Award Data

Current research shows that failures in the standardization process are often the result of a failure of the participants to communicate or organize. To this effect, NIST has developed a tool, NIST Ontological Visualization Interface for Standards (NOVIS), with an environment for visualizing, browsing, and querying standards. Aztera will create a Computer Aided Standards Development (CASD) framewo ...

During Phase I, Management Sciences, Inc. (MSI) proved feasibility of adapting their current technology into a product capable of improving performance resulting in increased efficiency and extended life cycles of heat pumps. The resultant product is a tool named the Heat Pump Sentient (HP-Sentient). The HP-Sentient will improve performance and reduce maintenance costs through aggressive goal-seek ...

Public and commercial application of NOAA developed products such as climate observations, weather products, and datasets are underutilized by public decision makers, infrastructure asset owners, or the public. Communities realize the risk posed by increases in storm intensity, flooding, and heat waves. However, communities lack understandable models targets to stakeholder questions that are affor ...

Recent theoretical studies of eddy flux correlation have suggested that the commonly used assumption of dry air having no net flux is erroneous and can lead to significant errors in reported observations. Presently, dry air density is calculated indirectly from measured temperature, pressure and relative humidity, all of which contribute to increased uncertainties in the result. If instead the den ...

Today's vehicles are inundated with sensors and actuators that broadcast critical data over control networks. The extensiveness of these networks is likely to increase over the next few years. The promise of a plug-and-play world where system designers can buy off-the-shelf products to build complex distributed systems on vehicles is enticing. To reach this promise, software tools that support dis ...

This Phase I SBIR research project will investigate the feasibility of an ammonia sensor based on an antimonide laser and an advanced, low noise modulation spectroscopy method. The rapid response and high sensitivity will allow the use of the eddy correlation method to provide continuous measurement of ammonia flux. Minor adjustments to the laser operating point will allow the instrument to measur ...

The ability to perform in-situ measurements of oxygen concentration in fire environments at a fast rate (better than 1 sec ) is not fulfilled by available sensor systems in the marketplace. Current systems involve extraction of gas samples with the required removal of water, particulate, and interfering chemical species, which can take several seconds to complete, prior to passing the samples to a ...

Smoke obscuration must be measured simultaneously at multiple locations to support building fire research. Currently used equipment experiences drift with both time and temperature. Ambient and forward scattered light also introduces error. The R & D will apply current photonics, materials, and data processing technology to reduce errors to acceptable levels.