Award Data

ABSTRACT: The need for improved performance of liquid rocket engines requires efficient wall cooling technologies to mitigate high heat fluxes from hot combustion gases to the engine wall in the thrust chamber. High heat fluxes to the chamber liners can be overcome by fuel film cooling (FFC) of the inside chamber using the liquid propellant. Moreover, the thermal cracking of the fuel creates coke ...

ABSTRACT: Toyon Research Corp. and the Penn State Univ. propose research and development of innovative algorithms for classifying objects and activities observed in high-dimensional data, including video and hyperspectral imagery. The proposed algorithms include novel feature clustering techniques to enable effective characterization of intra-class and inter-class appearance variations in datasets ...

Pixelligent, teamed with the Tribology Group at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), proposes a 6 months, $150K STTR Phase I project to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a fuel-efficient nano-fluid gear oil based on Pixelligents advanced nano-additives. If successful, this will pave the way to develop innovative lubricants for gear boxes that can improve f ...

There is an unmet demand for nano-scaled ultra-low-power low-cost radios to address field-deployable and massively producible sensing and communication networks in future military and commercial applications. To overcome the limitations in existing bulky and power hungry radios, we propose a disruptive solution by exploiting the holistic integration of THz radio transceiver system, on-chip antenna ...

Recent demand for short-range communications has risen sharply for both the defense and commercial sectors. Tactical communications with a deployed sensor network require secure short-range communications and high network density to enable robust data fusion and collaborative sensing for enhanced situation awareness for the war fighters. The THz nano-radio technology being developed in this projec ...

Intelligent Automation Inc. (IAI) proposes to develop and implement a two-fold spectrum monitor and broadcast system EM-SMART (Electromagnetic Spectrum Monitor, Identification and Broadcast). EM-SMART provides the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) capability to recognize and classify blue force and red force waveforms, and the emulation capability to broadcast anticipated opposing force waveforms. Th ...

Assured position, navigation and time (PNT) require constant vigilance against intentional and unintentional sources of coherent and non-coherent interference. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is especially vulnerable to attacks and must be defended through electronic protection (EP) measures such as anti-jam (AJ) and anti-spoof (AS). The proposed effort will design and demonstrate GPS-based at ...

ABSTRACT: Current methods for inspecting the external surface of manned and unmanned low-observable (LO) aircraft are time consuming and error prone. Technology that can reduce inspection times and minimize human error will benefit the Air Force by significantly increasing aircraft reliability and availability while reducing lifecycle maintenance costs. To address this need, Intelligent Automat ...

ABSTRACT: This proposal presents an Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN) upgrade scheme using smart antenna and cognitive satellite radio techniques. On the remote tracking station (RTS) side, switched beam smart antenna, distributed beam forming technique, multiple access technique based on FDMA and/or CDMA are applied to obtain multiple satellites reception objective. On the satellite si ...

ABSTRACT: In this proposal a Game-theoretic Universal Anti-RFI Defense (GUARD) framework for Satellite Communications is proposed. Key components of the GUARD framework include i) Radio Frequency Interferences (RFI) modeling and impact evaluation infrastructure, which allows the evaluation of the impact of RFI from various sources, and provides a comprehensive RFI knowledge base to SATCOM; ii) RF ...