Award Data

Blast-induced Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a major threat to the health of military personnel serving in modern theaters. TBI incidence rates in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom approached 3% of all deployed personnel. Indeed, TBI has become known as the “signature” injury of these conflicts. Blast overpressure can also damage the lungs, eardrums, and eyes. Development ...

The detection of radionuclide aerosols is a critical indicator of a nuclear detonation. Current detection systems used in the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty’s  (CTBT) global monitoring network stations spend 24 hours collecting and concentrating particulates from the air to gather enough sample material for adequate detection sensitivity. This approach is inherently a batch process that ...

There is a growing need to accurately characterize nuclear materials not only for nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation treaty verification but also for forensics and provenance. At present, nuclear material identification requires samples to be collected and sent to laboratories for analysis using large and expensive equipment, such as inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers (ICP-MS) or s ...

Hearing is important to our physical and mental health. Within the Department of Defense (DOD), more than 200,000 service members have hearing impairment and close to 500,000 Veterans receive compensation for service-connected hearing loss. To protect personnel from hearing loss, DOD Instruction 6055.12 establishes requirements for Hearing Conservation Programs (HCPs). Under 6055.12, each DOD Comp ...

This proposal for Phase II in response to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) topic 212-006 “Algorithm that can locally link radiation detectors (of different resolutions) to enhance identification/ localization capability”. The topic describes the need for an algorithm to support the fusion of multiple and varied detector outputs into actionable information. The specific focus is to id ...

Dizziness is a common complaint, with about one third of the population experiencing dizziness at some point in their life. Vestibular rehabilitation targets vestibular adaptation and substitution for patients with vertigo and dizziness of vestibular origin. Unfortunately, vestibular rehabilitation requires specialized physical therapists who may not be accessible to service members or the general ...

The nature of military operations leads to high noise levels, exposing personnel to the possibility of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Individual hearing monitoring is conducted yearly, which can only provide a record of the progression of irreversible hearing loss with limited options for intervention and mitigation. Furthermore, there is limited data that links actual, real-world noise exposu ...

The purpose of this SBIR topics is to develop, demonstrate, and commercialize an automated and data-driven computational framework for the design and optimization of passive prosthetic & orthotic (P&O) interfaces. Such a framework will predict the equilibrium shape and compliant mechanical properties of an optimized P&O interface, enhancing user comfort, mitigating soft tissue injury, and ultimate ...

A noise dosimeter must handle three types of noise: (1) continuous, (2) intermittent, and (3) impulsive, all of which may occur simultaneously. By nature, impulsive noise is highly dynamic with potentially extreme peak levels. The measurement of impulsive noise therefore requires a microphone that can detect very-high sound pressure levels with enough accuracy to determine total energy. The Depar ...

BLUESHIFT, or “Bi-directional Laser Ultrasound Enhanced System using Holographic Imaging For Treatment,” is a handheld non-contact laser ultrasound imaging device for military field triage identification of anomalies in tissue, such as shrapnel and hemorrhages. The size of a cell phone, BLUESHIFT incorporates innovative techniques to measure the skin vibrations from returning ultrasound pulses ...