Award Data

The design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) is a complex process of creating a reliable system of reasonable cost that can survive in hostile environments. Although UAV’s have unique aspects to them, similar goals can be found in almost any complex, competitive product. One aspect of the design of these systems that tends to be both difficult and poorly supported with available computer ...

79729S Ocean currents constitute a potentially enormous renewable energy resource; however, existing technologies for capturing this energy are only in the prototype stage, are small in scale (less than 1 megawatt), and are not grid-connected. Although there is a considerable overlap in technology with the more mature field of wind energy, new robust technologies will have to be developed that ar ...

79659S As direct drive wind turbines increase in size, the diameter of their generators increases to the point where it is no longer possible to ship them as a single unit. While some companies have addressed this issue by using wound rotor generators that can be assembled on site, this approach suffers from the inherent lower efficiency and reliability of the wound rotor technology. To date, no ...

Dynamic Sensors, Incorporated (DSI) proposes a superior approach to Algorithms for Hyper-spectral Image Processing for the problem of spatial-spectral-temporal measurements of transient phenomena. DSI will demonstrate a Machine Intelligent Processor (MIP) software tool for rapid identification of dynamic battlefield events. MIP is an image analysis approach that is based on a neurobiological mod ...

75272B Transmission Electron Microscopy is a technique that allows materials to be analyzed to the nanometer and sub-nanometer scales. The next level of materials analysis will require the ability to perform dynamic experimentation within the microscope, which would require specialized specimen holding technology to perform the desired experiments. This project addresses the treatment of a spec ...

Thermal batteries use a number of halide-based electrolytes, such as LiCl-KCl eutectics, that have an operational temperature range from 350°C to over 550°C. Such high temperatures can be unacceptable if there are temperature-sensitive electronics adjacent to the battery. In a Phase I SBIR effort we have identified and tested battery systems with operational temperatures in the 120°C to 228.5 ...

The main objective of this program is to develop a new class of high performance hard magnetic materials that will maintain an energy product of 30 MGOe or greater at temperatures up to 450 °C. These novel magnetic materials are greatly needed for the "more electric" airplanes and space vehicle applications where a high operating temperature is a strict requirement. The approaches to be used for ...

Active Denial Systems are non-lethal, counter-personnel directed energy weapons that project focused energy beams in the millimeter-wave spectrum to induce an avoidance response and repel individuals without injury. Calibration of such weapons requires accurately measuring millimeter-wave flux density over large areas at distances corresponding to the range of ADS weapons. To ensure that the beam ...

78150B The catalytic reforming of diesel fuel in Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) systems must overcome a number of challenging issues: (1) the deactivation of the catalyst by sintering and sulfur poising; (2) the requirement for a large fuel processing system as a result of high space velocity requirements; and (3) the lack of durability of the catalysts, which require frequent replacement due to "c ...

79281S In the U.S., the production of 4.6 billion pounds of Nylon-6 and Nylon-6,6 starts with the liquid-phase oxidation of 3.5 billion pounds of cyclohexane to cyclohexanone/cyclohexanol, and the subsequent oxidation of the latter to adipic acid with HNO3. The liquid-phase cyclohexane oxidation, which operates at only 4-10% cyclohexane conversion, is the ¿least efficient¿ industrial process, a ...