NUWC Newport Inventors Named Award Winners by Office of Naval Research

Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Newport engineer Raymond F. Travelyn and retired employee David L. Culbertson have been named winners of the Office of Naval Research Vice Adm. Harold G. Bowen Award for Patented Inventions. 

The award recognizes patented inventions that have had a significant impact upon the operation of the Navy as measured by the extent of its adoption for Navy use, cost savings, increased military capability, or increased quality of life of Navy personnel. 

The pair invented the Full Duplex Transceiver (FDT), also known as the TravPak, a communications device which dramatically increased data rates for error-free transmission via satellite aboard submarines. Previous systems required at least two days to transfer data for threat verification – putting both the platform and the crew at risk.  The TravPak reduced the time needed to transfer data by 1000 times.

Until it was replaced by the Common Submarine Radio Room (CSRR), the FDT was installed as a temporary alteration on about 20 platforms per year for about 10 years at a total cost of $600,000. Because the FDT used existing antenna hardware, the invention saved the Navy approximately $60 million by eliminating the need to design, develop, test, and install new UHF antennas.

Travelyn, an electronics engineer also in the Undersea Warfare Electromagnetic Systems Department, has worked at NUWC Newport for 26 years.  As a member of the CSRR program since 2004, he serves as the lead systems engineer directing the day-to-day work of subject matter experts for each CSRR subsystem. 

A resident of Westerly, R.I., Travelyn holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.

A U.S. Navy veteran, Culbertson retired from the Undersea Warfare Electromagnetic Systems Department in 2005, where he had worked as a technician.  He was a member of the CSRR program and holds several other patents developed during his career at NUWC.