Welcome to the Sensory Research Division (SRD)
The SRD maintains a unique capability in applied medical and operational research in the areas of visual and auditory sciences.  The research mission of the Division is to conduct sensory research to protect, sustain and extend the operational capabilities of our Army’s Warfighters.  These objectives include conducting applied medical research in the areas of (a) eye and ear injury prevention; (b) development of  sensory biomarkers (e.g., electrophysiological, behavioral, and clinical) for the evaluation of visual, auditory, and vestibular consequences of traumatic brain injury and fitness for duty criteria development; (c) development of realistic models for the assessment of protection technologies and sensing performance with these technologies; (d) development of unique visual and auditory standards for service occupations and performance standards for optical, acoustical and communication devices; and (e) establishment of  a sensory performance research base to support the  development and integration of soldier technologies (e.g., night vision devices, hearing protection, communications equipment, advanced optical systems, etc.) into military systems.

The Sensory Research Division is organized into two branches,
The Acoustics Branch and the Visual Sciences Branch.  SRD is composed of a highly-trained multi-disciplinary team of military, civilian and contract scientists, clinicians, and technicians.  Specialty areas include (a) research optometry and audiology, (b) visual, auditory, and vestibular science, (c) electro-physiology, pharmacology, and neuroscience, (d) acoustical, optical and biomedical engineering, (e) physics, photometry and radiometry, and (f) computer science.

Acoustics Branch assets include a anechoic and reverberation chambers, various sound chambers that meet various ANSI standards, technologies for replicating military impulse and continuous noise signatures, a variety of acoustical manikins and artificial test fixtures, sound and vibration measurement and analysis instrumentation, specialized audiology instrumentation and equipment, custom instrumentation suite, facilities for ANSI real-ear-attenuation-at-threshold, microphone-in-real-ear, and artificial test fixture measurements of hearing protector performance, and a mobile trailer equipped with ANSI standard sound booths and automatic audiometers.

Visual Sciences Branch assets include refractive eye lanes, specialized optometry test equipment, electro-optics laboratories, night vision technologies laboratory, optical fabrication laboratory, specially instrumented micro-flight simulators, photometric and radiometric instrumentation, highly specialized display measurement instrumentation, and a precision air rifle range with automated scoring and support equipment.