Adaptive spatio-temporal filtering methods are proposed which are inherently suitable to utilizing many sensors and actuators to achieve superior control and monitoring of structures for vibration and shape control and damage detection. When utilizing large numbers of sensors and actuators, failure… More

Adaptive spatio-temporal filtering methods are proposed which are inherently suitable to utilizing many sensors and actuators to achieve superior control and monitoring of structures for vibration and shape control and damage detection. When utilizing large numbers of sensors and actuators, failure… More

There is currently considerable interest in flying many small satellites in a cluster. Indeed, satellite formation flight offers many advantages in allowing high-resolution interferometry, permitting multiple distributed measurements, reducing mission cost and increasing flexibility. Unfortunately,… More

This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of a high level graphical programming environment for Smart Sensor arrays. Ideally, application developers should be able to describe the desired behavior of their system at a high level of… More

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will develop a high level graphical programming environment for distributed measurement and control networks used in industry. Using this environment, an industrial control engineer will be able to describe the desired behavior of… More

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will develop a high level graphical programming environment for distributed measurement and control networks used in industry. Using this environment, an industrial control engineer will be able to describe the desired behavior of… More

There is a great need for improved hearing protection equipment with integral communication for high noise military environments such as flight lines and aircraft carrier flight decks. Deep insertion, communication earplugs (Attenuating CustomCommunication Earplug - ACCES) combined with earmuffs are… More

There is a great need for improved hearing protection equipment with integral communication for high-noise military environments such as flight lines and aircraft carrier flight decks. This need exists in many civilian commercial applications as well.While the addition of active noise control… More

An ultrasonic based bone conduction communication system is proposed that will have negligible coupling of the exciter to the ambient acoustic environment or of the bone conduction microphone to ambient sound. This will significantly incease communication intelligibility in high noise environments… More

To address current challenges faced with synthetic database generation and utilization we are proposing a tighter coupling between ATR algorithms and the signature validation/formation process. This coupling consists of two key objectives. First, we utilize the discriminant information to… More

Currently, there is not a good model of the sensitivity relationship between physics parameters (including the background clutter model) and the resulting synthetic signature, nor are tools currently available that could apply such sensitivity information to adapt a database of synthetic signatures… More

The vision for the proposed effort is to develop 3 distinct tools to aid the EM modeling and simulation community. The first of these will be a separability analysis tool.The purpose of this tool shall be to demonstrate the expected separability of a given target set as a function of aspect. The… More

We propose a model of the target-ground interaction which is comprised of three key components. First, we model the sensitivity of specific voxels/pixels/bins to change in reflectance via response functions. Second, we utilize the response function as an interpolation tool to post process various… More

AbstractNondestructive Evaluation and Inspection (NDE/I) methods, procedures, and enabling technologies generally provide means to nondestructively scan, image, sense, or otherwise evaluate characteristics of, or detect minute flaws/defects in, materials and/or component parts. These capabilities… More

A damage digitization system using optical cameras is proposed as part of a comprehensive nondestructive inspection platform. The advantages of such a system are the ease of use and the lack of a need for expensive specialized hardware. A combination of image processing, target recognition, and… More

To achieve the optimal detection and classification of hidden targets, a tightly linked sensor and algorithm design effort will be required. The Phase I work described here focuses on using data from an existing sensor to explore how high-dimensional spatial, spectral and polarimetric data can be… More

Nondestructive Evaluation and Inspection (NDE/I) methods, procedures, and enabling technologies generally provide means to nondestructively scan, image, sense, or otherwise evaluate characteristics of, or detect minute flaws/defects in, materials and/or component parts. These capabilities have… More

To achieve the optimal detection and classification of hidden targets, a tightly linked sensor and algorithm design effort will be required. The Phase II work described here focuses on using data from an existing Ladar sensor to explore how high-dimensional spatial, spectral and polarimetric data… More

The objective of this work is to address this need of knowing accurate damage location and size by developing a simple system that will allow for damage location to be accurately identified and then automatically transferred to a CAD model of a plane. This replaces a current process that consists of… More

SDL is proposing a system which can scan a large componsite structure quickly and accurately using a multi-resolution, 3D laser vibrometry scanning technique to conduct nonlinear spectroscopy based defect detection. The approach is non-contact removing the need for any couplant or coating removal.

An innovative approach is proposed to extend traditional 3D ranging Ladar sensors to simultaneously acquiring vibrometry information. The sensor will also have the capacity to acquire polarimetric and spectral data. The combination of these modes of Ladar data will result in a multimode Ladar… More

SDL proposes a new concept for very high frequency vibration based engine accessory prognostics. A new sensing technology being developed in a parallel programm enables a new signal processing approach that deterministically measures flaw size. For instance, the actual length of a bearing race spall… More

We propose a windowed General Image Quality Equation that incorporates automatic target recognition specific features. Because the metric adapts to local clutter statistics, we expect it to better represent the non-uniform characteristics of the imagery. The feature weights are determined via… More

Sheet Dynamics Ltd., proposes to develop a 2D airborne seismic vibrometry array sensor that will enable both passive and active seismic tunnel detection surveys to be conducted with unprecedented speed and effectiveness. Techniques to deal with ground cover, seismic excitation requirements and to… More

SDL will develop ATR separability performance estimation tools for multi-mode LADAR systems utilizing physics based modeling of geometry, vibrometry, polarimetric and multi-spectral signatures. These tools will estimate achievable separabilty based on sensor characteristics, sensing modes, mission… More

SDL proposes to develop an integrated suite of sensors utilizing a new sensing approach that is applicable to temperature, strain, pressure and vibration measurement. This new class of sensors is extremely simple and robust, and able to make highly reliable measurements in extremely harsh and… More

Unique active pressure transducer utilizing a simple, robust design without moving parts or pressure tubes. The technology is able to mitigate or eliminate many of the environmental issues which plague traditional designs.

ABSTRACT: The work proposed here will apply an extensive suite of tools and technologies developed by SDL for automatic target recognition (ATR) using multi-mode LADAR data to aid analysts to exploit multi-mode LADAR data for combat ID. SDL has teamed with experts in Cognitive Task Analysis to gain… More

The bandwidth of current and future image analysts is insufficient to ingest the vast quantity of data generated by staring sensing platforms. Because of this, signature exploitation algorithms need to play a role in the data processing chain to cue analysts to specific regions of interest within… More

Using an information theoretic Global Image Quality Equation(GIQE), we map image formation parameters to National Image Interpretability Rating Scale(NIIRS) levels. These NIIRS levels are also projected onto PID derived from analysts and signature exploitation algorithms for various target sets.… More

A new genre of sensing technology is being employed to develop reliable, low cost, pressure sensors that are able to make measurements at locations in aircraft turbine engines, such as P4, where it has not previously been possible to do so.

This project will develop a robust, reliable and low cost networked sensor capability for advanced turbine engines and other applications. This system will enable pressure, temperature, vibration and strain to be measured in extremely harsh environments such as turbine engine combustors, enabling… More