Award Data

Polarix is developing a motor/generator/inverter technology, which combines major increase in power density with increased, reliability, efficiency and manufacturability. The Polarix Arrayed Controlled Turnless Structures (ACTS) motor will exhibit up to an order of magnitude greater power density than present technology.  It relies on the integration of arrays of low voltage independently control ...

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In battlefield environments, ballistic impact may result in the failure of military structures and materials, including armor. To improve the reliability and safety of military structures and materials, it is important to study material failure under ballistic impact in the design stage. There are two main failure phenomena related to the material response due to ballistic impact. One is adiaba ...

Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs) are one of the most versatile sources of radiation in the mid-infrared range and have found applications in a variety of fields. Despite their widespread adoption, one of the main hurdles holding QCLs back from large volume manufacturing is the large cost of ownership. While QCLs, like most semiconductor devices based on III-V compounds, can leverage the economies of ...

Virtual EM, in collaboration with the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences (MNIMBS) of the University of Michigan, proposes to develop the first stage in a BWA sensor, an electronic switch that indicates the presence of a biological warfare agent (BWA). This work will use previously designed aptamers that bind specifically to the BWA. The switch will activate in t ...

Most VTOL aircraft in development today focus on shorter range and smaller payloads, insufficient or too expensive for regional travel. To meet this need, Craft is developing a novel VTOL aircraft focused on regional transport and wide accessibility. The

This project addresses the Army's needs for a compact power source. The system design is based on state-of-the-art high CO tolerant solid acid fuel cells (SAFCs) operating at 250 degrees C and a thermally matched methanol reformer creating a 20 Wnet lightweight, rugged, efficient unit capable of running for 72 hours with an energy density of about 1 kWh/kg.

Laboratory investigations have suggested that acoustically or vibrationally inducing motion in buried targets can aid in improving target detectability through a characteristic response related to differential target motion. This gain is realized by adding an additional degree of freedom, modulation due to motion in the GPR return signal, to use as a discriminating feature. The AKELA team is propo ...

The ability to determine the direction and characteristics of sounds they hear is one many birds and mammals are endowed with. This biological ability evolved over millions of years, and if one can understand the mechanisms, one expects, we can copy and mimic the capability to some extent in practical applications. Audio cues are also essential for situation awareness for soldiers. Ability t ...

Naval Special Warfare (NSW) teams often use underwater vehicles (UVs) for clandestine transport into highly sensitive littoral areas. The current sonar suites on the existing vehicles do not include a system for detecting and identifying active sonar transmissions, making the vehicle and the SEALs susceptible to detection by active sonar systems on manned and unmanned surface and subsurface surve ...