Award Data

Perceptronics Solutions, Inc. and the USC Computer Science Department present this proposal to develop an adaptive software system that will automatically form 'virtual' human networks. Our objective is to develop an automated system capable of: (1) identifying groups of people who should be in contact with each other by virtue of their parent organization's basic mission, that is, the long term ...

Warfare is changing; there is a need for airborne and space-based sensor systems to detect small, highly maneuverable targets against a strong clutter background in the presence of jamming. Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) is a new signal processing technique for advanced radar systems that allows for performance enhancements over conventional approaches. Current power, weight, and size cons ...

Traditional finite element methods require conversion of a CAD model into an alternate geometric representation called the finite element mesh. Tools like Cubit, developed at Sandia National Laboratories, have greatly reduced the time to mesh. However, it is still expensive to produce a complete analysis and difficult to have that analysis affect the design cycle in a timely manner. Our studies ...

This Phase-I STTR MDA Proposal proposes the use of a new class of diamond-seeded solid-state material system for the manufacture of virtually all heat-generating solid-state electronics in X-band and Ballistic Missile Defense radar components and systems. In this proposal wherein much preliminary (DARPA- and MDA-funded) work has been demonstrated hitherto by the authors, all or most of the basic s ...

Inlustra Technologies and the University of California, Santa Barbara propose to grow and characterize thick non-polar and semi-polar gallium nitride (GaN) wafers that will act as seeds for subsequent GaN boule growth. In this Phase I STTR effort, Inlustra will first develop non-polar and semi-polar GaN films with smooth surfaces and minimal wafer bowing and cracking. The growth conditions for e ...

We propose a new method developed by our employees and collaborators for the digital representation of real world objects. This will result in an implicit surface urban terrain model that interpolates raw point cloud data. The method can handle complex topologies and geometries easily. Topology changes pose no difficulties. The key idea involves shrink wrapping an implicit surface around data poin ...

Imaging with X-rays and gamma rays is a long established technique. It is possible with recent technological advances that standard transmission radiography may be extended to self-radiography, where the natural radioactivity of the object itself and the surrounding matrix is used as the source of X-rays. Self-radiography is much more complex than traditional radiography, chiefly because it depend ...

At present, turbine NDE is typically a time consuming collection of inspections that includes manual testing of holes and channels for blockages, multiple flow tests and various inspection technologies such as ultrasound, eddy current and radiography. Thermography has also become a widely method used to perform various inspections. However, many of thermographic inspections require different equ ...

We propose to develop advanced algorithms and software to collaboratively track people and vehicles in an urban environment using video imagery (visible, IR) from a network of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The tracking and data fusion architecture will have one fusion node in a surveillance region, with a number of UAVs associated with the fusion node. We propose the multiple hypotheses trackin ...

Lattice Block Structures are innovative, periodic cellular materials whose combination of affordability, low relative density, and substantial strength represents a significant advance in the state-of-the-art of engineered structural materials. Lattice Block Structures in particular have superior kinetic energy absorbing ability that stems from the collapsibility of the internal cells. As a result ...