Award Data

During Phase I, Management Sciences, Inc. (MSI) proved feasibility of adapting their current technology into a product capable of improving performance resulting in increased efficiency and extended life cycles of heat pumps. The resultant product is a tool named the Heat Pump Sentient (HP-Sentient). The HP-Sentient will improve performance and reduce maintenance costs through aggressive goal-seek ...

Mesa Photonics has developed laser-based gas sensor technology compatible with UAV deployment. Our Airborne MUlti-Gas Sensor (AMUGS) technology is based upon two-tone frequency-modulated spectroscopy (TT-FMS). TT-FMS retains the advantages of near-infrared diode lasers while pushing detection sensitivity more than two orders of magnitude closer to the theoretical limit. Phase I results demonstrate ...

National Aeronautical and Space Administration's (NASA) Aviation Safety Program "seeks capabilities furthering the practice of proactive safety management." One area of particular interest is the prognostication of Remaining Useful Life (RUL) of avionic systems. In response, Nokomis is proposing to develop an Electronic Health Monitoring (EHM) Sensor Unit which would be able provide accurate est ...

ProtoInnovations, LLC (PI) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have formed a partnership to research, develop, and experimentally characterize a suite of robotic controls to significantly improve the safety, mean travel speed, and rough-terrain access of wheeled planetary rovers. In meeting this goal we have been developing algorithms for all-terrain adaptive locomotion which inclu ...

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS's) and in particular intelligent, autonomous rotorcraft and fixed-wing aircraft have the potential to significantly impact modern society. A few examples of their utility include aerial surveying in difficult-to-access terrain, precision agriculture, package delivery, moviemaking, infrastructure inspection, fire fighting, search and rescue, etc. Recently there has been ...

Environmental species measurement on airborne atmospheric research craft is a demanding application for optical sensing techniques. Yet optical techniques offer many advantages including high-precision, fast response, and high species selectivity. Balloonsonde, kite, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or glider deployment demands that sensors meet stringent size, weight and power requirements. Few mea ...

To address the need for low-ballistic coefficient aeroshells with minimal impact on vehicle weight, NASA is investigating flexible thermal protection system (TPS) options. These designs typically consist of a flexible three-directional (3D) woven carbon cloth that can be stowed during flight and deployed on command to serve as a semi-rigid aeroshell during atmospheric entry. For some planned entry ...

On-the-ground confirmation of lunar ice will transform space exploration, as ice can provide fuel to support far-reaching exploration and enable commercial endeavors. Evidence from satellite observations strongly supports the presence of polar ice, but driving and excavation are required to confirm presence, measure distribution, and extract resources. In-situ resource extraction at the lunar pol ...

The proposed research will develop long-range terrain characterization technologies for autonomous excavation in planetary environments. This work will develop a machine learning framework for long-range prediction of both surface and subsurface terrain characteristics that: (1) indicate the excavation-value of the material and (2) describe how hazardous terrain is to a robotic excavator. Factors ...

In this SBIR Phase II program Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) proposes to develop titanium/water heat pipes suitable for Spacecraft Fission Power applications. NASA is currently examining small fission power reactors design, such as the Kilopower, which aims to provide roughly 1 kW of electric power. Kilopower plans to use titanium/water heat pipes to remove the waste heat from the cold ...