Award Data

The US DoD requires robust ways of neutralizing threats posed by hostile powers and terrorist organizations that may be in possession of dangerous weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Unfortunately, the weapons currently available to the DoD do not offer a way for the WMD to be destroyed without risking the spread of that material throughout the area. The strategy for the defeat of biological weapo ...

Terrorist use of radioactive nuclear materials via nuclear and/or radiological dispersion devices (dirty bombs) is a serious threat. Therefore, it is critical to detect the proliferation of nuclear material. Critical challenges facing this objective include: (a) high sensitivity detection of signature emissions (e.g., gamma rays) from common radioactive isotopes behind shielding, and (b) cost-effe ...

The modern warfighter faces the constant threat of endemic infections, multi-drug resistant bacteria and Biological Warfare Agents. In order to provide accurate front-line treatment that will curtail the overuse of antibiotics, a rapid and robust molecula

This program will demonstrate how additive manufacturing technologies can be used with reactive and high energy materials to create rapid and flexible fabrication of payload and munitions. Our primary approach to this problem will be to use powder bed binder printing techniques to print reactive structures. The anticipated feedstock will consist of composite particles containing all reactant spe ...

Micro-RDC will develop portable radiation effects test structures that scales to new process nodes. These structures will enable the investigation of the effects of radiation on the new technology from the material processing level as well as the circuit level. The production of the chosen structures and the development of software to extract the model parameters will form the framework. A suit ...

A compact laser driver will allow photoconductive semiconductor switches to be used in small EMP simulator "building blocks" (EMPBB). Combined with a battery powered on-board pulsed power system, these EMPBBs will allow the construction of flexible EMP test facilities with nothing more than a single fiber optic timing connection to each EMPBB.

For effective protection against EMP and HPM threats, it is important to understand the physics of the threats, and also to quantify the effects they have on electrical systems. EMP and HPM vulnerability testing requires delivery of high peak power and electric fields to distant targets. The most practical solution to simulate such environments is to develop a modular, optically-isolated MV-antenn ...

Cost-effective application of advanced commercial electronics technologies in DoD space systems requires early development of radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) techniques, and use of simulations is critical to the efficiency of this process. CFDRC has developed an integrated, mixed-mode simulation approach allowing their NanoTCAD device physics simulator to interface with commercial circuit simu ...

In the setting of altitude-induced hypoxia, operator cognitive capacity degrades and can compromise both individual and team performance. This degradation is linked to falling brain energy (ATP) levels and an increased reliance on anaerobic energy production from glucose. Ketone bodies are the evolutionary alternative substrate to glucose for brain metabolic requirements; previous studies have sho ...

Acclimatization is the long-term adjustment that humans experience when exposed for weeks or months to high altitude. Acclimatization is important in this context because a warfighter who is acclimatized to high altitude is immune to high altitude illness, has superior work capacity, and has cognitive function approaching that found at sea level. In other words, the acclimatized warfighter is opti ...