Award Data

The long endurance “StratoSonde” lighter-than-air, uncrewed system combines a low-cost, 5day endurance StratoSonde supports up to 10 micro-dropsondes, which when released from the HAB, descend safely through the entire atmospheric column under a ribbon drogue while reporting observations directly back to the HAB. This project will assess the feasibility of integrating a disposable miniature ae ...

There is a clear need to improve weather forecasting accuracy. The greatest contributions to forecast uncertainty is a lack of meteorological observations over remote areas and areas experiencing pronounced convective activity. StratoSolutions’ new high-altitude balloon (HAB) platform with mini-dropsonde is a disruptive new uncrewed meteorological observation data source able to collect data at ...

Remote areas, particularly over the oceans, represent regions with the least observation coverage and contribute significantly to reducing the potential accuracy of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. In addition to space-based observations, dropsondes are possibly the only viable meteorological sensors for use over remote areas, where there is no cost-effective approach to permit regular r ...

In energy harvesting applications, consumer electronics, and other power-demanding industrial sectors, energy storage with high power and energy efficiency along with long cycling life are key demands. The goal of this project is to fabricate an innovative MEMS-based hybrid supercapacitor with energy density > 100 µWh/cm2 (one of the greatest values reported for micro-supercapacitors), high poten ...

Sivananthan Laboratories proposes to develop an approach for measuring the temperature of materials with high spatial resolution and temperature accuracy in a scanning transmission electron microscope. The PIs will determine the bulk plasmon resonance using electron energy-loss spectroscopy, which has been demonstrated by the PIs to allow for a spatial resolution of better than 2 nm (when combined ...

The goal of this project is to develop, prototype, and experimentally validate a new Differential Global Navigation Satellite System (DGNSS) capable of providing sub-centimeter positioning accuracy for quasi-static scientific, survey, and structural health monitoring application. The main feature of the proposed DGNSS solution is that it leverages publically available GNSS reference data from exis ...

The objective of the proposed work is to determine whether Dioxide Materials' miniature C02 sensors have the potential to be adapted for autonomous measurement of ocean carbon. The existing sensors have many advantages for measurements of ocean carbon. They are much smaller and less costly than the existing sensors, work with much smaller gas samples, and use much less power. The sensors were d ...

The goal of this project is to develop, implement, and experimentally validate a new Differential Global Navigation Satellite System (DGNSS) capable of providing sub-centimeter positioning accuracy for quasi-static scientific, mapping, and survey applications. The main feature of the proposed DGNSS solution is that it leverages GNSS reference data from existing NOAA's Continuously Operational Ref ...

Passive microwave sensors aboard satellites provide valuable information regarding weather conditions by measuring atmospheric attenuation over a broad range of frequencies from 0-200 GHz. Additional ground-based sensors are desirable to provide complementary upward looking measurements that can be used to refine existing attenuation models. Operating over such a large bandwidth, however, places ...

In the proposed effort, we will leverage this extensive experience and capabilities to realize a frequency agile mmW radiometer that can cover the range of DC-110 GHz and can be scaled to DC-200 GHz under Phase II. Ours is a photonic system that multiplies and up-coverts a low-frequency reference signal onto an optical carrier (laser) using EO modulation, then uses the modulation sidebands to inj ...