Award Data

"Work is proposed to demonstrate the feasibility of a catalytic ignition system that can be retrofitted to a light-weight, silent-running, 1 kW generator, allowing it to be satisfactorily operated on heavy fuels such as diesel and JP-8. Gensetmodifications will be closely allied to catalytic igniter technology pioneered by Automotive Resources Incorporated that enables alternative fuel combustion ...

"The Army has indicated significant need for lightweight, heavy fuel engines for use in a wide variety of battlefield missions. The Catalytic Ignition System (SmartPlugTM) developed and patented by Automotive Resources, Inc. (ARI) promises to fulfill theArmy's "One Fuel Forward" requirement without the need for replacing the gasoline engine with a new engine design. ARI had demonstrated the abilit ...

Recent advances in technology have exposed enough computing power in easily available hardware that geometry synthesis algorithms that we were previously prohibitively compute-intensive are now a possibility. There is significant untapped potential in this area that has gone underutilized in existing simulation systems. Increasing the realism and accuracy of synthetic environments has become a pri ...

Aging and newer composite aircraft fleets have led to the need for advanced damage detection systems. Inspections for damage in the field are limited due to equipment capability, size/weight, automation challenges, human error and disassembly issues. A portable, lightweight, robust inspection system powered by an user-friendly, automated software system, with remote scanning capability, could imp ...

"The objective is to replace AAAV aluminum idler wheels with titanium to allow better wheel and spoke designs for mud-clogging prevention. Cost and weight limitations are the main constraint. The weight limitations will be met by designing the wheel usingfinite element calculations. Titanium is heavier, but since it is stronger, less is necessary, thus producing a wheel close to the current alu ...

"This Phase I Navy SBIR proposal is aimed at the development of a new class of wireless sensing devices. These sensors do not require batteries or external magnetic fields in order to send data, instead, they rely on harvesting vibration energy in order tosense information and to wirelessly transmit that information to a central host.MicroStain, Inc. currently produces a range of wireless sensing ...

A major barrier to the widespread adoption of wireless sensors for structural health monitoring is the requirement to power the network of wireless nodes. Batteries have a limited lifespan, adding significant size, weight, and costs to the wireless sensor network,and may represent a long term environmental problem. Battery maintenance can be eliminated by harvesting energy from the environment. Fo ...

Structural monitoring of Navy aircraft is of critical importance as the fleet ages. One critical area includes the control surfaces, which are subject to intense, dynamic buffet loading which can lead to structural cracking. The highly transient nature of buffet loading makes it difficult to measure using conventional sensors. We propose to solve this problem by combining a network of time-synchro ...

Embedded usage tracking of helicopter rotating components, combined with active radio frequency identification (RFID) has the potential to reduce maintenance costs, reduce weight, maximize structural life, & enhance safety. Energy harvesting used with advanced, micro-power wireless sensing electronics, enables the realization of truly autonomous sensing and recording. The objective of this SBIR ...

"Propulsion jet engine and drive train components are critical to our forward deployed military aircraft. Key components within are the bearings designed to make dependable operations a reality. Currently, drive train bearing life is based uponmanufacturer projections which address a nominal group-life failure before replacement. However, drive train bearings in combat jet engines experience va ...