Award Data

Future military satellite fiber optic systems require a matrix optical switch for reconfigurability. But to date, no MEMS based switch has been able to withstand the harsh shock and vibration environment of space. Agiltron, Inc., an experienced manufacturer of aerospace qualified optical switches, proposes to realize a new MEMS-based fiber-optic matrix switch capable of vastly improved performance ...

Decision support tools for target identification and alert generation depend upon the classification of static and moving objects. Existing methods for object classification rely primarily on static information available in single-frame images. The data from long-range video surveillance assets are usually not sufficient to distinguish the objects from one another, and even if high-resolution data ...

A key challenge for battlefield mission rehearsal and training systems is the estimation of enemy courses of action (COAs). Currently, adversarial COA development is a manual time-consuming process prone to errors due to limited knowledge about the adversary and its ability to adapt. Development of battlefield simulations with embedded technology that can predict its adversary’s intent and range ...

Recent advances in the single wavelength excitation to induce upconversion emission in transparent colloids of Lanthanide-doped NaYF4 nanocrystals provide the opportunity for significant performance in biological tagging applications. For many military missions, a cost-effective, ultra-compact, passively infrared detection is also required to take advantage of the weak fluorescence. Upconversion ...

An optical, non-contact roof deformation monitoring system will be designed based on an existing multi-point, non-contact, multi-axis optical sensor-based measurement system that is currently used to measure chest deflection in crash-test dummies. The research involves determining suitable components to be used in the optical path, from high-power LED arrays through lenses and optical sensors. T ...

Busek Co. Inc. proposes to conduct critical studies and experiments to establish the feasibility of a novel High ALtitude Endurance aircraft (HALE) engine called MICE for Monopropellant Internal Combustion Engine. The reference fuel is the hydroxyammonium nitrate (HAN) based monopropellant AF-M315E developed by AFRL for small thrusters in space applications. The heat of combustion of AF-M315E is ...

Straight Jacket is a combined effect system laid down as a mat that attacks the running gear of tracked vehicles using a combination of effects. Rather than counter the mass and power of the heavy armor head on, the Straight Jacket system is a subtle approach and uses the running gears design vulnerabilities to its advantage. The system target area is large (9m diameter) and has already been sho ...

PowerPoint™ is ubiquitous within government, military, academic, and commercial organizations, yet has many drawbacks that impair knowledge transfer. Authors must fit information into a linear array of slide-size chunks, built from generic primitives like bullets and clipart. This organization can obscure information, and ignores the human capacity for “visual cognition.” There is no interac ...

Multicore technology is forcing concurrency into the mainstream of programming. In general, the application developer will have little control over the execution environment, such as the number of cores. New tools will be needed to help application developers identify parallelism, write correct and scalable code, and analyze performance bottlenecks. We propose to use dynamic instrumentation to bu ...

Practical use of a unitized regenerative fuel cell (URFC) for solar powered aircraft and similar applications has been limited due to a lack of proven technology designed for the mission requirements. The concept of the static feed unitized regenerative fuel cell, successfully demonstrated in the laboratory in the DARPA/NRL Water Rocket program and two NASA SBIR contracts provides a strong basis ...