Award Data

Looking Glass is an immersive, story-driven game experience that enables computer science education for students K-12. It presents learning in a game-based series of challenging levels that permit a high degree of player choice in tailoring educational pr

Millions of heat pumps are used to heat and cool homes and buildings year round. Continuous operation means that components wear out at a greater rate. As a result, maintenance of residential heat pumps is a major cost driver. Current methods focus on reduced use through control settings. Typically, demand has wide swings throughout the day and people are unable to customize controls. Inevitably, ...

Among the factors that inhibit the use of composite materials in both general aviation aircraft and DoD platforms are the relatively high cost of engineering and certification. Unless manufacturers control risk when introducing new or advanced materials and processes for aircraft, the potential benefits will be lost to the industry. For small commercial applications the problem is compounded by ...

The primary objective of the Nano-Optomechanical Massive MEMS Accelerometer (NOMMA) project is to develop a chip-integrated optomechanical Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) accelerometer with 100 ng/Hz1/2 sensitivity and 10 kHz bandwidth using high

Space Doc is a mobile, web-based STEM learning and medical training application set in a persistent world with a science fiction / science-fact context. You travel on a mission to Mars aboard a ship with 50+ team mates on a long journey with continual scenario dangers of every type that threaten mission success. You play as a first responder trainee and your team members are counting on you to hel ...

We propose to develop a critical enhancement to an existing interactive task guidance system, integrating the capability to utilize data from sensors and control actuators. The system will allow caregivers or rehabilitation professionals to incorporate sensors and actuators into a task script in order to detect task state; detect user state; detect environmental context; detect safety risks; or pa ...

Fully autonomous, taskable robots for use in unconstrained environments are still a dream rather than a reality because of a host of problems, including capabilities of existing sensors, effectors, and control/planning software. Indeed, concepts of operations for robot use are tending toward robots collaborating directly with humans, in relationships similar to bomb squad dogs. Fortunately, enough ...

Research is proposed to investigate the feasibility of a path planning module that makes use of time-bounded lattices to avoid potential collisions in dynamic environments. The challenge of planning in a dynamic environment is two-fold. First, tracking and predicting the trajectories of dynamic obstacles (e.g., cars, humans, and aircraft) is very noisy. Second, planning with dynamic obstacles requ ...

Presently, scanning and zooming of imaging optics is achieved with bulky mechanical gimbals or using multiple focal plane arrays and associated optics to cover the wide field of view. These approaches are not only expensive in terms of power, size and weight, but also costly. Alternatively, the use of liquid crystal (LC) lenses, LC spatial light modulators and LC scanners in zooming and scanning ...

Development of new short-wave infrared imaging sensors with signal processing electronics on the same substrate is critical for a number of military and commercial applications. The objective of this research is to develop a new generation of Ge-on-Si p-n heterojunction photodiodes that will culminate in a demonstration of a 64 x 64-pixel infrared imaging array. These photodiodes, whose feas ...