Award Data

X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy is a widely used and extremely sensitive analytical technique for qualitative as well as quantitative chemical analysis. Superconducting Transition Edge Sensor (TES) microcalorimeter detectors have now been developed that achieve an energy resolution of 2 eV (full width at half maximum) for 1.5 keV X-rays, which is sufficient to enable the measurement of the small s ...

High power microwave (HPM) sources have been developed over the past few decades for many important DoD missions ranging from electronic warfare to intentional EMI to impulse radar. One important area of development for HPM devices is ballistic missile defense (BMD). HPM systems and techniques may be able to disrupt, damage, or destroy critical elements of adversary ballistic missile systems, re ...

Higher efficiency solar cells are needed to reduce mass, volume, and cost of DoD space missions. However, to achieve higher efficiency and radiation hardness of the best to date multi-junction photovoltaic (MJ PV) devices, several challenges must be addressed. This project aims to develop: 1) Quantum Well (QW)-based multi-junction cell technology that exhibits enhanced efficiency, and 2) Radiation ...

The results of the Phase I effort has identified the feasibility of real-time hardbody thermal solver algorithms on high performance hardware for use by MDA applications and real-time hardware-in-the-loop environments. Phase II development of the thermal solver will be expanded to include complex targets by expanding upon the techniques prototyped in Phase I. A new inline Parallel Euler Solver w ...

The MDA is developing the Precision Tracking Space System and other satellite based systems that could benefit from ongoing developments in advanced materials for lithium ion batteries. Unfortunately, the applications driving much of that battery research have less abusive operational cycles than the frequent cycling, and sporadic pulse loads to deep discharge, of MDA satellite applications. Phy ...

We propose the development of a near infrared/shortwave infrared (NIR/SWIR) sensor based on mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe) in an n-type/barrier/n-type (nBn) architecture, designed for room-temperature operation in the 0.7 to 2.8µm NIR/SWIR spectral range. The sensor will compete as a low cost/high performance alternative to near infrared indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs)-based cameras by prov ...

We propose a smart ROIC design where one ROIC unit cell may service two FPA unit cells instead of the normal one-to-one relationship. This proposed approach, supported by Lockheed Martin, is based on a novel dual pixel design that consists of using pairs of adjacent FPA pixels connected in a differential configuration. This unique design preserves the spatial resolution of the array while enabli ...

Current acquisition, tracking and pointing (ATP) technology typically incorporates algorithms, such as the Kalman filter, known to be poorly suited to the tracking of nonlinearly moving targets. Nonlinearities may be due to target motion (e.g., agile target) but targeting platform induced jitter also manifests as target nonlinearity. Current and future mobile MDA assets such as ALTB and ABIR wil ...

Laser diode arrays are a major component cost for advanced high-power laser systems such as the Diode-Pumped Alkali Laser, and numerous other military and industrial laser systems. The most critical design feature of diode pump arrays for Diode-Pumped Alkali Lasers is the wavelength match of the absorption line and the linewidth of the pump. The linewidth required for efficient pumping of alkali l ...

The objective of this effort is to implement a customer tailorable GNC design and integrate that design with an existing, highly-scaled IMU solution. Advanced packaging techniques and electrical performance enhancement strategies will be applied to the integrated design, to achieve improved efficiency. Further, performance flexibility will be achieved via ring laser gyro selection to provide the ...