Award Data

The exponential growth of text-based communication associated with the Internet has lead to a vast increase in the amount of unstructured messages that open source intelligence needs to process. This increase has lead to the need to develop methods for facilitating the detection of deception in various forms of text-based messages, from chat rooms, emails, weblogs, to text messaging. Methods are r ...

A broadband antenna, having more than a 100:1 bandwidth,is integrated with a high impedance surface that is compatible with the manufacturing processes associated with with Navy topside panel constructions and marine vehicle armor. The high impedance surface (also known as an artificial magnetic conductor, or AMC) can be tuned to discrete frequency bands using voltage-variable capacitors and the o ...

We propose to design a high average power Er:Fiber ultrafast laser system which is pumped at 14xxnm, and at the same time solve other problems related to ultrashort pulses in fiber lasers. The advantage of using 14xxnm pumping is the reduction of the standard quantum defect from 37% to 5%, thus greatly reducing the thermal load on the system, which makes it inherently more efficient. We also inten ...

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI), in partnership with the Electrical Engineering Department of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), proposes to compute and reduce mutual coupling between E-field antennas (in Transmit mode) and SQUIDs magnetic loops (in Receive mode) for improved signal reception in SQIF arrays. For the computation of the mutual coupling in the near field PSI and WPI will use an ...

The Navy seeks devices that can provide power to maintain charge in batteries for shipboard sensors. The transduction materials proposed for most energy harvesting devices under development are either too brittle to endure significant loading or are too compliant to extract significant energy from the small amplitude vibrations present on ships. Terfenol-D (in a composite form) and Galfenol each p ...

Diver communication is vital for the US Navy while carrying out strategic underwater missions. Diver-to-diver communication and diver-to-vehicle communication can allow the sharing of information as it is discovered and also enable performing cooperative maneuvers. Emergency situations can also benefit from such communication. In addition to the communication capability, it would be useful to know ...

Scientific Systems and Brigham Young University will develop and test an autonomous helicopter landing system using vision-based navigation and control.

There is need for fast, easy-to-operate, and low-risk methods for mapping geography, velocity, and bathymetry of rivers. River charts can be nonexistent or inadequate because of changes in water volume, tides, sediment transport, flooding, and other events. This is a hindrance and a hazard for navigation and other operations. Currently, procedures to map rivers involve navigating surface vessels i ...

Thermo-mechanical processes of turbine disks have been progressively improved to meet microstructural requirements tailored for advanced, sustainable high temperature performances. However, the chemistry of typical Ni-base turbine disk alloys is very complex, and yields a variety of phases and microstructural anomalies under different thermo-mechanical heat treatments. These microstructural hetero ...

Advances in electronically controlled injection technologies for diesel engines have provided a method to improve medium- to heavy-duty engine performance through increased injection pressures, multiple injections, and injection rate shaping. Although these injection systems have been primarily limited to larger engines, the ability to rapidly and precisely meter fuel for smaller engines is partic ...