You are here

Manufacturing Issues for Multimode Seeker Domes

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Army
Contract: W31P4Q-09-C-0025
Agency Tracking Number: A072-016-0638
Amount: $1,229,980.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: A07-016
Solicitation Number: 2007.2
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2007
Award Year: 2008
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2008-11-17
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2013-12-31
Small Business Information
31 B Street
Burlington, MA 01803
United States
DUNS: 150685642
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Lee Goldman
 Vice-President (Optical C
 (781) 345-5777
 LMGoldman@Surmet.com
Business Contact
 Santosh Jha
Title: R&D Administrator
Phone: (781) 345-5721
Email: SJha@Surmet.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

The U.S. Army's Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM) and the Air Force Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) are two potential candidates for insertion of multi-mode seeker missiles technology. Surmet has recently demonstrated proof-of-principle multilayer missile domes for these seekers. But technical challenges remain in scaling the processes to manufacturing level. The amount of touch labor, reproducibility of the precursor materials, and repeatability of the processes are huge obstacles to manufacturing capabilities. During the proposed effort, Surmet will develop and demonstrate solutions to improve manufacturability seeker missile domes. Under other SBIR contracts, Surmet is already addressing various technical obstacles in producing the multi-layer domes. Most of these contracts involve individual technical issues such as cost effective forming of dome blanks, producing alternate dielectric materials for the inner layer of the dome, measuring the transmitted wavefront of a full hemispherical dome, deterministic finishing methods for correcting residual wavefront errors in a multi-layer dome, etc. The purpose of the proposed effort is to select a particular approach to producing the multi-layer dome (i.e., bonded shell, alternate dielectric or co-fired ceramic), and to specify an optimized path to producing large numbers of such domes, based on technical and producibility risk and manufacturing cost analysis.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

US Flag An Official Website of the United States Government