Award Data

High fidelity simulations of complex systems still pose a challenge to the scientist trying to understand its physical characteristics. The challenge is in finding useful bits in terabytes of data that directly relate to the nature of time-varying, multivariate data. An intelligent data mining capability is needed that has both knowledge (descriptive physics) and foresight (cognitive model of user ...

The monitoring of multiple UAV video sources is challenging, in part, due to the poor quality of the video received. Significant video degrading is caused by clouds, haze, and dust in the atmosphere; jitter and blurring from the UAV platform motion; and low video resolution due to sensor characteristics and high altitude flying. Higher quality video would alleviate much of the challenge for the o ...

The ever-decreasing size of the electronic microchips and the ever-increasing density of electronic components required to support future Air Force platforms are creating the problem of substantial localized heat generation that can impair component operation. State of the art thermal interface materials (TIMs), that are used to dissipate heat from the source to the spreader in a microchip, are se ...

Developments in micro/nano technologies are leading the way to a new fleet of micro air vehicle (MAV) airframes. However, the unavoidable and ultimately the mission-limiting issue for all of these new systems will be on-board power. The lightest-weight current lithium-polymer batteries don’t provide sufficient energy densities and impose a variety of operational limitations that are unacceptab ...

Lithium-ion batteries have become the industry standard for use as rechargeable secondary batteries in space vehicles. Although substantial advancements have made in this class of batteries of late, substantial limitations still exist in: energy and power densities, operational temperature limits, safety, and most importantly lifecycle and lifetime performance. To address this need, ADA Technolo ...

Micro air vehicles (MAV) are envisioned to play a substantial role in carrying out critical missions for the Nation’s future military force. However due to their small size, deficiencies in critical technologies may limit the operational performance of future MAVs. Arguably, on-board power may be the most mission-limiting issue facing future MAVs. To address this need, ADA Technologies, Inc. ...

Morphing air vehicles are characterized by an ability to dramatically alter their airfoil characteristics to maintain optimal aerodynamic efficiency over a broad flight regime thereby broadening their mission profile over an equivalent fixed-wing vehicle. Essential to enabling these vehicles is a wing skin that is highly compliant in-plane for wing morphing while being highly stiff out-of-plane to ...

We propose to investigate the feasibility of obtaining fast and accurate trajectories using global geopotential models representing departures from the two-body plus J2 terms. The proposed geopotential formulations and numerical integration methods rely on multi-core processors and the emerging massive parallel capabilities of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) available to common personal computer ...

Currently, two types of antenna configurations are in use with GPS receivers; fixed reception pattern antenna (FRPA) and controlled reception pattern antenna (CRPA). FRPA is a single element antenna and, thus, can not use angle of arrival as a discriminator to suppress interfering signals or jammers. CRPA is an array of antenna elements that can use angle of arrival as a discriminator to reject in ...

Aqwest proposes to develop an advanced thermal management for cooling of electronic components using an active heat sink (AHS) offering unparalleled capabilities in high-heat flux handling and temperature control. The project will produce a cooling system with the following benefits to wide band gap amplifiers and high-power laser diodes (HPLD): 1) Heat flux handling > 1200 W/cm2 2) Easily scalabl ...