Award Data

The demand for renewable energy is motivating R&D efforts toward the development of novel photovoltaic (PV) technology. Efficient and low cost solar cells will have an important role in defense applications particularly powering portable electronic devices. Current solar cells based on single crystal silicon are still not at a level to be cost effective when compared to other forms of electrical g ...

Small satellites working in coordinated manner as part of a distributed constellation hold the promise to revolutionize DoD space operations. However, small satellites also have significant inherent limitations. Their size limits the types of sensors that they can accommodate. It also limits propulsion, power generation and attitude control capabilities. One way of overcoming some of these lim ...

The majority of modern portable, wireless electrical devices are powered by batteries; when the batteries are depleted they must be replaced or recharged, which is a problem when the system operates in remote areas or an enemy's region. The capability to scavenge energy from the environment to recharge batteries and/or directly power electronics is essential to increase system lifetime and utilit ...

CubeSats have emerged as a de-facto platform for small, low cost satellites. There is an ever growing list of COTS suppliers for CubeSat compatible systems, and numerous launch opportunities due to the development of the PPOD launcher which now flies as part of many expendable launch vehicles and even the Space Shuttle. In spite of this, CubeSats applications are limited by the small size, volum ...

Composite materials, with their high strength to weight ratios, manipulative properties, and corrosion resistance are now widely utilized throughout the military. High performance composites are required for air, sea, and land platforms. One of the drawbacks of these composite systems is the excessive costs and time required for part manufacturing. Manufacturing of large-scale parts typically r ...

Undersea acoustic sensors are a critical need for U.S. Navy surveillance applications. They are used for measuring acoustic energy originating from distance source to help detect and classify quiet threat targets, as in sonar applications. To expand their field of regard, large sensor arrays are placed at multiple locations along the vehicle body where flow turbulence-induced noise plays a major ...

We propose a unique system for massively distributed social problem-solving that will enable large groups of individuals to form solutions to complex, multi-factor problems. Our minimalist framework, called the ePluribus Solver, will leverage the viral nature of communication in existing social networks to engage individuals in the problem solving process and allow them to develop their own emerge ...

In the defense industry today, high level SysML system models are used by engineers beginning early in the design process to functionally decompose the system being designed and to flow down requirements to sub-systems and components. Despite their usefulness, these system models are by and large descriptive models and not analytical (executable) models. In contrast, domain level engineers (struct ...

U.S. and coalition forces are increasingly becoming more technologically advanced. Technologies such as the Tactical Ground Reporting (TIGR) System and the Remote Operated Video Enhanced Receiver (ROVER) are but two technologies that use small form factor, ultra portable devices. Unfortunately, these technologies tightly couple software with specialized hardware platforms, forcing U.S. military ...

The Progeny – University of Utah team proposes a new approach for flow noise reduction to improve acoustic sensor performance. Our proposal is to investigate the ability of controlling the turbulent flow by utilizing acceleration which makes the flow locally laminar. Our proposed method of achieving acceleration is to send the flow around a concave surface, by adding a “two-dimensional bump ...