Award Data

The program objective is to develop novel designs, techniques, and structures to synthesize apertures capable of efficient operation over broad frequency ranges and functions. Conventional apertures are narrowly focused, application specific, and basically single point design. To decrease the cost of antennas, a more universal building block design is required. It would provide a significantly ...

The overall goal of the proposed effort is to develop a fusion process that integrates SAR and hyperspectral sensor data in order to overcome the current performance limitations of single sensor automatic target cueing. In the Phase I effort, we will define a concept of operation for SAR/hyperspectral automatic target cueing. The nature of the imaging domains of SAR and HS sensor as well as the ...

Improved magnetic and electromagnetic sensors covering a wide range of frequencies, 0 to 10kHz, and with extremely high sensitivity are proposed for broad area detection and characterization of underground targets. The sensors can be used for a variety of applications and for different e.m. sources. They can be configured as gradiometers, as vector or scaler sensors and can be used as internette ...

Development of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers for 1550nm communication applications has been hindered by the lack of high quality Bragg mirrors. Efforts for growing high quality InGaAsP/InP, SbGaAsAI/InGaAsP as well as wafer-bonding with GaAs/AIOx mirrors are on-going but significant breakthroughs in material quality and yield are needed before devices are produced. In addressing this ch ...

This DARPA SBIR Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility of revolutionary ionic self-assembly methods of creating electric field-tunable thin-film electronic materials and devices. Exciting recent work at F&S and Virginia Tech has shown that the ionic nature of the self-assembly process inherently results in the spontaneous regular geometric ordering of noncentrosymmetric dipole molecules. ...

Foster-Miller, Inc. (FMI) in association with Schwartz Electro Optics, Inc. (SEO) proposes to develop a novel in-situ real-time sensor for monitoring Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) growth processes. These sensors will be based on laser induced atomic fluorescence, which is the method of choice for trace analysis of atomic species in the low pressure MBE environment. The enabling technology is the ...

Foster-Miller proposes to build on its previous work on robotic attachment of packages to moving vehicles. It has found that a combination of acoustic and seismic with z-direction magnetic signature can positively identify the vehicle type as well as provide a decision for a launch point. We have also shown through experiment that a mechanical clamp, certain adhesives and magnetics, pyrotechnica ...

Foster-Miller, a company committed to growth in the commercialization of optical communications products, proposes to conduct a Phase I SBIR effort directed towards the development of a wideband optical receiver. This development has goals for performance of the receiver that include operational bandwidths of 20 - 100 GHz for linear operation at power levels of greater than 20 mW of optical powe ...

Foster-Miller will build on the highly mobile and long range (9 mi) bottom crawling systems of the Lemmings family of vehicles, used to perform surveillance and reconnaissance in the shallow water (SW) and very shallow water (VSW) regimes. Lemmings, Sea Dog and in-house research efforts have attached a variety of sensors including acoustic, optical, bottom condition and water-column characterizat ...

This Phase I project will examine the feasibility of utilizing a novel three dimensional culture device, termed Cellfoam to support the in vitro production of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets from primitive CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). The high demand for blood and blood components in the civilian and military populations, coupled with the growing risk of blood-bor ...