Award Data

Advanced Diamond Solutions, Inc. proposes the development of a novel high efficiency solar cell design based on amorphous diamond nanotip thermoelectric power generation properties. Amorphous diamond has a unique set of material characteristics stemming from its combination of graphitic, diamond and carbon-nanotube structures. Amorphous diamond inherently possesses numerous discrete energy state ...

This NASA SBIR Phase II effort will develop a 1 x 10 prototype non-mechanical fiber optic switch for use with high power lasers. The proposed optical device is a fiber-based multi-channel switch to rapidly switch a fiber-coupled laser among ten output channels as an integral part of a fiber-based fixed-array laser transmitter for next-generation NASA lidar systems. The key innovation is the use ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I effort will establish the feasibility of developing a fiber coupled, high power, electro-optically controlled, space qualified, phase modulator for the NASA Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Specific to the LISA project is the use of three spacecraft, spanned by vast distances, to make gravitational wave measurements. A central aspect in mai ...

Infrared sensors play an important role in missile defense systems, and continued improvement in their performance is critical as adversary payloads become smaller, cooler, and dimmer. While there can be no substitute for in-situ performance testing, the risks, cost, and development time for future systems can be reduced through accurate scene and sensor simulations. Current scene simulation alg ...

This effort to nowcast and forecast the Battlespace environment will predict the real world occurrence and structure of stressing atmospheric phenomena by developing a prototype tool and operational concept that demonstrate forecasting capability and accuracy improvements. Our approach to this problem involves locating and identifying stressing optical backgrounds contained in measurements and ex ...

We propose a Phase I SBIR project to define a forecast system to predict lower stratospheric and upper tropospheric optical turbulence. The application will be designed to be implemented within the Airborne Laser Atmospheric Decision Aid (ADA). The application will utilize as input data from the Air Force Weather Agency's theater numerical weather prediction (NWP) model. During Phase I, several ca ...

A system is proposed for real-time specification of the Battlespace Environment and integrated sensor management designed to optimize the joint operational capabilities of radio-frequency (RF), electro-optical (EO) and infrared (IR) sensors in the detection, tracking, surveillance, characterization of space objects. Techniques to assimilate real-time data will be developed, and these data will be ...

The first sentinel of ABL’s present target acquisition suite is a passive infrared search and track sensor of 1970s vintage, which we propose replacing with HyPAWS. HyPAWS is a low-cost passive wide-field of view staring sensor. Several such units suffice to provide full 360-degree view coverage. Leveraging revolutionary sensing techniques in ongoing development, HyPAWS offers advanced detect ...

Emissions performance of military engines has taken on an increasingly prominent importance for the DoD in recent years. Military bases which lie in areas that are out of compliance with EPA regulations are required to participate in that state's plan to come into compliance and improve the regional air quality. Particle emissions from all sources have come under increasingly stringent regulatio ...

The goal of the overall SBIR project is to enable fast, real-time measurements of the shape factor and density of particulate matter emitted by gas turbine engines in the size range of 20 to 600 nm using a modified version of the Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS). Such information is critical to evaluating data generated by existing instrumentation that measures only size and number densit ...