List

Accurate and timely weather information for situational awareness is critical to the success of Air Force missions.To date, space-borne sensors for weather forecasting primarily include visible, infrared, and microwave instruments.While visible and infrared sensors have reached a high level of maturity and performance, those operating in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum continu ...

Titanium torque tubes in aircraft braking systems can suffer material property degradation from heat damage in extreme braking events. The Air Force requires a nondestructive inspection (NDI) method to identify heat-damaged titanium torque tubes. Vibrant Corporation performs NDI services in the aerospace industry using its Process Compensated Resonance Testing (PCRT) technology. PCRT uses the reso ...

Atmospheric propagation effects have a profound impact on Directed Energy (DE) High Energy Lasers and electro-optical sensor systems which operate at near infrared and visible wavelengths.In order to provide an accurate assessment of (DE) weapon system effectiveness, several parameters describing the atmospheric conditions must be either measured or modeled.On top of the atmospheric modeling, one ...

Air Force cargo aircraft do not currently have powered roller systems for cargo handling.Airmen must manually flip roller trays located in slots in the floor to face rollers upward to support the weight of pallets.For rolling stock, airmen must flip trays to face rollers downward and present a flush load-bearing surface.The manual effort to move pallets and flip trays causes injuries and lost work ...

MZA has teamed with the University of Notre Dame in the development of a surrogate model for jitter estimation in optical turret designs for aircraft laser weapon systems which applies our expertise in physics modeling of aerodynamic loading, turret-optics structural dynamics analysis, optical design, and beam control systems assessment.We make use of existing optical turret wind tunnel data, alon ...

Increased use of composites in USAF platforms, and in commercial aircraft necessitates accurate structural analysis of bolted joints.The main disadvantage of bolted joints is the formation of high stress concentration zones at the locations of bolt holes, which might lead to multi-mode failure of the joint.An optimum combination of geometric parameters in a bolted joint can lead to increases in jo ...

x

Applied Technology Associates (ATA) proposes to develop the Precision Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) for Spacecraft Applications (PISA), which will provide position, velocity, and acceleration information for Air Force SmallSat and CubeSat spacecraft.To achieve this objective, we will leverage our inertial instrument development experience and resources to produce a low-SWaP, navigation-grade IMU ...

The Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate (AFRL/RV) is focused on developing qualification processes for AM components for launch and space vehicles. Among the needs AFRL/RV has identified are processes for material characterization, rapid component validation, model validation, non-destructive evaluation (NDE), and process monitoring that will reduce the cost and time to qualif ...

In small business innovative research (SBIR), Management Sciences, Inc. (MSI) is producing a miniature embeddable processing and instrumentation chip (Mini-EPIC) that is so small it fits inside the shell of an aerospace wiring connector. We propose innovative research that will employ the Mini-EPIC in a form factor to perform automatic moving target acquisition, tracking and aim point selection. P ...