Award Data

ABSTRACT: Space solar power systems range in size from the International Space Station with 8 solar arrays producing 84,000 watts all the way down to body-mounted single wafers on individual cubesats. The current state-of-the-art relies on multi-junction gallium arsenide or inverted metamorphic cells affixed to rigid structural panels. The need for a low-mass, high energy output solar array for ...

ABSTRACT: Solar arrays play a key role in the operation of spacecrafts and unmanned aerial vehicles. Traditionally, inorganic semiconductor based solar arrays have been used for space applications because of their highest efficiencies. However, these solar arrays have several major limitations like extremely high cost, low specific power and large stowage volume. Organic photovoltaic (OPV) module ...

ABSTRACT: This Phase I effort will involve the development of an ultra low cost, high specific power, modular and flexible solar array module using currently available thin-film solar cells, innovative interconnects, and flexible encapsulation. The high efficiency thin-film solar cells will enable high specific power and flexibility in the module. The interconnect scheme and encapsulation will a ...

ABSTRACT: This Phase II STTR research proposal aims to demonstrate an antenna coupled phase modulator based on an Electro-optic (EO) polymer refilled slot photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) for operation in the Q band. The goal is to detect field strengths of 100uW/m^2 in an Intensity Modulation Direct Detection (IMDD) scheme using subwavelength antennas. The EO polymer is the SEO125 provided by Dr ...

ABSTRACT: Due to increasing communications demand for tactical mission operations force the DoD to initiative to migrate the existing circuit-switched, bent-pipe satellite communication systems to the onboard packet switched satellite systems using Internet Protocols. The new approach offers significant flexibility and performance gain, but there are still tough challenges, e.g., high bit error r ...

RDRTec Inc. and The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) propose to gather data in support of the development of techniques that will enable the efficient and effective detection and tracking of Small Maritime Targets (SMT) at high altitudes. This capability will be incorporated as an upgrade to the currently funded Radar Collision Avoidance System (RACAS) under development ...

Using its Phase I program results, M4 Engineering, Inc. and Sandia National Laboratories will continue to create a unique bonded joint analysis methodology and associated software. Surrogate traction-separation models will be created that efficiently capture the behavior that occurs for real bonded joints. Mixed mode loading, including compressive normal tractions and relative displacements will b ...

Our initial, practical and potentially commercial approach, based upon years of basic and applied research in chaotic computation, was developed in Phase I of our project. Following upon phase I of the STTR project we propose, in Phase II, to engineer, synthesize, and exploit the rich, intrinsic dynamics of nonlinear and chaotic circuits and systems to implement reconfigurable, secure and noise re ...

To address the Navys need for a solid state fundamental mode green laser for ocean mine detection, Lumany is proposing a compact, high efficiency, diode pumped solid state, q-switched laser based on novel laser diode pumps and a unique solid state crystal with excellent with energy storage properties for high peak power, short pulsed green lasing output at 520nm from the fundamental mode. This pro ...

ABSTRACT: Given the results obtained in the Phase I effort, we are now in a position to advance to the next generation of High Power Phased Array Transceiver Systems. The new approach proposed here is to use enough elements in the phased array to ensure that significant wavefront compensation performance can be obtained with only piston commands. A system of this nature can be developed in two ...