Award Data

The Phase II SAI prototype will be developed using COTS GaN switches and CMOS drivers. During Phase II Alphacore will design and fabricate a rad-hard CMOS driver ASIC to provide electrical and on-chip algorithmic control of the GaN switches. The SAI and its components will be tested and measured under varying environmental conditions, including across temperature and radiation extremes. The GaN de ...

The increased use of sensing systems and large scale networked nodes with a variety of embedded sensors and imagery is creating a plethora of varied data that needs to be fused and interpreted for applications such as surveillance, reconnaissance, and air traffic controls. The need for persistent human analysis with high levels of proficiency is taxing human resources and cognitive abilities. In t ...

Alphacore will develop a compact tunable surface mount component (capacitor bank) with tunable component range of more than 10:1. It will provide a tuning mechanism for a wide range of filter topologies with user selectable range of 10 bits. A capacitance selection from 100fF to 100pF using high density CMIM capacitors over small foot print for a variety of bands used in wide applications includin ...

Multiple innovative experimental X-ray techniques will be developed and demonstrated to characterize damage mechanisms/processes in advanced concretes under both quasi-static and dynamic loading.These techniques will provide tomographic information of the 3D damage morphology, as well as dynamic fracture information with high temporal resolution. The techniques can be extended to either unconfined ...

Missiles experience a wide range of thermal and mechanical environments due to the large variety of flight profiles.Since it is often the aerodynamic leading edge, the missile radome undergoes significant thermal and mechanical loading. The radome must survive the dynamic pressure loading, thermal shock and environmental erosion from airborne particulates (rain / sand) while performing as an elect ...

The Battlefield Airmen Operations (BAO) Kit consists of several components that enable Operators to perform a variety of tasks including communications, computation, information management, and sensing in the field.The current configurationEmploying a Systems-based (holistic) approach to the BAO WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network), BDATech proposes milestone-based design effort.By first conducti ...

Lightweight high performance engines capable of operating on multiple fuels are a strategic requirement for Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAs). Seals for reciprocating piston engines are of particular importance. Heretofore, very lightweight all carbon-carbon (C-C) composite engines in a ring-less piston configuration were developed, fully demonstrated and utilized in lightweight vehicle racing. Thi ...

Reducing degradation of solar arrays is critically important for Orbital Transfer Elements (OTE). Currently used III-V solar cells suffer from radiation induced degradation.In this project we propose novel ultrathin bifacial silicon solar cells for OTE, which are rad-hard, enabling low degradation, and reducing the cost both in $/W and $/kg by a factor of 10 compared to III-V cells.Ultrathin bifac ...

Advanced R&D breakthroughs in integrated photonics, in parallel with the launch of the Advanced Institute for Manufacturing: Photonics (AIM Photonics), make feasible the production of manufacturable photonic integrated circuits (PIC).Presently, however, PICs are limited primarily to a small wavelength region (near 1550nm) dictated by telecom needs, or rely on glass waveguide technology that does n ...

Development of passive optical fibers and fiber-based components for transport and distribution of laser energy between optical components and around an optical platform would be a great advance in laser and optical system design. Particularly compelling would be fibers and fiber-based functional elements capable of transmitting laser power with low loss over a wide wavelength range from UV to LWI ...