Award Data

Autonomous inspection systems are necessary to increase awareness of track safety and maintenance issues. However, electrical power for these systems is not available under freight railway vehicles. Mainstream Engineering (MEC) proposes development of a small-scale diesel generator with an integrated starter-alternator (ISA) and automated battery charging circuit for this application. The proposed ...

To assist with the National Geodetic Survey’s federal mandate to provide accurate positioning—including heights—to all federal non-military mapping activities in the USA, Aurora Flight Sciences proposes to integrate a gravimetry payload on a unmanned aerial system (UAS). Potential options include using either an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or an optionally piloted aircraft (OPA). An OPA ...

The Phase I SBIR project will evaluate the feasibility of utilizing a low cost sensor to obtain rail temperatures from a moving train. The two innovative parts of the proposed sensor are (1) a rugged four wavelenght high frequency sensor that accurately measures the natural radiation emitted by the rails, and (2) an advanced algorithm that provides a emissivity compensated temperature from these ...

Substantial simulation work has been done showing that traffic shock-waves can be reduced or eliminated through "cooperative adaptive cruise control" and "communicating cruise control" where following vehicles are warned that leading vehicles are slowing in time to react. To be effective, however, such devices must be installed and operate in the majority of vehicles in the queue. Even if mandat ...

While mechanical damage to pipelines is a common occurrence, the impact of mechanical damage on pipeline remaining life is not easily determined. The mechanical damage features, such as residual stresses and stress concetrations, will determine the effect of the damage on pipeline remaining life. Empirical relationships between damage features and burst pressure have been developed and adopted i ...

Automated vehicle counting technology has been in use for many years, but developments in automated pedestrian counting technology have been limited. Pedestrians are more difficult to detect, track and count, than motor vehicles because their paths are much less constrained. In Phae I, we propose to develop a new system for pedestrian detection, tracking and counting. In this system, both IR LE ...

Not Available The design of LADAR systems varies widely with application and platform requiring custom designs which increase cost and complexity and limit the commercial applicability. To address this issue, CTI proposes a unique, modular optical waveguide amplifier (WGA) based transmitter which can be adapted to coherent and direct detection transceivers over a wide range of repetition rates an ...

Not Available The objective of this SBIR effort is to develop and demonstrate an innovative digital beamforming antenna array suitable for installation on a space vehicle. GPS can provide a cost effective method of tracking space vehicles during launch and orbit entry. However, an antenna is needed that can track the GPS satellites while the space vehicle is spinning to leverage this advantage. N ...

Not Available Joint Vision 2010 utilized operational concepts of Dominant Maneuver, Precision Engagement, Focused Logistics and Full Dimensional Protection with Information Superiority for join warfighting. A key challenge in this vision is understanding how advanced sensors combined with information Superiority can be exploited for a system of systems (SoS) approach. The AFRL vision is to prov ...

Not Available A novel anti-jam GPS antenna concept is proposed that is an alternative to the complex and expensive Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna (CRPA) currently in use. This approach, called the L-CRPA, can utilize installation foot prints as small as a Fixed Reception Pattern Antenna (FRPA) and provide three modes of operation. Mode-1 provides a typical broad-coverage FRPA pattern for si ...