Award Data

Ever-increasing demands for power and energy have tethered military field personnel to long logistic tails that limit the ability to maneuver and make resupply convoys prime targets for attack.  The deployment of new power sources with greater efficiencies, increased energy densities, and reduced thermal and acoustic signatures will facilitate improvements to communications, weapons, and support ...

Low noise optical amplifiers with watt-class optical power are a critical component for a variety of applications such as free space optical communications, light detection and ranging (LIDAR), high-performance microwave photonics (MWP) and so on. Traditionally, such applications have utilized erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). Although capable of generating high powers and the required low-no ...

Recent advancements in artillery, muzzle velocity, and post-launch propulsion technology have enabled gun-launched projectiles to travel faster and at longer ranges than ever before. To be most effective in flight and at range, the projectiles must incorporate RF sensors to enable advanced, mission-critical functionality. The RF sensors must also be able to survive and operate through extreme gun- ...

In this proposal, we propose an FMCW radar based cable remaining useful life (RUL) estimator to detect, locate, and classify cable faults, and estimate the cable RUL. The system includes three key elements - an FMCW radar, a cable degradation model, and a machine learning (ML) based data processing module. The FMCW radar transmits a chirp down to the cable through a lead cable and an impedance mat ...

Oriented polymer films such as those made of ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) can offer high ballistic protection at low areal densities, however, their application is limited due to low optical transmittance and clarity. Hence, in this project, LaunchBay LLC will develop manufacturing process for a novel oriented film that provides not only superior ballistic perfo ...

The US Army and Department of Defense are continuing in their investment in the development of energetic materials for use in additive manufacturing (AM) for propellants.  Nalas Engineering is partnering with Dr. Lori Groven at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology to develop innovative liquid resin systems for use in additive manufacturing, specifically UV light-based curing technol ...

5.0 volt lithium batteries could provide higher power and greater energy density than existing 4.2 volt batteries, but there is currently not a known combination of electrodes and electrolytes that are stable under repeated charge/discharge cycles. Individual components such as the anode, new olivine cathodes and ionic liquid electrolyte are individually stable at these voltages, but they fail at ...

Challenge: Long lead times, vendors going out of business, and unreliable quality control for advanced materials are creating an unstable supply chain for production of large format components, particularly those made of specialty materials. Large area additive manufacturing has been identified as the ideal way to onshore manufacturing and create a flexible, sustainable supply chain for critical h ...

This program will develop a novel, low environment, safety, and occupational health (ESOH) risk coating system capable of mitigating the long wave infrared (LWIR) signature of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This will be achieved through a first in class biosynthetic approach to graft the biosynthetic pathway of the bio-pigment xanthommatin into a microbial host. The pigment produced through t ...

Digital sensor data received by infrared focal plane arrays (IRFPA) faces a readout bottleneck before exiting the cooled environment to room temperature processing. This is the very same bottleneck faced in other applications with harsh environments, such as quantum and classical supercomputing. Electrical links are lossy and bandwidth limited, and coaxial cables have a high thermal conductivity a ...