Award Data

There are many products that can identify chemical weapons. They range in complexity from simple colorimetric chemical test strips or gas tubes, to more complex multi-step test kits, to intricate arrays of gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers. None of the products is specifically designed to illustrate the presence of chemicals on surfaces or have use as a decontamination assurance method. ...

A high sensitivity laser-induced incandescence system is proposed for the detailed characterization of environmental soot. Specifically, innovative approaches have been proposed to (1) reduce the lower detection limit of soot volume fraction and increase the overall measurement range by an order of magnitude from what is currently achievable, and (2) provide PM particle size and number density mea ...

Ceilings Unlimited proposes to develop a popular entertainment television show (¿The Program¿) for climate education and outreach. The Program will integrate NOAA assets in near real-time in a localizable broadcast entertainment vehicle that increases public awareness and consciousness of NOAA and its climate services. Ceilings Unlimited will systematically investigate and explore creative opt ...

The pressing need exists within industry to accurately measure high aspect ratio microscale structures. For example, diesel injector nozzles are manufactured with microscale holes ranging from 50-200 micrometers in diameter and 3-5 mm depths. One fundamental challenge is to nondestrucvely measure these features in order to validate models, enhance manufacturing processes, and reduce fuel emissions ...

Intelligent Optical Systems will develop an accurate, inexpensive, rapid, and quantitative device for the detection of harmful algal bloom toxins and toxigenic organisms. The device will be ideally suited for field use, and will provide information about multiple toxins in less than a few minutes. This portable device will obviate the need for laborious, time-consuming, and expensive laboratory ...

Manning Applied Technology proposes to develop a handheld infrared spectrometer, ideally suited to detection of airborne chemical agents at and below permissible exposure limits. This approach offers unmatched sensitivity and specificity for detection of all types of chemical vapors. The instrument is modular, rugged, compact and highly sensitive. Volume pricing will be less than $1000 each. ...

The current state of the art of in silico drug discovery or computer aided drug discovery relies almost exclusively on molecular mechanics force fields, such as AMBER and CHARMM, and empirical potentials. It is well known that while these approaches are excellent for certain applications, they have thus far proven less then satisfactory for thorough understanding the interactions of enzyme-inhibi ...

This Phase I proposal is to establish the technical feasibility of developing a low-power multibeam echo sounder for small AUVs for hydrographic survey applications. The proposed approach will leverage innovative electronics, signal processing, and transducer design techniques with modern industrial and RDI-developed technologies to provide a system, which meets the technical requirements for the ...

One of the standard analytical tools on almost all electron microscopes (EM) is an energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) detector used for chemical analysis. However, there are many limitations with the current generation of EDS detectors for EM. The best potential for achieving larger detector active areas, superb energy resolution and an order of magnitude higher count rate compared with co ...

Toyon Research Corporation proposes to design an improved GPS receiver and GPS antenna to reduce installation-dependent errors due to multipath. To develop the receiver, we will prototype and implement various interference cancellation algorithms on a software-defined radio simulation toolkit and hardware testbed. We will design an antenna complementary to this receiver that will suppress signals ...