Award Data

A major market for vertical lift aircraft is in urban operations, primarily for police and electronic news gathering (typically a Bell 206 or a Eurocopter AS350). Manned systems are more costly to operate and have a much larger operational footprint than their unmanned counterparts. But the unmanned multirotor does not have the range and endurance to compete with the manned systems. Aurora Fligh ...

This SBIR project aims to develop a software module for the SMART NAS Test Bed (or another similar simulation environment) that allows an apples-to-apples comparison of system performance across scenarios and a comparison to a 'best possible' case. The module, named TOMO (Toolkit for Optimality Metrics Overlay), is a metrics toolkit for comparing SMART NAS simulation runs to the optimal decision ...

We developed a EFB Data Communication Network (EDCN) concept that offers a more capable air-ground communications architecture. The solution takes full advantage of emerging communications technologies to integrate AOC/FOC and flight deck capabilities and leverage existing system integration between the AOC/FOC and TFMS to fully close the loop between controllers, traffic managers, pilots and disp ...

Resilient Ops, working in collaboration with Metron Aviation, Inc., proposes to develop a prototype system for planning Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) trajectories based on user intent and preference information. The system, called DRIFT-UAS (Distributed Resilient Framework for Trajectory Management of Unmanned Aircraft Systems), is intended to support autonomous Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM ...

Giner, Inc. has developed an advanced high pressure electrochemical oxygen concentrator (EOC) that offers a simple alternative to the use of pressure swing adsorption (PSA) systems to generate high pressure oxygen for the International Space Station (ISS) and future human space flight applications. The high pressure EOC is based on proven electrolyzer technology demonstrated at Giner and delivers ...

Today's mission designers rely on state of the art tools with modern graphical user interface (GUI) elements and real-time 3D interactive graphics to visualize their trajectories and orbit control strategies. NASA GSFC's General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) offers advanced mission design and optimization capabilities with a flexible GUI, but its 3D graphics are lacking in both the quantity and qua ...

We propose to develop a highly sensitive and compact RGB DPAS aerosol absorption monitor for NASA's Airborne Measurement Program. It will measure aerosol light absorption simultaneous at three spectral regions: blue, green and red. The proposed measurement technique takes advantage of the current rapid development on high-power semiconductor lasers MEMS microphones. It will eventually weigh less t ...

The search for life on earth-like extrasolar planets has emerged as a compelling long-term scientific goal for NASA. That goal has inspired innovative space-based coronagraphs that aim to collect spectral data from earth-like planets orbiting stars in distant solar systems. NASA's SBIR Solicitation topic Proximity Glare Suppression for Astronomical Coronography calls specifically for small stroke, ...

The primary goal of the proposed STARA innovation is to develop and demonstrate a high altitude precision guided parafoil system that will enable NASA to control the final landing point of the sounding rocket payload, thus reducing system offset, recovery time, and recovery cost. Current recovery methods utilize unguided parachutes, which are susceptible to large uncertainties in recovery location ...

We have demonstrated the ability of our Dynamic Monitoring and Decision Systems (DyMonDS) framework to structure a systems approach to the modeling and control of aircraft electric power systems. To begin, we selected two example aircraft power systems and developed dynamic models for those systems within the DyMonDS framework. Next, we derived optimized sets of control set points for the power s ...