Award Data

"The proposed research approches the problems of stability, operation mode transfer, and syatem monitoring for multi-modal ground vehicles. The research seeks to provide simple criteria and design frameworks that are applicable to the design of manymultimodal and autonomous vehicle designs. The development of design criteria and baseline methods for the design of multimodal autonomous vehicles. ...

A critical component of a biochemical sensor system for detection and analysis of airborne pathogens are mechanisms for automated acquisition and transport of an air sample from the sensor inlet to the analysis chamber. While considerable capability already exists for sampling and handling of macroscopic volumes of gas, formidable technological challenges needed to be overcome before microfabrica ...

A novel approach to the propulsion of very small, micro air vehicles is proposed in which electrostatic forces acting between an ion gas cloud and an appropriate anode are harnessed for thrust or lift. A means is proposed for the generation and maintenance of the ion gas from ambient air and for the regulation of the propulsor. Preliminary study indicates the new concept is valid only for air v ...

Proposed is an investigation into the use of flexible, extremely strong and tough, superelastic Nitinol shape memory alloy as a means of dramatically improving puncture resistance for personnel body armor. The Nitinol material is proposed as a surface material or coating for reinforcement or organic fiber fabrics and/or composites or aramid and UHMW polyethylene used in the current body armor sys ...

MicroDexterity Systems was founded by Steve Charles, MD to develop systems for dexterity enhancement for microsurgery; a concept he originated in the mid 80's. Dexterity enhancement is a subset of tele-operation. The MDS mission statement was broadened in 1994 to address the problem of non-ferromagnetic tele-operation for intra-operative magnetic resonance imaging frequently called image guided ...

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Opportunities exist to scavenge energy available in the wind to provide electrical power to many militarily significant, long-endurance, stand-alone data collection tasks, such as collection of meteorological data. This will greatly extend the no-maintenance endurance of data collection systems. This research project will develop and demonstrate two novel approaches to compactly packaging high-e ...

We propose to build an energy extractive Individual Portal (I-Port) to the virtual world enabling the user to traverse a large virtual workspace in a very small real space. Using a commercial exercise treadmill, this device will improve virtual training, health maintenance and evaluation, and have a large market for education, recreation, and adversarial gaming. A motion capture, energy extracti ...

Among composite materials, aluminum/graphite and copper/graphite composites are potentially leading materials for use in high-performance electronic systems. The use of aluminum matrix (Al/Gr) composites for packaging material, however, have been severely limited because of the raw material and fabrication costs of the composite. In order to produce an inexpensive packaging material that exhibit ...

Technology for extending the life of fielded systems offers the potential for signification saving in total ownershipcosts. On-board monitoring and analysis offers the potential to instill increased confidence in prediction of fatigue or remaining usefullife on an individual system basis. This, in turn, offers the potential to reduce premature part retirement. The Phase I project demonstrated t ...