Award Data

Current agriculture and off-road equipment requires the use of lubricants to ensure efficient operation of integral hydraulic and gear driven systems. The lubricants, either oils or greases, aid in reducing friction, dissipating heat, prevent oxidation, and seal of water and debris from vital areas of the equipment. During operation, equipment may have slight leaks or suffer catastrophic failures ...

The one-step cane sugar process respondsto the USDA NIFA SBIR Program Priorities in regards to agriculturally related manufacturing technology and energy efficiency. The technology developed from this project will (1) reduce the energy and water consumed per cane sugar product, (2) provide an economic alternative for producing U.S. Food Grade sugar worldwide, (3) eliminate hazardous solid waste pr ...

Here, Omega Optics Inc. (OO), in collaboration with University of Texas (UT), Austin and Texas A&M University will develop a novel label-free photonic crystal (PC) micro-cavities based on-chip integrated electrically injected tunable transverse-coupled-cavity (TCC) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) for high throughput diagnostic assays in early cancer detections. The device will ena ...

Procedures play a large role in successfully operating complex test equipment. They provide step-by-step instructions for system check-out, experimental set-up, test plans, and responding to off-nominal situations. As NASA moves away from traditional paper procedures to more flexible electronic procedures, there is an opportunity for a more flexible and efficient electronic procedure review, appr ...

Because close collaboration between the crew and mission control will not be practical for inter-planetary exploration, NASA envisions the need for an intelligent autonomous agent that can continually integrate data from the spacecraft or lunar/planetary base to advise the crew during their mission. TRACLabs has designed and prototyped such an agent called a cognitive architecture for space explor ...

NASA is challenged to find ways of effectively shielding sensitive electronic equipment from electromagnetic interference (EMI) without adding significant weight to space flight vehicles and satellites (the heavier they are the more fuel they need to achieve orbit). EMI shielding for wire and cables is an attractive opportunity for weight reduction. However, with the advent of highly reusable nex ...

In this proposal, Dr. Dalir from Omega Optics Inc. (OO), in collaboration with University of Texas (UT) at Austin and the George Washington University propose a novel 2D TCC-VCSEL arrays monolithically integrated with a surface-normal slow-light photonic crystal (PC) waveguide array that are vertically built in one lithography layer. Unlike conventional thinking where the waveguides in a photonic ...

Lynntech, in collaboration with Southern Methodist University (SMU) Earth Sciences, proposes to develop a new deep learning-based toolkit that is useful for enhancing the fidelity of results derived from Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) interferograms. The automated deep learning tool performs a spatial–temporal analysis of multiple InSAR images, to yield a high fidelity estimate ...

VORAGO Technologies will create a rad-hard I/O Expansion Chip for next generation spaceflight processor devices, including the High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) Chiplet. The I/O Expansion chip will have multiple high-speed interfaces so that it can interface with a space processor and support high speed communications. It will also have programmable-voltage-level GPIO to support both n ...

Robots will play an important role in NASA's upcoming missions to the Moon and beyond. More than just remote sensors, they will be expected to manipulate their environment in a complex and useful way - carrying objects, using tools, and assisting the crew with various physical activities. NASA has been developing world-class dexterous end effectors for years. Unfortunately, developing softwa ...