Award Data

ABSTRACT: Weapon systems or other high value electrical systems within the US military are all subject to wiring faults and degradation. Additionally, weapon systems are kept in service longer because of shrinking defense budgets, further compounding the risks associated with wiring systems. The ability to detect and provide the location of existing wiring problems or pending failures is critic ...

An emerging class of passive millimeter-wave (pmmW) sensors currently provides an unmitigated threat to the US Navy. While considerable effort has been expended reducing RADAR signatures of the next generation of Naval vessels, these ship designs often present significant signatures to pmmW sensors. To date, little has been done to understand or reduce these signatures. However, as a new class of ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop an innovative process which can transform conventional cemented tungsten carbide (WC-Co), the most widely used industrial tool material, into functionally graded cemented tungsten carbide (FG WC-Co). Compared to the homogeneous structure of conventional WC-Co, FG WC-Co has a harder surface and tougher core due to a gra ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will demonstrate a prototype wave energy harvester using advanced materials developed in the Phase I effort. We have developed a patented concept for wave energy harvesting using low-cost magnetostrictive alloys. This technology shows promise as a means for delivering utility-scale electric power to the grid at a price that is competi ...

In the current SBIR program, AlphaSense aimed at developing a novel, handheld, non-destructive sensor to evaluate the integrity of Naval Advanced Amorphous Coatings (NAAC) in real time. In phase I, we have proven the feasibility of using the cavity perturbation technique to detect different types of defects present in thermal-sprayed testing coupons. Specifically, we optimized the sensor probe des ...

Autonomous Solutions, Inc. (ASI) has teamed with Johns Hopkins Universitys Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) to continue its Phase I development of autonomous manipulation and grasping behaviors for robotic manipulators. The team will continue the Phase I effort to engineer a system which will: Rely primarily on low-cost and ubiquitous monocular vision to allow for position ...

The Air Force has identified a need for an advanced traveling wave tube amplifier (TWTA) that supports future generations of broad bandwidth, efficient and linear military satellite and terrestrial communications. To address this need, InnoSys proposes to develop innovative solutions for advanced TWTAs that operate from 81 to 86 GHz, deliver high efficiency greater than 30% with a small signal ga ...

The continued advance of flat panel display technology in the commercial and consumer display industry offers the opportunity to provide wide field of view high resolution displays to the flight simulation community with significantly higher performance and lower cost than previously available. These flat panel displays offer exceptional brightness and contrast and steadily increasing resolution ...

There is an urgent need for a man-transportable EOD robot which can quickly traverse the distance between its operator and the suspected UXO, perform manipulation tasks requiring high dexterity, and then quickly return. This proposal describes an innovative solution to this need called ‘Taz’. Taz will weigh 40 kg, be capable of 40 kph for up to 8 hours, and will offer high dexterity manipulati ...

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and Raman spectroscopy are developing rapidly for chemical and biochemical sensing applications. There is an urgent need for high-sensitivity detectors so as to minimize sample quantity and maximize detection range from the source. In most field-deployable spectrometers, a photo-detector array is used for analyzing the spectral contents. The sensitivitie ...