Award Data

As the carry and protective gear of the modern war fighter increases, the burden on the human body will necessarily increase. In our present TALOS MkIII project, we are developing lower body augmentation to preserve speed and agility while bearing this weight. Yet we cannot ignore the impact of this weight on the upper body: in this project we propose to develop an upper body exoskeleton with p ...

A critical aspect of exoskeleton control that has to date introduced a performance limitation is the ability of the exoskeleton to recognize the intent of the operator so it can apply assistance to their desired motion. This intent recognition effort is typically solved using ad-hoc methods where subject matter experts make design decisions and tune transitions to identify intended maneuvers as re ...

DoD is concerned about circadian rhythm misalignment in military personnel as it is known to affect judgment, psychomotor skills, and may lead to or be triggered by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Correction or maintenance of circadian phase in soldiers participating in military night operations or planning for trans-meridian flights is also of interest. In addition, many veterans who suffe ...

Clinical monitoring of mental health status has not evolved much from the routine meeting between patient and clinician, which suffers from a lack of quantification, irregular and anecdotal reporting, and does not necessarily include input from family. This is unfortunate given current technology, in which people routinely volunteer to track their own health related behavior, such as exercise and ...

Spontaneous emission is a quantum mechanical process that represents the main source of phase noise in state-of-the-art semiconductor lasers, limiting their coherence, and their suitability for high-speed communication and sensing applications. This proposal aims to develop ultra-high coherence semiconductor lasers on the Silicon/III-V platform with a quantum linewidth of

Approximately 5-6% of military injuries involve some form of major peripheral nerve injury that has little chance of spontaneous healing. Currently these injuries lead to major impairment of voluntary muscle function in the limbs and extremities, making tasks of walking, reaching, grasping, etc. very difficult or impossible for many patients. Focusing therapeutic treatments to segmental nerve in ...

Zeteo Tech in strong and enduring partnership with University of Maryland will develop a toxin detection and identification system for field use. The system will incorporate a low cost, disposable device for toxin capture and MALDI sample preparation. The output of the disposable device will be input assays for enhanced detection and identification.

This proposal addresses the problem of PCSS/laser trigger integration using a single monolithic laser diode array, thus simplifying the entire optical delivery network necessary for efficient operation of PCSSs. The proposal constitutes a logical continuation of Phase I effort where the main focus was on the detailed design of the PCSS/laser diode array (LDA) integrated architecture. In Phase II ...

An innovative and fundamental approach to measure far field noise of a helicopter using a hot-air balloon as an acoustic measurement platform is described. The technique, featuring a microphone suspended beneath the basket of a hot-air balloon, is used to obtain acoustic data above, in, and below the horizon plane of a helicopter in forward flight. This approach is postulated to have many advantag ...

Empirical-based mathematical framework and computer algorithms, for representing human perception and cognition processes and limitations, which influence the recognition of salient information about rapidly changing events.