Award Data

We propose to investigate, in collaboration with the Massachusetts General Hospital Voice Center and Altec, Inc., the application of surface electromyography (sEMG) to assessing cognitive workload, strain, and overload. Specifically, sEMG sensors placed on the face and neck will detect emotional/motor responses to workload strain. The proposed effort will build on the substantial sEMG experience o ...

This STTR project aims to assess the feasibility of using laryngeal EMG to detect operator workload and strain. Phase I will develop a wearable neckband device positioning an array of laryngeal EMG electrodes plus additional sensors for measuring masseter EMG, heart rate variability, GSR and estimated relative blood pressure. The neckband will be optimized to be both wearable, comfortable and resi ...

Modern defense systems place high cognitive demands on warfighters, often taxing the limit of human capabilities and causing operators to suffer Acute Cognitive Strain (ACS), wherein performance deteriorates markedly, leading to a loss of situational awareness and control, and decrements in team cooperativity. ACS leads to physiological changes driven by sympathetic system activation, including i ...

Makel Engineering, Inc. and Sandia National Laboratories propose to demonstrate an advanced multi-modal sensor system suitable for in-situ analysis of exhaled VOCs for pilots, divers and field patients. Our proposed system will combine a micro-gas chromatograph (GC) and miniature ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) for detection of trace amounts of exhaled breath VOCs with miniature solid state sensor ...

BaySpec Inc., in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, proposes to develop an innovative orthogonal sensor systemthat would be able to detect, identify and quantify the inorganic components of breathing mixes, (i.e., nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, helium, and water vapor), as well as individual detectable VOCs within the exhaled breath in real-time. The Phase I resear ...

The goal of this STTR effort is to design a portable, multimodal, non-contact imaging system for burn depth diagnosis and tracking of wound healing. UC and Vanderbilt University will build upon our previous efforts demonstrated via porcine model studies to combine results from structural B-mode optical coherence tomography (OCT) images and functional data (pulse speckle imaging- PSI) to classify d ...

Cost-effective application of advanced commercial electronics technologies in DoD space systems requires early development of radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) techniques, and use of simulations is critical to the efficiency of this process. CFDRC has developed an integrated, mixed-mode simulation approach allowing their NanoTCAD device physics simulator to interface with commercial circuit simu ...

There is a lack of quantitative tools to accurately map tissue viability in a rapid and quantitative manner so a surgeon can properly excise tissue prior to grafting. Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI) is an optical method that has been shown to be a reliable method for physiology assessment - particularly for burn depth. SFDI measures of tissue structure (scattering) and function (hemoglobi ...

Stottler Henke proposes PaCT, leveraging our related past work in computer vision and machine learning. Drawing from techniques used in ExPATSS, a Phase II SBIR effort slated for transition to the Naval fleet, PaCT will perform bacterial characterization using features derived from the phenotype of the bacteria. PaCT will predict bacterial characteristics such as pathogenicity, antibiotic resistan ...

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are critical to DoD undersea missions including the future capabilities for sea and sub-sea forces communication and connectivity. AUV mission lengths are currently limited to 24 hours due to the prohibitive battery storage and AUV energy demands. Makai Ocean Engineering, with the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI), proposes to dev ...