Award Data

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 ...

In this proposal, AlphaSense, Inc. (AI) and the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) detail the development of a novel noninvasive microwave sensor to quantify the DoS in marine aluminum alloys. The key innovations of this proposal include the following: a) DoS quantifications based on the correlation between the surface resistivity with the microstructures of the aluminum alloys, b) measurements o ...

This SBIR Phase I project will develop and innovative sandwich composite material used to manufacture component parts and/or the hull for an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) to reduce the weight and increase operational effectiveness. The composite structure includes an inner layer of high tenacity polyarylate LCP long fiber reinforced ionomer. The reinforced resin is extrusion molded directly into ...

The next generation of photovoltaic systems need to meet both physical (shape, size, packaging, durability) and electronic (efficiency, stability) requirements of applications that are not possible to implement today. One of these requirements is to be able to stretch electronic devices without sacrificing the performance and lifetime. Commercially available photovoltaics that incorporate thin sem ...

The proposed technology has the potential to change the paradigm such that the traditional “brute-force” method of the mechanical breaker is replaced with natural commutation. Further, a downfall of the conventional solid-state breaker is that it still must interrupt large fault currents requiring very specialized semiconductors and controls. Ultimately, the dc breaker herein prevents large cu ...