Award Data

Historical methods of reliability assessment are less and less effective as device sizes shrink. Larger sample sizes and longer duration tests are increasingly needed. At the same time, efforts to continue scaling semiconductors to ever smaller geometries is leading to an explosion of new device structures, materials and processes. The cost of testing these innovations is becoming a major barrier ...

Salo IT Solutions, Inc. will design and implement the Wide-area, Environmental Sensing and alterTing network (WESTnet) protocols, a next-generation suite of wireless network protocols that will provide enhanced services for hydrologic warning systems and other large-scale, wide-area environmental monitoring activities. The WESTnet protocols will offer significant functionality over that available ...

This project develops an electroencephalography (EEG)-based training tool to enable individuals to improve neurocognitive processes associated with executive function through the use of neurofeedback, a form of biofeedback in which real-time measures of brainwave activity are presented to an individual in a manner that enables them to willfully control aspects of their brainwave activity with the ...

This project develops a multimodal computer graphics visualization tool that is based on an inexpensive consumer electronic product, a wireless haptic accessory device, and visualization software. During Phase I, a prototype is developed and compared against hard-copy embossed print outs and an expensive piezo-electric display. This research is based on the issues faced by the blind and visually i ...

This project develops and evaluates an accident prevention system for manual wheelchairs. A stability control system, similar to technology available for passenger cars is developed and evaluated to establish its feasibility and utility to independent wheelchair users. There were more than 80,000 emergency room visits in 2008 due to wheelchair falls. Falls cause significant physical and potentiall ...

This project develops an indoor route following system using a novel indoor location technology. This technology allows a user who is blind to follow a path inside a building. Using this device, a visitor to a shopping mall can enter the building and follow a pre-recorded path to a specific store. The user can make his or her own path with the aid of a sighted person or download prerecorded paths ...

This project designs, builds, and evaluates a pre-production prototype of a hearing aid using a three-axis telecoil assembly. Telecoils in hearing aids serve a dual purpose: (1) to enhance telephone conversation, and (2) enable hearing aids to serve as a wireless interface for public audio broadcasts. When broadcasting audio signals, the signal is transmitted to the telecoil sensor (a magnetic fie ...

Accelerators used in synchrotron light sources require megawatts of radio-frequency energy. They currently employ vacuum-tube power amplifiers or conventional solid-state amplifiers that are inefficient and therefore consume a great deal of prime electrical power. We will review available transistors, analyze high-efficiency power-amplifier techniques, and experimentally evaluate candidate amplifi ...

Current technology for detecting long wavelength and very long wavelength infrared light, such as mercury cadmium telluride-based sensors, suffers from deleterious characteristics such as high noise and high cost. Creating detectors that operate in this wavelength range that reduce noise and cost will foster further implementation into remote sensing systems. SVT Associates proposes an innovative ...

Accelerators used for nuclear-physics research require megawatts of radio-frequency energy. They currently employ vacuum-tube power amplifiers or conventional solid-state amplifiers that are inefficient and therefore consume a great deal of prime electrical power. We will review available transistors, analyze high-efficiency power-amplifier techniques, and experimentally evaluate candidate amplifi ...