Award Data

Small satellites have proven capable and cost effective, and innovative payloads and technologies will expand the mission space that CubeSats can support. ATA proposes to build a CubeSat-sized laser communications prototype payload, adapting high photon efficiency optical communications techniques to achieve data transfer rates up to 100 mega-bits per second (Mbps) with the small apertures require ...

There has long been a need to quickly identify persons at long range with high accuracy.For tactical applications, solutions need to be compact, lightweight and frugal with power.Solutions also need to be fully functional in environments where communications are limited or non-existent.Challenges to meeting these requirements are: 1) obtaining sufficient face image resolution at long range, 2) rem ...

Multi-Purpose Canines (MPCs) are an integral aspect of the US military. The continued expansion and use of these indispensable force multipliers in an intense, ever-changing and complex battlefield requires enhancing their innate capabilities in a timely manner. Additionally, canines have a relatively short life span, and considering the substantial training period that MPCs must undergo, their ef ...

In recent decades, High Performance Computing (HPC) has risen as one of the key enablers of innovation in science and engineering. However, complexity and cost of deploying applications impedes industrial adoption. Problems include the quality, speed, and flexibility of software tools and the specialized expertise required to adapt solutions given the profusion of hardware configurations. Efficien ...

Several high energy physics experiments require accurate timing measurements and transient digitization at high sampling rates, equaling or exceeding 5 gigasamples per second (GSPS). To date, only a few transient digitizer chips have been developed for this purpose and they are based on storing the analog samples onto long buffers from which they are digitized with low-rate analog-to-digital conve ...

The supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton cycle is gaining interest across a variety of power generation applications due to its potential for providing higher efficiencies. The range of industrial applications include: industrial waste and heat recovery, coal and nuclear power plants, and renewable energy sources such as solar thermal and fuel cells. Direct fired sCO2 cycle loops require combustors th ...

The technology development for the supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power plant is well underway, and the first pilot plants are now under construction. The new pilot plants are sized for a 10 MW net power output; a good size to gain valuable data for larger utility scale power plants. This is also a very good size for the smaller, distributed power applications. The distributed power application is envis ...

There is an urgent need to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from coal burning power plants. Current CO2 capture technologies are too expensive and not economically viable. A new technology that can capture ~90% of the CO2 and significantly reduce the cost of capture is required for commercial viability. Statement of How this Problem is Being Addressed:This project is aimed at the development of ...

Thermal desorption using spouted bed reactor has demonstrated a reduction of 65% of Mercury and 28% of Sulfur content in bituminous coal in laboratory scale setting. Further development is needed to: (1) demonstrate efficient contaminant removal from coal in scaled up system, (2) address relevant needs from industrial partners, and (3) mature the developed coal cleaning technology to commercializa ...

Large-scale computing systems, formerly relegated to research institutions and behind closed doors, are now often used for critical infrastructure modeling and control. These high-performance computing systems are frequently geographically distributed and exposed to the Internet, making them attractive resources for misuse and cyberattack. As high-performance computing systems grow even more popul ...