Award Data

Encapsulation materials are crucial for long-term reliability of high voltage and high temperature power device packaging as they help prevent electrical discharges in air as well as protect the devices against humidity, dirt and shock. However, the currently available commercial encapsulants are severely deficient in their high temperature performance, especially above 250C. Although several diff ...

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) will develop a Recycling Fast-Response Atom Interferometer for Navigation (ReFRAIN) as an atom interferometer (AI) accelerometer specially designed to improve inertial navigation systems (INS) on moving platforms.  The ReFRAIN provides sensitivity, dynamic range, bandwidth, and bias stability that matches or exceeds state of the art mechanical accelerometers.  PSI in ...

Advancements in sensing/COMM abilities of hypersonic platforms is key in enabling the US forces to stay ahead of potential adversaries by increasing operational scope and performance. FIRST RF has, over the years, developed numerous key antenna technologies capable of sustained operation in the hypersonic regime. Key operational capabilities of hypersonic vehicles are closely tied to the thermal l ...

There is a lack of in-situ, non-contact, non-destructive techniques to detect the presence of particulates contaminating bulk liquid samples in clean room environment during semiconductor processing.  Leveraging our extensive experience building optical sensor systems, we will design and build an innovative handheld particle counter using diffusive wave spectroscopy. Our handheld system can be u ...

Execution of long-range weapons capabilities reduces risk and affords greater warfighter protection. Core enabling technologies for hypersonic projectiles include high-strength lightweight materials, precision avionics, and novel designs. System demands include the ability to withstand both high accelerations (up to 50,000 Gs) and aerothermal shock. Detailed structural engineering and shock modeli ...

SI2 proposes to leverage prior Government funded efforts to develop a transmit (TX) only, wideband (6:1 bandwidth), low-cost, scalable active electronically scanned array (AESA) that will utilize phase-only nulling to enable radar, Electronic Warfare / Electronic Attack (EW/EA), Information Operations (IO) and other capabilities on multiple platforms across DOD agencies. The array will employ digi ...

In gun-launched projectile applications, the launch accelerations are harsh and can be up to 50,000 g. In order to enable capability to operate in both high shock and aerothermal conditions, FIRST RF has developed compatible antenna technology. Prototypes of these sensors have been fabricated and validated to similar shock and thermal conditions. Additionally, as with all small weapons, space is v ...

The Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) of OSD is leading a program to demonstrate a Hyper Velocity Projectile (HVP) Gun Weapon System (HGWS) within the DoD. Emerging missile threats are highly agile, exhibit unpredictable behavior and are often protected by sophisticated counter-measures. To support the deployment of HVP weapon systems for defense against these threats, a comprehensive multi-targ ...

Airborne radars operating over open water must classify maritime vessels by measuring and exploiting highly-variable radar signatures. Sources of signature variability include within-class ship construction and equipment differences, complex in-situ 6-DoF ship motion caused by ocean waves across a range of sea state conditions, acquisition geometry including grazing angle and maritime-specific RF ...

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are becoming widely used in the DoD for image classification, but recent research has shown DNNs are vulnerable to adversary attacks. Adversaries can monitor the DNN training and classification processes to learn attributes of the training data and the DNN. With this information, an adversary can gain valuable insight into the potentially sensitive data used to train th ...