Award Data

Warfare is changing; there is a need for airborne and space-based sensor systems to detect small, highly maneuverable targets against a strong clutter background in the presence of jamming. Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) is a new signal processing technique for advanced radar systems that allows for performance enhancements over conventional approaches. Current power, weight, and size cons ...

Traditional finite element methods require conversion of a CAD model into an alternate geometric representation called the finite element mesh. Tools like Cubit, developed at Sandia National Laboratories, have greatly reduced the time to mesh. However, it is still expensive to produce a complete analysis and difficult to have that analysis affect the design cycle in a timely manner. Our studies ...

Bubble generation and entrainment in the transom region of a surface ship, along its hull, and in breaking waves are major ship signature contributors. For advanced ships such as the LCS, another source of air entrainment is added with the propulsion waterjets interacting with the free surface in the transom region. While significant research on breaking waves bubble generation exists, little is ...

The goal of this program is to develop high linearity and high efficiency power amplifiers through innovative ultra linear transistors and digital signal processing (DSP) circuit linearization techniques for airborne or UAV applications. Specifically, we will demonstrate average output power, PAE, and inter-modulation distortion (IMD) of 150 Watts, 50% and -50 dBc respectively for the L- band mono ...

Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid state joining process with unique characteristics that offer opportunities for cost savings, new fabrication methods, and new structural designs. FSW eliminates many of the problems associated with fusion welding techniques. In addition, FSW generates a “stir zone” microstructure that consists of very fine, equiaxed grains that are ideal for post-weld f ...

The leading edge of the V-22 rotor blade is made of titanium and nickel abrasion strips bonded to the composite substrate. Although effective for rain erosion protection, nickel and titanium show poor sand erosion resistance. In addition, this metal and composite hybrid configuration limits working strain and fatigue life. This hybrid concept also hampers field serviceability and increases the ...

Intelligent Automation, Inc. (IAI), proposes a reliable integrated COTS-based reader/writer that can deliver RF waveforms to a cross-correlation based RF receiver at high speeds of 40 Gbps. We have already identified key COTS hardware that offers following advantages (1) input/ Output blocks of the FPGA can handle various input/ output standards like LVDS, LVCMOS, PCI-X, GTL and GTLP. Hence extern ...

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have demonstrated their effectiveness in threat detection and localization. However, there are two critical issues related to signal processing in WSNs. First, energy-efficiency, memory-consumption, bandwidth-utilization, and computation-complexity are of main concern. Second, the application environments contain highly colored noise, multi-path echoes, and simult ...

We propose to jointly develop a miniaturized novel chemical sensor system through a collaborative effort between IonFinity, LLC, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Imaginative Technologies, LLC. This field portable chemical sensor system consists of 1) a new and powerful detector called a Differential Mobility Spectrometer (DMS) developed by Imaginative Technologies, and 2) a novel “soft-io ...

The Navy is currently developing advanced surface combatants like DD(X), LPD-17, LCS and CVX to meet challenges of the 21st century. The desire to reduce maintenance cost and weight makes the use of composite structures very attractive, but cost of manufacturing large composite structures remains a significant technology barrier. KaZaK and UMass Lowell propose to develop pultrusion technology of b ...