Award Data

Screening is a repetitive and often monotonous task, involving long periods of vigilance despite low occurrences of threat. Because of the nature of this task and the high consequence if a threat is missed, a screener`s vigilance and avoidance of operation during fatigue are critical to their job effectiveness. This proposal describes an integrated solution to monitoring vigilance levels in airpor ...

The Department of Homeland Security's charter has a fundamental requirement to collaborate with other government agencies. Secure collaboration on this scale requires strong identity management which can "vouch for" DHS personnel working with other agencies, and makes it possible to provide DHS resources to individuals in other agencies whose work requires it. We propose the development of a reu ...

With the range and variety of radiation detectors that exist and the continuing threat of a radiological disaster in the future, the need for training of first responders and personnel in the front lines of interdiction is extraordinary and daunting. It is daunting because of the number of people across the nation that must be trained initially and who must continually maintain their training to b ...

This SBIR Phase I will model and physically demonstrate wearable, small factor, and lightweight thermoelectric generator prototypes powered by human body heat. The project will make use of Perpetua`s novel Flexible Thermoelectric Film technology to yield higher voltages and power from small active areas. End devices will be in wearable form factors, including a flexible button array that can be in ...

An existing low-cost FPGA-based processing platform will be demonstrated with fiber-coupling to single-photon detectors, to perform photon-arrival time stamping with

A stable, well characterized InGaAs materials growth and photodetector fabrication process will be used to fabricate matched photodiodes optimized for balanced homodyne detection. The 1-mm-diameter p-i-n photodetectors will be manufactured back-illuminated with a 5-micron absorber, allowing residual light to reflect off the front-side metal to make a double pass through the active layer. Ultra-hig ...

Current bioaerosol monitoring strategies rely on inertia-based sampling and suffer from high power consumption and low efficiency limitations. In contrast, our overall objective is to design and demonstrate a novel electrostatic sampler that provides dramatic improvements including low power requirement (90% for 1-10mm), high viability (>80%), scalability for varying threat scenarios, low noise, a ...

Special Operation Forces personnel require a rugged, miniature receiver that is capable of monitoring RF energy while deployed on a mission. The RF receiver will give a better picture of the electromagnetic threat environment enabling a heightened situational awareness, yet the device must be small enough that it does not hamper the SOF warfighter during missions requiring stealth and rapid mobil ...

This project is designed to test a novel receptor scaffold/sensor combination for the selective and direct measurement of antigens and to compare direct electric detection of antigens against the corresponding antibody based ELISA method. The scaffold concept combines a robust nucleic acid receptor (aptamer) coupled to a low cost CMOS FET and AlGaN MODFET transducer. Aptamers are short nucleic aci ...

We propose a Marine Asset Tag Tracking System (MATTS) using a breakthrough wireless tracking technology called near field electromagnetic ranging (NFER¿). The primary objective of Phase I is to validate that NFER¿ technology is the best RF solution for tracking containers on ships and in ports. Phase I will also (1) develop an overall architecture for the MATTS; (2) design the container tag; ...