Award Data

Herein, an innovative aircraft weighing system based on a set of piezopolymar film pad sensors is described. The wieghing system, which would operate automatically as the aircraft taxi over it, would be unobtrusive, accurate, and reliable. These sensor pads could be integrated into the flight deck surface below the grated rubber surface finish. These thin (20-30 mils) piezopolymer sensing pads ...

Cured aircraft composite materials present a particularly difficult challenge for recycling technology. Those materials have mostly thermosetting epoxy matrices and occur in intimate association with metals, paints, and coatings. Current techniques for recycling thermoset composites, mostly for automotive sheet molding compounds (SMC), involve pulverizing the material for use as fillers. Th ...

A novel tertiary recycling process is proposed for investigation as an economical means for recycling shipboard plastic waste. Early development work has shown that this process can convert a wide variety of polymers and composites into low molecular weight hydrocarbons at temperatures below 200'C. The hydrocarbons produced can then be reused as chemicals, fuels, or monomers. Metal, glass, and fil ...

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The proposed effort in Phase I is to identify properties of propellants that solidify at cryogenic temperatures, "cryosolids", that will be tested in Phase Ii and to deliver a detailed design of a cryogenic testing device. This device will be able to measure tensile, flexural, shear and compressive strength, elastic moduli, and hardness of these cryosolids. In addition, this device will be able ...

The Joint Surveillance System Computer-Communications System (C-CS) provides mission-critical support to Region Operations Control Centers (ROCCs), Sector Operations Control Centers (SOCCs), and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). New mission requirements (drug interdiction) and new sensor/system developments exceed the scope of the original design and mission of the C-CS. As a resu ...

High intensity cooling of expansion turbine blades is proposed, using a self-stabilized evaporation/condensation process within each blade. The result is low blade structural temperature, with waste heat delivered to a low pressure air flow. This is a key technology requirement for development of a fully cooled gas turbine, with potential for operation at radically increased turbine inlet temper ...

Compromise of security networks is easiest through the communication links. Wired links between sensors and their controls require skilled preplanning and installation. They are expensive to maintain, especially in the connections to central security monitors and command centers. We propose to use a radio based communication system to replace the hardwire/fiberoptic links. This sysem is packet rad ...

Today's tactical aircraft employ sophisticated onboard sensors which can be managed in several dimensions, including spatial focus, sensing modality, and temporal scheduling. Effective mission operations, such as air interdiction and counter air, require efficient sensor control and scheduling that accounts for the limited availability of sensor resources to support all current sensor tasks, as w ...

There are strong motivations for the development of accurate, efficient algorithms for the three-dimensional location of stationary or moving targets from one or more video sensors. In this proposal we describe an effort to accomplish this task by exploiting ALPHATECH's unique expertise in all related technology areas: extraction of information from imagery, multi-object tracking, three-dimens ...