Award Data

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 ...

Physical Sciences Inc. proposes to develop and mature the Network Fusion Radiation Analysis Tool (NFRAT) to address the need for an enhanced radiation hazard mapping, localization and identification capability in support of contamination avoidance operations and sensitive site exploitation. The NFRAT software will utilize dynamic representations of the radiological environment and statistical mode ...

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 ...

The event of nuclear explosion generates harsh radiation conditions, evaluation of which is critical in protecting the military and civilian personnel from serious harm.  Due to these harsh conditions only very simple methods of radiation assessment are employed, such as measurement of equivalent dose.  Improvements to current instrumentation are sought that would provide energy resolved dose in ...

In the condition of a nuclear event, it is critical that warfighters and first responders are equipped with active dosimeters and dose rate meters.  These tools can be made from scintillation-based detector systems that require a high performance photodetector.  The silicon photomultiplier is a compact photodetector that would be ideal for such a detector system, yet their performance suffers fr ...

This program seeks to develop ultrafast, radiation hard, and rugged scintillators for nuclear battlefields based on high  melting-point temperatures oxide crystal. Doping, co-doping, and alloying schemes will be explored to reach the target of < 5ns decay time, light yield >1000 ph/MeV, moderate energy resolution

The Counter-UAS Reinforcement learning Environment (The CURE) is a flexible, architecture-agnostic reinforcement learning (RL) training, evaluation, and demonstration environment alongside a set of state-of-the-art benchmark agents. The CURE is designed to allow researchers and RL experts to design, train, and test groundbreaking deep RL agents to avoid or defeat counter-UAS (C-UAS) challenges whi ...

There is significant interest in multi-functional materials enabling gamma-ray spectroscopy, neutron/gamma pulse shape discrimination (PSD), ultra-fast response, and time-of-flight (TOF) neutron detection. These materials would be used in a variety of mission scenarios for the localization and monitoring of special nuclear materials. Commercial inorganic scintillators may offer some of these chara ...

CANTEAN: Cave and Narrow Tunnel Exploration and Navigation is a flying system that employs low-SWaP sensors and processor for rapid navigation and mapping of unknown, subterranean areas autonomously.

The ability to discriminate between threatening and benign sources depends on the sensitivity, accuracy, and identification speed of the detection equipment. High energy resolution of the radionuclide sensor is necessary to decrease the likelihood of false identification. However, few scintillators achieve better than 3% energy resolution at 662 keV, and none exceed 2.5%. The goal of this effort i ...