Award Data

Recent and emerging technologies, such as a 3-D LADAR tracker with precise target detection, tracking, and aimpoint imaging could make significant gains for ABL’s capabilities. Solid state avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are a rugged, fully-monolithic detector technology well suited for LADAR focal plane arrays (FPAs). In the past, Geiger mode APD operation has been preferred for tasks requiring se ...

To provide the Airborne Laser (ABL) precision ranging and 3-D track refinement capability for the next generation active ranging system (NGARS), Voxtel will develop an avalanche photodiode (APD) receiver. Unlike the original ARS, which uses a 10.6 µm CO2 laser, Voxtel’s InGaAs-based ARS receiver is designed for high-speed photon counting between 1.0 – 1.6 µm. Operation in the short-wave infr ...

Understanding the response of solid rocket motors under cookoff and projectile impact scenarios is important to the safety of the military’s weapon arsenal. In this SBIR, CFDRC, teamed with Merrill Beckstead of Brigham Young University (BYU), propose to develop an improved modeling tool for simulating the response of solid rocket motors containing AP/HTPB/AL propellant to external heat and impa ...

Understanding the response of solid rocket motors under cook-off conditions is important to the safety of the military’s weapon arsenal. In this SBIR, CFDRC, teamed with Merrill Beckstead of Brigham Young University (BYU) and ATK Launch Systems, proposes to develop a software toolkit for simulating the response of solid rocket motors (SRM) to fast cook-off events. The complete software package w ...

The Department of Homeland Security's charter has a fundamental requirement to collaborate with other government agencies. Secure collaboration on this scale requires strong identity management which can "vouch for" DHS personnel working with other agencies, and makes it possible to provide DHS resources to individuals in other agencies whose work requires it. We propose the development of a reu ...

The rapid detection of highly toxic compounds, such as chemical warfare agents, toxic industrial compounds, pharmaceutical-based agents, and non-traditional agents, is paramount to industrial and national security. While multiple chemical detection platforms exist, the ability to detect toxic compounds is fundamentally limited by the available reference database of known chemical signatures. Recen ...

A fast-pulsed (3-15ns FWHM) high-current (>500A) driver for high power diode lasers or laser arrays is proposed. Present high-current diode drivers typically use MOSFET switches to modulate the current. It is difficult to achieve very fast pulses with such devices because the inherent capacitance of the gate electrode cannot be charged and discharged quickly. Lower current, but faster diode driver ...

Current acquisition, tracking and pointing (ATP) technology typically incorporates algorithms, such as the Kalman filter, known to be poorly suited to the tracking of nonlinearly moving targets. Nonlinearities may be due to target motion (e.g., agile target) but targeting platform induced jitter also manifests as target nonlinearity. Current and future mobile MDA assets such as ALTB and ABIR wil ...

Current acquisition, tracking and pointing (ATP) technologies employ optical image processing and/or inertial measurement unit (IMU) data to mitigate image jitter in critical air and space borne targeting applications. Image processing is typically performed using the Kalman filter or some variant thereof, despite the fact that these filters have known shortcomings. In general, they are ill suit ...

Development of a reflection control and direction device (RCDD) is proposed. This innovative device will progress the state of the art for propulsion of solar sails used to fly space weather monitoring sensors to sub-LaGrange point orbits for earlier warning times of impending destructive space weather events. A reflection control device (RCD) utilizes polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) mater ...