Award Data

Nano forms of graphite and carbon, such as flakes, worms, and tubes, can significantly modify the properties of polymers when used as reinforcements. Challenges remain in processing composites with these nano-reinforcements in the form of attaining uniform dispersions. Many of these difficulties are due to a lack of wetting of the nano-reinforcements by the polymer. Poor wetting is caused by th ...

Aircraft encounters with turbulence are the leading cause of injuries in the airline industry and result in significant human, operational, and maintenance costs to the airline community each year. A large contributor to the above injuries and costs is that flight crews do not have sufficient situational awareness of the location and severity of potential turbulence hazards to their aircraft. Ae ...

As the complexity of flight controllers grows so does the cost associated with verification and validation (V&V). Current-generation controllers are reaching a level of complexity that pushes the envelopes of existing V&V approaches, and without improved approaches there is little hope for affordable V&V of next-generation intelligent systems. Unfortunately, controller complexity and controller v ...

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) can render microwave radiometer measurements useless. We propose a method and an architecture that can be used to identify sources of RFI and be used to identify an optimal scheme for the mitigation of RFI. The system consists of a fully functional digital radiometer that can collect data in the field and pipe the pre-detected signal into, for example, a spectr ...

This Phase I SBIR effort initiates development of a high-sensitivity low-noise all-silicon CMOS-MEMS accelerometer for quasi-steady measurements of accelerations at sub 1 micro-g levels. The accelerometer module includes integrated low-noise CMOS circuitry with active offset and low-frequency noise cancellation to enable high-precision DC measurements. The high-performance of the sensor is enabl ...

Luna Innovations proposes to adapt its current aqueous-based, fiber-optic microcantilever sensor technology for real-time, monitoring of ammonia in air. Phase I studies will focus on confirming sensor operation in a vapor-phase detection format and will build upon Luna's current NASA SBIR Phase II program to develop novel affinity microcantilever-based biosensors for monitoring bacterial and chem ...

Luna Innovations, Inc., in collaboration with the SUNY Stony Brook, proposes to extend ultrasonic pulsed phase locked loop (PPLL) derivative measurements to the noninvasive assessment of bone strain during exercise. The PPLL is a high-resolution ultrasonic spectrometer that measures changes in natural velocity with parts in ten million accuracy. With this resolution, the PPLL can be used to meas ...

The John C. Stennis Space Center's primary mission is testing rocket propulsion systems and components for the Space Shuttle and for future generations of space vehicles. Research to develop new instrumentation technologies and techniques for test facility monitoring and control during propulsion testing includes the need for instrumentation to improve reliability and performance of ground test f ...

Fiber optic sensors are rapidly emerging to replace conventional electrical-based sensor instrumentation in specific applications where small size, low mass, multiplexing capability, and high temperature resistance is a requirement. The advantages offered by state-of-the-art fiber optic sensors are particularly important for flight testing applications where the extremely low-profile geometry of a ...

This document proposes that a network routing protocol, such as the popular Internet Protocol (IP), can be combined with high speed switching fabrics to create a hardware independent routing environment for software radio. The flexible routing provided by such a network layer would allow signal streams to be dynamically routed (and re-routed) between computational elements. This would allow softwa ...