Award Data

Sensor development researchers and engineers have perpetually sought novel methods to reduce sensor size and improve performance. Continued miniaturization of sensors through micromachining has enabled novel applications and introduced new paradigms for engineered systems to interact with the world. The challenge has always been to improve performance while continually reducing size. In the cur ...

Mayflower Communications has partnered with the Boston University Hearing Research Center to propose novel techniques for speech enhancement in reverberant environment based on advanced auditory modeling of higher-level processing in the human auditory brain. Speech enhancement or noise suppression has been an area of active research for well over three decades. State-of-the-art single-microphone ...

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 ...

The ever-decreasing size of the electronic microchips and the ever-increasing density of electronic components required to support future Air Force platforms are creating the problem of substantial localized heat generation that can impair component operation. State of the art thermal interface materials (TIMs), that are used to dissipate heat from the source to the spreader in a microchip, are se ...

different modes, while using different combinations of subsystems. This presents a challenge for the personnel validating the system during design and development; the number of combinations of environments, modes, and subsystems is exponential. They cannot all be tested, so an optimal subset of tests must be run. We propose to develop VERITAS: Validation and Evaluation of Remote, Interactive Tea ...

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 ...

In miniature gas turbines for UAV applications, traditional bearings exhibit a typical lifetime of only 25 hours due to excessive axial loading. Mainstream proposes to use a passive, permanent magnet thrust bearing to alleviate this problem and increase service life to over 1000 hours. Since this type of bearing is non-contacting, it can operate at very high rotational speeds with minimal heat gen ...

Military shelters currently use electrically driven Environmental Control Units (ECUs) to provide cooling for the air inside the shelter. The ECU is vapor compression cycle powered by a diesel generator, operating on JP-8 fuel. Other than fueling jet engines, the largest drain on U.S. military fuel supplies in current operations comes from running generators at forward operating bases. In hot cli ...