Award Data

Oscilla Power, Inc. (OPI) is developing a utility-scale wave energy harvester that is enabled by low cost and readily-available magnetostrictive alloys. T his device, which utilizes no moving parts, has the potential to deliver predictable quantities of electric power to coastal utilities, industrial users, and remote facilities at costs competitive with coal or gas. The Phase I project demonstra ...

Marine aquaculture production now exceeds 20 million metric tons annually (FAO 2010) but viral diseases are still a major threat to the expansion of sustainable mariculture systems (National Marine Fisheries Service 2007). Pathogenic viruses continue to devastate many fish and shellfish operations every year (ICES Mariculture Committee 2004, Lightner 2011). To date, vaccines against aquatic anim ...

Space-based laser systems require unsurpassed reliability and ruggedness, as space-deployment may make it impossible to service and repair deployed systems. In this program we propose to continue our Phase I investigation to systematically identify, address and eliminate the most significant failure points in space-deployed diode laser systems. We will replace these points of failure with evoluti ...

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is currently developing a comprehensive testing environment to test and evaluate the operation of multiple elements operating concurrently within the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). Synthetic scene generators are required to be developed to stimulate, in real-time, both radar and optical sensors within the BMDS. These scene generators must present to the ...

As the current trends in transistor miniaturization are continued down to the molecular level ( in a dimension of tens of nanometers or less), the electronic properties of solids and solid-solid interfaces are inherently different on the nanometer level.It is becoming clear that continued increases in circuit density will require fairly dramatic changes in the way transistors are designed and ope ...

This SBIR Phase II project proposed to develop a new fabrication technology that would lead to ultra low-cost, high quality radial gradient refractive index (GRIN) rods, which are widely used in fiber optic communications. Drastic cost reduction isexpected because several cost and labor intensive manufacturing processes will be eliminated, the product yield will be increased significantly compare ...

THE SODIUM HEAT ENGINE (SHE) IS AN EFFICIENT DEVICE FOR THE DIRECT CONVERSION OF THERMAL ENERGY TO ELECTRICAL ENERGY. THE DEVICE HAS HIGH SPECIFIC POWER BOTH ON A VOLUME AND WEIGHT BASIS, HIGH CONVERSION EFFICIENCY WHICH IS INDEPENDENT OF SIZE, AND NO MOVING PARTS WHICH IMPLIES POTENTIALLY HIGH RELIABILITY. THESE ATTRIBUTES MAKE THE SHE AN ATTRACTIVE DEVICE FOR SDI APPLICATIONS. ALTHOUGH THE PRINC ...

A SELF CONTAINED LIQUEFIER IS BEING DEVELOPED TO RECONDENSE THE VAPOR BOILOFF FROM THE CRYOGENIC LIQUID STORAGE DEWARS OF LONG LIFE SPACE POWER SYSTEMS. THE PROOF-OF-PRINCIPLE LIQUEFIER FOR THE CHALLENGING DUTY OF HELIUM LIQUEFACTION IS A SMALL LOW CAPACITY (10 LITRES LIQUID HELIUM PER DAY) UNCOMPLICATED SYSTEM HAVING A LONG MAINTENANCE FREE OPERATING LIFE AND LOW INITIAL COST WITH MODEST AUXILIAR ...

Employing the sol-gel technology, the Phase II program intend to realize compact multimode interference (MMI) beam splitters integrated with semiconductor diode lasers on silicon for multi-channel pumping of Er3+ doped fiber amplifiers. The MMI splitterswill be designed for the 980-nm window in such a way that the pump-shared outputs will be achieved through a cavity formed between a diode laser ...

KINETIC-KILL VEHICLES WILL NEED GUIDANCE, NAVIGATION AND CONTROL SYSTEMS CAPABLE OF OPERATING AFTER LONG PERIODS OF TIME IN A HOSTILE RADIATION ENVIRONMENT. COMPONENTS RESISTANT TO BURNOUT CAUSED BY EXPOSURE TO INTENSE LEVELS OF RADIATION MUST ALSO BE SMALL, LIGHT WEIGHT AND LOW-COST. SUITABLE LOW-COST INERTIAL SENSORS--ACCELEROMETERS AND GYROS--AND THE ELECTRONICS NEEDED TO INTERFACE THEM TO MICR ...