Award Data

Blast-induced Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a major threat to the health of military personnel serving in modern theaters. As such, the biomechanical injury pathways of TBI are and have been the focus of many animal studies. However, differences in the experimental setups across laboratories make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions from the resulting data. A tool that can accurately e ...

There is a lack of quantitative tools to accurately map tissue viability in a rapid and quantitative manner so a surgeon can properly excise tissue prior to grafting. Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI) is an optical method that has been shown to be a reliable method for physiology assessment - particularly for burn depth. SFDI measures of tissue structure (scattering) and function (hemoglobi ...

During the last two decades, vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) have emerged as excellent high-power laser sources that combine diode-pumping, broad-pump tolerance, wavelength selectivity, narrow linewidth, broad tunability, high beam quality, compactness, and efficiency into one attractive package. These characteristics make them an ideal candidate for use as more economic ...

Adaptive Optics allow ground-based astronomical observatories to overcome atmospheric distortion limited observation by using natural and artificial guide stars to measure the distortion. Sodium-layer guide stars provide near all-sky coverage for high resolution astronomy. Over the last 20 years, Optically Pumped Semiconductor Laser (OPSL), also referred to as Vertically Extended Cavity Surface ...

In this effort, tOSC and the University of New Mexico COSMIAC (Configurable Space Microsys- tems Innovation Applications Center) will combine to generate a Target-in-the-Loop (TIL) system concept that can simultaneously measure the strength of atmospheric turbulence and scintillation, as well as the refractivity occurring at the measurement time. For this system concept, we will leverage existing ...

The US Air Force has noted a need for a tool for broadband (300 nm2m) measurement of optical propagation properties such as absorption and scattering coefficients. A simple and inexpensive generic tool for extracting these properties from samples would be beneficial to many areas of both DoD and general scientific and industrial research. The present proposal seeks to develop a commercial instrume ...

A Battlefield Airman (BA) has one of the most challenging positions in the military. BA personnel are tasked with the dual roles of being warfighters as well as Combat Controllers, Pararescuemen, Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) members and Special Operations Weather Technicians often while behind enemy lines. These complex duties require high fidelity training. In some cases, such as pararesc ...

The proposed project will develop advanced modeling capabilities for hypersonic flow problems, specifically for predicting aerothermodynamic flow field for estimation of drag, thermal and structural loads, and for surface interactions. A quantum-to-continuum suite of tools that develop molecular relaxation models based on computational chemistry and quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) analysis will b ...

An experimental method is proposed to enable time-resolved measurements of both gas and particle velocities in explosions containing particles for munitions research. The approach involves novel processing methods for two-dimensional images that allow discrimination of the image content based on particle size. This allows an image containing a poly-dispersed distribution of particles to be decompo ...

The aerothermal environment for hypersonic flight vehicles is severe and can generate extremely high material temperatures. These high-temperature environments can cause intense localized heating, which may result in local pockets and/or structural instabilities, especially at vehicle leading-edge regions, and may lead to disruptions that affect vehicle performance. The aerothermal environment may ...