Award Data

This project will determine the feasibility of smart material actuation of deformable trailing edges for active control of helicopter rotor blades. Several concepts will be developed and analyzed. Innovative structural designs and use of materials will be considered. The proposed designs will be analyzed to predict their performance levels, fatigue strength, and impact on blade weight and balan ...

The overall objective of this program is to develop the foundation to commercially produce durable, and hence affordable, large area AlGaP coated windows for multispectral sensor array Systems. This coating has been shown by Hughes Danbury optical Systems to increase the useful life of test windows under sand abrasion test conditions by a factor of at least 3-6x. The technical objectives of Phas ...

There is a need to develop rapid, inexpensive, accurate mechanistically-based toxicity test kits for the assessment of new chemicals being developed for various applications. Currently, no such technology is available. This effort aims at developing biosensors that can enable such test kits. Phase I will establish the proof-of-concept. Phase II will optimize and produce prototype test kit. Phase I ...

At least 100 million land mines are now scattered across 64 countries and given the low-cost and ready deployability, mines are planted by the thousands every day. Over 15,000 civilians become victim to mine pollution every year and numerous soldiers become victims during wars and peace keeping missions. This program seeks to focus on demonstrating a multi-sensor technology that can reliably, rapi ...

The AR3P (Autonomous & Robotic Remote Refueling Point) is in need of a reliable and efficient grounding system. Traditional grounding systems are semi-permanent structures that require a 6 to 9 foot grounding rod be installed into terrain. This proposal outlines the development of a virtual ground for enabling autonomous refueling which will eliminate the need for this grounding stake. By “freei ...

Gas turbine engines that operate in regions with high concentrations of dust/sand are prone to suffer accelerated deterioration due to erosion, plugging, melting, deposition, coating degradation and consequential damage. Dust/sand ingested into the inlet of gas turbine engines is pulverized by the turbomachinery to ultra-fine size, typically less than 10 micrometers. The ultra-fine dust is difficu ...

Techniques for the reduction of growth-induced crystal defects are of critical importance to the efforts geared toward development of thin-film heteroepitaxial materials and devices for infrared sensor applications based on large-area semiconductor substrates. These defects, such as threading and misfit dislocations, commonly occurring during growth and processing of the respective heteroepitaxial ...

There are a number of programs in development within the DOD that require the ability to test and characterize atmospheric turbulence and atmospheric transmission properties along an integrated slant path as turbulence has a major impact on the performance of advanced laser systems and aircraft imaging systems. Current solutions have been limited to large ground or tower-based scintillation and tr ...