Award Data

This effort will characterize the spatial structure and real world features of stressing atmospheric phenomena and develop techniques to efficiently represent these phenomena in optical/infrared background models. Our approach to this problem involves locating and identifying stressing backgrounds contained in measurements and extracting key clutter characteristics in a form that allows t ...

Leveraging on Agiltron's recent breakthrough in manufacturing low cost fiber optic digital delay lines and the drastic improvement in cost and performance of commercial optical transceivers, we propose to develop a practical fiber optic variable time delay based T/R integration module for microwave coherent distributed aperture and space-time coded phased array radars. The proposed approach overco ...

DACS thrust chambers for the THAAD kill vehicle are currently made out of niobium, which is heavy, difficult to machine, and expensive to produce. Previously, a lightweight ceramic composite was used, but this material was brittle and even more expensive than the metal solution. In this program, Applied Sciences, Inc. will produce a nano-reinforced ceramic matrix composite which will have enhance ...

Aspen Systems Inc., proposes to investigate the feasibility of developing a protective coating material for ZnS that will have comparable mechanical properties of ALON, Spinel and Sapphire but will retain the extended regime transmission properties of multi-spectral ZnS. However, ZnS being a soft material with relatively poor mechanical strength and erosion resistance, it is essential to develop a ...

The United States faces the risk of losing a technology vital to national security. Coatings of Titanium Carbide (TiC) applied by a novel Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) Process are applied to the balls used in ball bearings in several important strategic and tactical missile defense systems. A Swiss company was the sole source of these coatings and their production capability has now been phase ...

For the Phase I effort, Busek developed a simple, integrated colloid thruster prototype capable of producing thrust of 100 µN at reasonable operating conditions. A unique geometry was chosen from several electrospraying sources tested. This thrust was conservatively estimated from measured beam current, accelerating voltage and could be significantly higher. As this was achieved from an area o ...

A new generation of high altitude airships (HAA) requires advanced materials and fabrication methods to achieve the weight, strength and durability requirement for long-term deployment. A new fabric joining approach is proposed to form strong, durable seams between textile components without incurring a large weight penalty. The new textile adhesive and application system are designed to perform ...

Missile defense takes place in an unpredictable, real-time environment and thus requires an adaptive approach to optimization that dynamically allocates sensors and their supporting resources in response to changing goals and constraints. Here, we propose a system for Sensor Network Optimization using Multi-Agent Negotiation (SNOMAN) to meet the challenge of this real-time resource allocation prob ...

Our proposal specifically addresses the stated requirements of the solicitation; to enable automated analysis and visualization of the architecture of large, complex, mixed programming language software systems. The EDAptive Computing, Inc (ECI) Software Analysis and Visualization Tool to Maintain and Verify complex mixed language systems (SAVVY) allows the user to take these systems and, through ...

Missile defense presents a potentially challenging environment that requires use of advanced communications techniques to achieve reliable communications. The communications model applicable for missile defense has been specified by DTRA. The capability to accurately emulate the DTRA channel model is critical to evaluating potential future upgrades to the In Flight Interceptor Communication Sys ...