first-ever capability for standoff detection of biological aerosols.
In a variety of tests, the BSDS successfully detected and tracked biosimulants (benign microbes used to stand in for agents such as anthrax, cholera, botulism or other harmful agents) and distinguished between the biosimulant cloud and a cloud of dust. The system also tracked biosimulant clouds of very low density and was able to map features of the clouds, such as size, shape, relative concentration and speed of movement.
Karl designed the BSDS units so a single soldier can operate one. The units have been put though hundreds of hours of training and testing runs.
The current version of the BSDS is safe to the human eye beyond about a mile and a half. Karl is currently involved in developing a version of the BSDS that shifts the laser output to a wavelength that is completely eye safe. He also is studying a version of the system that would use an ultraviolet laser beam, which would create a signature operators could use to further characterize the clouds.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.