Award Data

Military systems operate in complex, adversarial environments where their initial planned operations are often overcome by events, but soldiers use those systems in creative ways to achieve their mission objectives. For example, complex ground robotic systems that were initially deployed for surveillance and explosive ordinance disposal have instead been used as decoys, ammunition carriers, and ot ...

We propose to investigate, in collaboration with MGH Voice Center and Altec, Inc., application of surface electromyography (sEMG) to assessing cognitive workload, strain, and overload. Specifically, sEMG sensors placed on the face and neck will detect emotional/motor responses to workload strain. The proposed effort will build on the substantial sEMG experience of our partner, MGH (including resea ...

Nanoscale, material sensitive, imaging techniques are critical for progress in many disciplines as we learn to master science and technology at the smallest dimensions — on the nanometer to atomic-scale. However, progress in both science and technology is becoming increasingly limited by the constraints of current imaging techniques and metrologies. Fortunately, by combining coherent extreme UV ...

Providing Army combat medics with meaningful experience in treatment of battlefield injuries is a particular challenge. Moulage has the potential to assist in acquiring what could otherwise be very hard-to-come-by preparatory experience for distressing real-life emergencies medics and soldiers may encounter in the field. However, current approaches to moulage are limited in their ability to reflec ...

As the importance of social networks skyrockets, so does the need to understand human behavior in these forums. While statistical analyses can help to some extent, many types of patterns are simply not visible by looking at raw numbers. However, many of these patterns do emerge in visualizations, and the innate human ability to see these patterns in graphical depictions represents a valuable oppo ...

The increasing use of video in force protection, autonomous vehicles reconnaissance, and surveillance in general has created a great demand for automated analysis and monitoring. It is infeasible to have humans monitoring and analyzing the vast amount of video used in such surveillance, and automated analysis yields hope to ease the burden and increase the amount of information extracted from col ...

The development of compact, ultra-low drive voltage optical phase modulators is a critical key component for passive antenna remoting applications, a strategic area, part of a number of current and upcoming DARPA initiatives. With the development of sufficiently low V-pi modulators, passive front-ends can be constructed with a low figure even for a moderate optical pumping power. The combination o ...

Cost effective semiconductor processing tools that enable the high-resolution nano-fabrication of low-volume electronics are needed by the DOD. The printing of ultra-fine gratings on silicon wafers using interference immersion lithography is envisaged as a first maskless process step in the fabrication of advanced application specific integrated circuits. Next generation interference immersion lit ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase-II project will design, develop and integrate an effective and efficient motion blur elimination algorithm to Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System (ARGUS-IS) system by optimizing and implementing the algorithm proposed during the Phase-I investigation to FPGA. In addition, an image enhancement toolkit for ground station ...

The challenges faced by airborne and ground-based sensors in detecting, classifying, identifying, associating and tracking difficult moving targets, such as insurgent forces, operating in difficult terrain such as mountains and forests will be addressed. Our team will quantify the performance that can be achieved using multi-sensor, multi-spectral, and multi-platform techniques, where the sensors ...