Award Data

This STTR will provide a prototype Electronics Package that integrates disparate streams of spectrographic and topographic data to provide high resolution imaging and chemical specificity at the nanoscale. It will enable development of a commercial instrument delivering routine near-field tip-enhanced optical imaging with spatial resolutions in the range of 10-50nm along with topographic (Atomic F ...

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are critical elements in electrical, water, oil/gas, and manufacturing services involving supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), distributed control systems (DCS), and programmable logic controllers (PLCs). These systems allow operators to monitor sensor data and remotely control field devices. Initially, these devices were designed for closed-network or ...

Higher efficiency solar cells are needed to reduce solar array mass, volume, and cost for Air Force space missions. Intermediate-band quantum-dot (QD) solar cells can yield dramatically higher efficiencies than current multi-junction (MJ) technologies. However, several issues must be addressed to demonstrate manufacturable, high efficiency devices. CFDRC aims to develop: 1) High-efficiency, ligh ...

Modern military and civilian aircraft technologies are pushing the performance envelope through design and use of new advanced materials with superior property combinations. Aircraft powerplant manufacturers are facing intense competition to efficiently deliver ever increasing thrust, while meeting the highest standards of reliability and performance over an expanded service life. These performanc ...

This Phase I STTR proposal will demonstrate nanostructured “metal-black” coatings to enhance absorption by thin film solar cells. The problem is that silicon has low absorption due to its indirect gap. The opportunity is that nano-scale metallic scattering centers increase the effective optical path length and enhance the solar electric-field strength in thin-film solar cells, leading to more ...

Our objective is to develop advanced mediator architectures for efficient electron transfer in enzymatic fuel cells (EFCs) for low power systems. The proposed EFC will leverage ongoing research at both CFDRC and Michigan State University to provide a fully-integrated lightweight, low-cost, manufacturable, and renewable power supply, for various military and civilian applications. EFC systems offer ...

The goal of the proposed research is to develop advanced computational tool for high-fidelity simulations of hypersonic non-equilibrium plasmas. Octree adaptive Cartesian mesh will be used for automatic mesh generation and dynamic mesh adaptation to plasma properties, particularly important for hypersonic flows with strong shock waves, transient laminar and turbulent domains with large gradients o ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer research project addresses the perception and learning of complex sound patterns within complex auditory scenes. The objective is to model auditory signal processing, pattern recognition and learning in the human auditory system. Our novel approach simulates the nonlinear signal processing that has been observed in auditory physiology. By mimicking functiona ...

Michigan Aerospace Corporation proposes to develop an optical MEMS based skin friction sensor specifically designed for hypersonic applications. This instrument will be capable of shear stress resolutions as small as 0.01 Pa, have a high dynamic range, and data rates in excess of 100 Hz. The sensor will be compact and tolerant of the extreme environmental conditions of hypersonic propulsion test f ...

The mission of this proposed research is to develop ultracapacitors (also known as electrochemical or supercapacitors) to address an array of military applications. These applications include pulsed power for directed-energy and kinetic-energy weapons, sensors, and power supplies and control systems for aircraft and spacecraft. The proposed innovation employs carbon nanotubes (CNTs) coated with p ...