Award Data

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) PhaseI project will design, fabricate, and validate a novel low cost (under $40/kW), robust and high-power-density 3 kW fuel cell (FC) power-conditioning system (PCS) suitable for lower voltage FC stacks, comprising a high-frequency inverter (HFI) followed by a forced cyclo-converter, which yields the following features: (1) 300 kHz switching frequen ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I effort proposes to develop a micro-robotic wetware system (MicRobowet) in the form of an integrated microgripper/sensor array for active biological detection and robotic manipulation of micro-organisms such as bacteria, pathogens, metabolites, viruses, fungi, protozoa, lichens, slime molds, etc. in a wet water environment. In the Phase I effor ...

This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to design, test and implement a novel scene-based nonuniformity correction (SBNUC) algorithm for use in microbolometer-based uncooled thermal imagers. The approach relies on exploiting telescopic motion in the scene, in a video sequence, inherent in imagery acquired by a camera that is mounted in the front of an operating vehicle, ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will extend the applicability of the multi-environment probability density function (MEPDF) method to model turbulent combustion problems with realistic chemical kinetics within comprehensive Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations of practical combustion equipment. The project aims to further advance the MEPDF method by extendi ...

Economic losses due to inadequate ripeness detection in the orchard and post-harvest continue to plague the apple industry. It is anticipated that the in-orchard/packinghouse sensor approach will significantly reduce the waste/spoilage-to-edible-fruit ratio, thereby increasing fruit quality and availability and resultant consumer demand at the domestic retail level as well as in the export market. ...

Durable, economical, and highly functional erosion control materials for use in high stress, arid and semi-arid environments are not generally available. And, few uses exist for value-added products made from woody residuals created by small-diameter forest thinning and wildland/urban interface fuels reduction operations. The project will create a durable erosion control system using the lowest va ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will examine the feasibility of developing a balloon-based instrument that can measure water vapor and methane at high precision and accuracy. Water vapor and methane play critical roles in the chemistry, dynamics, and radiative budget of the atmosphere, but their concentrations are quite poorly characterized near the tropopause and in the st ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will investigate an optical coherence tomography (OCT) instrument useful for a wide range of research and development needs in material science, biology, medicine and other fields. Users will be able to optimize the imaging parameters for their specific applications by selecting the center wavelength and resolution with simple changes ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop a functionalized polysiloxane based electrolyte system for electrochemical capacitors, or supercapacitors, that has high conductivity at low temperatures and provides high power density over the entire temperature range (-55 to 95oC) while maintaining a low cost. This functionalized polysiloxane will be synthesized by c ...

This SBIR Phase II project addresses what is considered to be a significant unsolved problem in the Computer-Aided Design (CAD) industry; the fact that many CAD models contain numerous small, unwanted holes or gaps. These gaps occur most often along the seams where two surfaces in a CAD model meet, such as where a wing meets the fuselage of an airplane, and result from fundamental mathematical lim ...