Award Data

Intellite, Incorporated will team with the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona to develop an adaptive optics system that will project a diffraction-limited spot on the retina by pre-correcting the laser beam for all significant optical aberrations of the specific eyeball under test. The system will use real-time feedback from a low-power laser reflected from the retina to measure ...

UAVS (Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle System) integration with naval vessels is currently realized in limited form. This is largely due to the fact that the operational envelopes of these vehicles are based solely on at-sea flight testing. In addition to the complexities involved with at-sea flight testing, the unsteady nature of ship-airwakes and the use of automated UAV control software necessitates ...

Ultra-Wideband radar systems have already demonstrated an ability to detect and locate non-cooperative targets. Existing systems, however, are clumsy to use because they require two separate antennas for the transmit and receive channels. Because the antennas are large, it is challenging to mount both of them onto a HMMWV. What is needed is a UWB radar that will allow the use of a single antenna f ...

MZA proposes to conduct laboratory testing of adaptive control for wavefront compensation of aerodynamic optical disturbances. The laboratory system will use a low-cost polymer deformable mirror with actuator patterns specialized for adaptive control. Aero-optical disturbances will be imparted in the laboratory by a liquid crystal spatial light modulator using wind tunnel measurements. A Hartma ...

This effort investigates an adaptive acoustic mitigation approach for reducing jitter in airborne directed energy platforms such as the airborne laser. Key benefits of the approach are reduced latency, improved correlation to the disturbance, its relative simplicity in implementation, and ability to integrate with other ABL control systems. This approach offers significant advantages in improving ...

Airborne UWB radar systems will require a receive antenna that can be printed or mounted onto the inflatable wing of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Such antennas need to reach as low as VHF frequencies, and must be positioned to look to the side of the aircraft. To satisfy this requirement, tapered slot antennas (TSAs) looking off the wingtip have been proposed. However, this antenna receives o ...

This SBIR Phase II project will develop and build a health monitoring sensor and analysis system to support the return of military personnel with prosthetic devices to active duty. DoD is allowing increasing numbers of soldiers with prosthetics to return to active duty if they are performance capable, minimizing the loss of their valuable core expertise to the services. There are significant cha ...

Southwest Sciences proposes the development of an ultra-sensitive optical spectroscopy technique having applications in explosives and chemical agent detection, and rapid health screening/monitoring for warfighter field diagnostics and health care. The technique, called noise-immune, cavity-enhanced optical heterodyne spectroscopy (NICE-OHMS), was invented about 10 years ago, but has remained a r ...

The maturation of Titanium Matrix Composite into an affordable material system with production experience on the F-16 opens up a wide series of opportunities for improved propulsion performance. This SBIR builds on the baseline TMC demonstrations being conducted by FMW and ATK and extends them to advanced systems. The use of configured residual stress states and enhanced Titanium matrix systems ...

Optomec’s M3D technology will be utilized to fabricate functionally graded fuel cell structures, a methodology that could result in significant performance/weight improvements over existing designs. One of the main applications for the light-weight, high performance cells is in UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) which are being used increasingly in military activities. Phase 1 research has clearl ...