Award Data

An additive-manufacturing process will be developed for printing high-quality freeform inorganic gradient-index (GRIN) optical elements. Candidate nanocrystal materials including ZnS, ZrO, TiO2, PbSe, and rare-earth-doped metal oxides, will be synthesized and characterized. A process for inkjet-print depositing high-volume-percent loading density of binary, ternary, quaternary, etc., nanoparticle ...

Improved propeller designs for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems are needed to improve performance and reduce acoustic emissions. Traditional propeller design methods don’t take advantage of advances in coupled fluid, structure and acoustics computational design methods nor advances in high strength, high modulus materials to extend performance of propellers and reduce noise emissions. In the propos ...

Northwest UAV Propulsion Systems proposes using our purpose built heavy fuel engine designed and built in the USA for small unmanned aerial systems in the tier 2 & 3 class. We will be adding a lightweight ceramic material set combined with FEA (Finite Element Analysis) and heavy fuel atomizer (IRAD Project) to create a lightweight engine for a SUAS or STUAS class UAVs. The Ceramic material set is ...

Advances in electronically controlled injection technologies for diesel engines have provided a method to improve medium- to heavy-duty engine performance through increased injection pressures, multiple injections, and injection rate shaping. Although these injection systems have been primarily limited to larger engines, the ability to rapidly and precisely meter fuel for smaller engines is partic ...

The requirements for thermal management on tactical aircraft systems have reached a level at which integrated system design must be considered early in the aircraft design process. An integrated propulsion, power and thermal modeling and simulation design approach is necessary for reduced size, weight and power requirements. At the same time, there is an urgent need for capabilities that enable an ...

Current mission planning systems allow strike planners and operations centers to perform time-sensitive strike planning, execution monitoring, and validate mission effects using XML-based tools that visualize time critical attack plan and track plan status vs. execution. In this proposed STTR Phase I design for the Next Generation Navy Mission Planning (NGNMPS) system, we will identify expanded op ...

Terrorist use of radioactive nuclear materials via nuclear and/or radiological dispersion devices (dirty bombs) is a serious threat. Therefore, it is crucial to detect proliferation of nuclear material. Critical challenges include: (a) high sensitivity detection of signature emissions from radioactive isotopes, and (b) cost-effectiveness for deployment of sensor networks across large storage facil ...

Vescent Photonics and MIT Lincoln Labs (MIT-LL) propose to develop a quantum-based vector magnetometer with low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP+C) for Navy applications. The proposed system will rely on probing magnetically-sensitive, atomic-like transitions of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond to provide stable, high-bandwidth readout of the vector magnetic field with sub-picotesla sen ...

Our Fused-Realities-Assessments-Modules(FRAM) enables innovative new levels and types of automated quantification strategies for combining human and system performance in real-time for fused performance monitoring and after-action-review purposes. FRAM accomplishes this by fusing output of normative models of behaviors (cognitive/procedural/team), human states (physiological/affective), system sta ...

The underpinning science and sensing associated with autonomous navigation is advancing on numerous fronts. The navigation capability required for ship hull grooming in a low visibility environment is a natural application of this technology. Enormous benefit will be realized in the public and private sectors of the shipping industry. The economic and environmental impact realized using proactive ...