Award Data

A number of civil sectors, including energy, transportation, emergency, communications, and banking, use GPS to perform critically important functions. This is a concern due to the fragility of the GPS signal, and vulnerability to attacks or disruptions. The problem has been studied to greater or lesser degree by sector. At this point however it remains unclear exactly how vulnerable these sectors ...

Title: Portable Imager for Stand-off Detection of Person-borne Bulk Military and Homemade Explosives. The overall goal of this SBIR proposal is to develop a portable system for stand-off detection of concealed explosives. The system will produce images positively identifying the presence of explosives and have the ability to detect and identify different types of military explosives (like TNT, C ...

The technical problem addressed is implementation of a device called the Burn Saver Device (BSD) that can be attached to a firefighter's helmet to provide an early detection system to warn the firefighter of rapidly developing and/or unsafe thermal conditions in his/her immediate environment that might not be immediately evident inside protective gear. The specific innovation and the focus of the ...

The ideal semiconductor detector for nuclear monitoring should have good energy resolution, high detection efficiency, compact size, light weight, easy portability and low cost. In the proposed effort, we plan to develop a detector module for nuclear monitoring based on thallium bromide (TlBr), a wide band gap semiconductor that recently has shown great promise as a gamma-ray detector material. Tl ...

Successful growth of novel halide scintillators SrI2:Eu and CLYC depends on a supply of highly pure precursor materials. CapeSym and SAFC have partnered to develop a thorough understanding of the factors that influence purity, and techniques to reduce these impurity levels in SrI2:Eu and CLYC precursors. Novel processing and crystal growth experiments at CapeSym, and materials characterization at ...

TlBr is a promising gamma radiation semiconductor detector material primarily due to its high Z component and high density. TlBr detectors, however, suffer from polarization at room temperature and degrade rapidly under applied bias. Polarization is associated with ionic conductivity in this material. This proposal is focused on controlling the point, chemical, and crystalline defects in TlBr to m ...

The ideal semiconductor detector for the nuclear non-proliferation application should have good energy resolution, high detection efficiency, compact size, light weight, easy portability, low power requirements and low cost. In the proposed effort, we plan to continue our development of thallium bromide (TlBr), a wide band gap semiconductor that recently has shown great promise as a gamma-ray dete ...

The work proposed will develop and implement commercially viable gradient detection methods and algorithms for localizing radiation sources using a single non‐directional detector. Exploitation of gradients introduced by source‐to‐detector distance – through natural or deliberate motion – and those introduced by body‐shielding will allow for enhanced localization and tracking of source ...

The ability to reliably track and recognize individuals inside a security perimeter is a critical component of next-generation distributed security systems. While state-of-the-art surveillance systems can reliably track pedestrians in sparse, static environments with minor occlusions and few moving subjects, performance degrades rapidly as scene complexity and crowd density increase. The problem b ...

Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) are tasked with exploiting X-ray inspection systems to detect potential threats. To ensure efficient operation and the safety of the traveling public, TSOs must maintain a 100% probability of detection (Pd) while minimizing screening time. To achieve these objectives, X-ray inspection systems must operate in accordance with manufacturer specifications, and b ...