Award Data

Space superiority requires space protection and space situational awareness (SSA), which rely on rapid and accurate space object behavioral and operational intent discovery. The presence of adversaries in addition to real-time and hidden information constraints greatly complicates the decision-making process in controlling both ground-based and space-based Air Force surveillance assets. The focus ...

The problem addressed in this effort is to automatically learn historical ephemeris space catalog time, position, and velocity entity track update error uncertainties (i.e., without track error covariances) and to automatically (e.g., without expert event labeling) produce: – unmodeled non-gravitational space catalog update flags – abnormal unmodeled catalog update flags with abnorma ...

The Air Force needs tunable laser systems with high average power in the mid-infrared region of the spectrum for military applications including defense against heat-seeking missiles. Currently-fielded laser systems, based on nonlinear frequency conversion in periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN), have limited optical power at wavelengths between 4 m and 5 m because of intrinsi ...

Through the execution of our Phase 1 effort, Nutronics, Inc. and Montana State University developed an improved means to optimize the Pellizzarri cost functional for coherent imaging using digital holography. Our algorithm developed during the Phase 1 effort accelerates convergence times by a factor of 20-40 for the majority of scenarios evaluated. Our proposed Phase 2 effort has a two-fold focus: ...

The Phase II effort will be to clearly demonstrate the feasibility and build a prototype of a noncontact, high-quality holographic polarimetry system with pixel level depth and Mueller matrix information with a user-friendly interface to image and display this data. The measurements of each data product will be validated with trusted truth samples. The system will be reproducible and will have a d ...

To meet the requirements of the AF18A-T015 solicitation, MaXentric and University of California San Diego are proposing the development of a low loss, high linearity capacitor. The tunable capacitor target is a compact integrated design, capable of a tuning range up to 4:1, with a minimum Q of 80 at 4 GHz, and handling up to 20W CW. During phase I, UCSD studied a novel varactor structure to improv ...

Accurate simulation of nuclear power plant behavior is necessary for both engineering and training applications. An engineering grade simulator, used for design, safety analysis and operations, is characterized by high fidelity, computational power, lack of real-time capability, and user non-interactive environment. By contrast, a training grade simulator, used for operator training and education, ...

The power output of the high power lasers used in physics research is limited by the materials available for making gain media. Future increases in power require new and better materials. Operation at high power creates great thermal stresses that can lead to birefringence, thermal lensing or physical damage to the host. Effective cooling and small temperature gradients are critical for achieving ...

Current prosthetic feet produce much less peak mechanical power than the able-bodied foot/ankle and release only about half of the mechanical energy generated during gait. This leads to higher energy expenditure among amputees as compared to able-bodied i

Successful completion of this Phase II proposal will fully characterize and evaluate a material for use in RF windows on hypersonic flight vehicles. Phase II will specifically examine the materials suitability through RF testing in X, Ku, and Ka bands and at elevated temperatures to 2000°F. The desired outcome will be a material with predictable, repeatable dielectric properties over frequency ...