Award Data

Reduced mass materials are critical to the success of aerospace systems. Thus, large air and space structures can benefit from lightweight composite materials. However, their adoption is impaired by the lack of a robust, cost-effective fabrication process, principally because the autoclaves used to consolidate composite laminates are so expensive for large parts. This program develops for US aeros ...

The recent performance increases in graphics processing units (GPUs) have made graphics cards an attractive platform for implementing computationally intense applications. With their numerous parallel computational pipelines and SIMD architecture, modern GPUs can outperform high-end microprocessors by one to three orders of magnitude, depending on the problem. Most work to date at EM Photonics a ...

NASA's next generation of x-ray observation missions require x-ray calorimeters with superior energy resolution. Semimetallic HgTe has already proven itself as an excellent soft x-ray absorber material due to its low heat capacity. Hg0.834Cd0.166Te was shown in Phase 1 to have a heat capacity superior to that of HgTe. Hence Hg0.834Cd0.166Te-based microcalorimeter arrays are expected to have an ene ...

The objective of this proposal is to study and demonstrate novel GaAsNP/GaP/AlGaP technology for use in extreme photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion. NASA and the scientific community are interested in solar missions that go as far as Saturn or even into near sun conditions. Such missions present a challenging problem for PV technology. In addition to the requisite high efficiency and reduced so ...

The goal of this Phase II project is to deliver an integrated L-band transmit/receive (T/R) module which will be fabricated from a GaAs-based combined HBT/PHEMT epistructure. The T/R module will consist of a power amplifier, a low noise amplifier, and two switches. The performance goal for the low noise amplifier is 30 dB gain with a less than 1.0 dB noise figure. The performance goal for the p ...

The Complex Event Recognition Architecture (CERA) provides five major innovations: (1) The ComplexEvent Description Language (CEDL): a declarative language for describing complex events: that is, eventsthat can occur across time, be sensed from multiple channels, and be composed of the conjunction, disjunctionor negation of other complex or simple events; (2) The Complex Event Recognition Language ...

The goal of this project is to develop, prototype, and experimentally validate a new Differential Global Navigation Satellite System (DGNSS) capable of providing sub-centimeter positioning accuracy for quasi-static scientific, survey, and structural health monitoring application. The main feature of the proposed DGNSS solution is that it leverages publically available GNSS reference data from exis ...

During the Phase I project, major portions of a base, open-source, easily extensible battery modeling system have been developed with a modern, modular architecture and methods. In addition to the new modules and architecture built by Illinois Rocstar, we have identified a number of available tools that fit well with our vision of the final ICED product. Open-source tools from the Oak Ridge Nation ...

As NASA space missions become longer in duration the need for high efficiency power generator sets that can operate on NASA logistical fuel become critical. Historically NASA has used fuel cells as part of the energy solution. Space bound energy and power systems require rapid start and stop cycle times as well as high power densities. The high operational efficiency, coupled with the use of logi ...

In the proposed Phase II project, MicroLink and its collaborator, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), will incorporate quantum dots (QDs) in the GaAs and InGaAs subcells of an InGaP/GaAs/InGaAs triple-junction solar cell to increase the radiation tolerance and thereby improve the end-of-life performance of the solar cell by >5%. The quantum dot solar cell will be grown in an inverted metamorp ...