Award Data

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies covering a broad range of technologies and processes have been under continuous and accelerating development since the 80s. While there are still fundamental hurdles such as low production rates and small sizes, AM holds tremendous promise in terms of revolutionizing manufacturing. Recent trends include direct-printing and incorporating sensors and electr ...

Filamentation of ultra-short laser pulse propagation in non-linear media offers significant potentials allowing to address numerous problems in military and commercial sectors. However, practical implementation of this requires an ability to control the USLP at its propagation through inhomogeneous media, like turbulent atmosphere. On the basis of our approach for combating turbulence effects on p ...

Ultra-short pulse lasers have advantages over continuous-wave lasers for directed-energy applications due to the high peak powers that can be reached. Directed-energy weapons are profoundly limited by the aberrations caused by atmospheric turbulence and current adaptive optics can correct for these aberrations only when the propagation medium is reciprocal. Unfortunately, nonlinear effects in the ...

FreEnt Technologies, Inc. (FreEnt) and Johns Hopkins Universitys Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) are proposing a multiple-hit detection sensor called the Optical Lethality Measurement System (OLMS). This system is based on the Planar Optical Penetration Sensor (POPS) technology (originally developed and patented by APL) and prior art associated with the Blast Initiation Detector (BID). The BID is ...

As the warfighter is increasingly using more highly integrated instruments, e.g. a laser rangefinder (LRF) combined with a laser designator and an imager, the need to decrease the size of these components becomes more important.Compact small munition applications of rangefinders particularly place an emphasis on size of the optical front end.In order to make the transceiver more compact, special a ...

SA Photonics has developed a concept for our Multiple Optical Beam Landing System (MOBLS) to provide autonomous landing of aircraft in RF denied environments. MOBLS utilizes multiple, redundant methods to determine the real-time location and bearing of the aircraft relative to the carrier-based landing strip. By having built in redundant modalities, MOBLS provides highly reliable landing informati ...

Adaptive Optics allow ground-based astronomical observatories to overcome atmospheric distortion limited observation by using natural and artificial guide stars to measure the distortion. Sodium-layer guide stars provide near all-sky coverage for high resolution astronomy. Over the last 20 years, Optically Pumped Semiconductor Laser (OPSL), also referred to as Vertically Extended Cavity Surface ...

The aerothermal environment for hypersonic flight vehicles is severe and can generate extremely high material temperatures. These high-temperature environments can cause intense localized heating, which may result in local pockets and/or structural instabilities, especially at vehicle leading-edge regions, and may lead to disruptions that affect vehicle performance. The aerothermal environment may ...

Environmental stresses such as droughts, floods, storms, earthquakes, wildfires, pest infestations, volcanic eruptions, and infectious disease vectors are often key contributing factors to defense interventions, including humanitarian response, counter insurgency, and border control. As a result, early phase military planning activities need to incorporate systematic monitoring and forecasting of ...

Subsequent Phase II Proposal, extension of Phase II contract N00039-12-C-0082. This contract involves the development of an underwater vehicle that can reliably and autonomously interconnect power and data cables to undersea nodes after they have been deployed. The Auto-Docking Autonomous Burial Vehicle (AD-ABV) is a cable-connecting adaptation of Makai’s proven ABV, which has been successfully ...