Award Data

Existing turn-based strategy war games have the potential to act as useful military training tools. However, their utility is greatly limited by the shortfalls of the artificial intelligence (AI) routines used to provide computer opponents. The key limitation in state-of the-art AI used in commercial wargames is the inability of the computer to perform situation assessment - to recognize the huma ...

Active flow control using synthetic jet actuators has been the subject of significant research in recent years. Modulated input signals to achieve flow control objectives have been shown to be highly nonlinear and complex. Developing a comprehensive, wind tunnel-validated model of synthetic jet actuators in a single application is technically challenging and expensive. Given the varied and growi ...

Improved characterization of the dominant paths of bone conducted sound transmission caused by external acoustic excitation for a person wearing a plug/earmuff combination is urgently needed for development of effective hearing protection in extremely high noise fields. This two phase program will achieve this ambitious goal through the extensive use of computer simulation techniques which are su ...

Some ground crews for aircrafts are exposed to ambient noise levels up to 150 dB SPL: at these levels, conduction of sound through tissues is significant and may be responsible for hearing loss. Protecting the ear canal with earplugs and earmuffs cannotprevent damage caused by tissue-conducted sound. Our research partners at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, experts in bioacoustics and ...

Reinforced tough ceramics that fail gracefully are requied for structural components in airframes and engines of military and commercial airplanes. The expected toughening was not realized when alumina powder, containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs), was consolidated by hot isostatic pressing due to the destruction of the CNTs at the high temperatures encountered. HY-Tech has demonstrated in the Phase ...

Luna Innovations addresses the US Air Force need to develop flexible transistors and electronic devices to enable fabrication of smart skins and conformal electronic structures. Electronically active organic and polymer materials have been studied extensively for their use in various electronic devices such as transistors, photovoltaics, and light emitting diodes. These devices have significant ...

Crested multi-layer tunnel barriers have been proposed, which offer a revolutionary solution to overcome density to speed trade-offs characteristic of present data storage technologies. Practical implementation of the proposed technology will involve useof thin film materials which are readily manufacturable and CMOS-compatible. A critical need exists for experimental verification of the theoret ...

This STTR program would investigate the feasibility of ionic self-assembled monolayer (ISAM) synthesis techniques for the fabrication of flexible multilayer, multifunctional corrosion mitigating coatings for the protection of large area aluminum aircraftstructural components. NanoSonic and our Virginia Tech STTR partner have already demonstrated that multiple properties and morphologies may be in ...

The optimization of scramjet engine performance parameters such as combustion efficiency, thrust maximization, reduction in pollutants, minimization of exhaust signatures (for stealth) are essential. Measurements of chemical species and temperature in the scramjet engine during test flight are critical for evaluating engine performance. For a diode laser-based sensor system to be a viable option ...

This Phase II STTR project will continue the research and development of a simultaneous multi-species sensor system for scramjets flight test instrumentation. The sensor system is based on modulation-frequency multiplexing to combine several laser wavelengths and using a single two-color photodiode detector to collect the laser signals along the same optical path. High-sensitivity detection of c ...