Award Data

Legacy copper-based power distribution and degaussing cables will not be able to meet the future requirements of Navy ships and submarines. While cable systems employing high temperature superconductors (HTS) have the potential to meet this need, further development work is required to improve the performance and increase the technology readiness level of key system components. The proposed work f ...

The advanced properties achieved by modern ceramic matrix composite (CMC) structures depend critically on the surface condition of reinforcement materials used in the manufacturing process. Contamination of reinforcement surfaces can result in brittle phases, low melting point eutectics, or foreign compounds at the critical interface between the reinforcement material and the ceramic matrix, which ...

Cabling faults can be difficult to identify and locate when a large number of interconnections are used such as in the shipboard Machinery Control System. Ungrounded systems further complicate diagnosis, since signal voltages and currents are small amplitude. It often takes a considerable amount of time to identify and locate the fault, and the equipment capability can be substantially reduced whi ...

Landmines and buried improvised explosive devices (IED) represent a clear and present danger to the modern U.S. warfighter. The ability to survey a potentially hazardous area from the air using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-mounted optical acoustic system has the potential to greatly reduce causality rates. However, existing acoustic sources are inadequate to stimulate the earth at the necessar ...

Current military surveillance platforms carry a wide range of sensor systems to permit target imaging under a wide variety of operational and atmospheric conditions. These disparate image sensors provide markedly different depictions of the same target, placing severe demands on the image analyst and greatly complicating development of automated methods for target classification. Existing method ...

Advanced underwater vehicles (unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), torpedoes, etc.) are key to achieving long-term objectives for undersea force projection and surveillance. Existing battery-based power systems for these vehicles do not meet mission requirements due to low energy density, prohibitive cost, and/or time-consuming maintenance. Power systems based on liquid fuels and oxidizers (collec ...

Augmentor stability is critical to the operational performance of military aircraft that rely on gas turbine propulsion. Compared to early augmentor designs, the distance between the point of fuel injection and the flame holder has become progressively shorter in modern augmentors. These so called close-coupled designs help avoid autoignition issues associated with higher augmentor inlet tempera ...

Currently, many flight simulators are based on projection screens arranged in a generally hemispherical globe or faceted surface around the simulated cockpit. Typically, a series of separate projectors are aligned such that the video panels or projections overlap to give the illusion of a continuous image. Most of these systems do not offer 20/20 visual experience, as the total number of pixels ...

Average catapult power cylinder temperature is currently inferred from elongation of the cylinder row, as measured by comparing the position of a pointer attached to the vented power cylinder relative to a graduated scale located on the flight deck. The Bow Safety Observer (BSO) must repeatedly take this reading from the flight deck during operations and then communicate the elongation to the Int ...

Fuel cell power systems that run on common, high-sulfur logistics fuel have the potential to meet future demands for distributed, shipboard power generation and generate power at forward deployed bases. A key practical problem with this technology is the need for a continuous supply of high-purity water to the fuel reformer. We propose to develop a compact, efficient, and simple water recovery s ...