Award Data

A unique type of air lubricated thrust bearing called a Wave Bearing is proposed to assist a rolling element bearing to carry the thrust load and to improve the bearing’s life when used in a micro gas turbine engine. The Wave Bearing technology will provide improved reliability, safety and life compared to rolling element bearings used alone, as well as to allow simplification of engine design a ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer research project addresses the perception and learning of complex sound patterns within complex auditory scenes. The objective is to model auditory signal processing, pattern recognition and learning in the human auditory system. Our novel approach simulates the nonlinear signal processing that has been observed in auditory physiology. By mimicking functiona ...

Accurate and timely surveillance of objects in the near-Earth space environment is becoming increasingly critical to US national security. One of the main difficulties in this domain is efficiently and accurately modeling trajectories of the vast number of objects in orbit around the Earth. The orbital trajectory of a single object is typically modeled as a second-order system of equations which ...

Space surveillance is the component of space situational awareness focused on the detection of resident space objects (RSOs) and the use of multisource data to track and identify space objects. While the propagation of the states of RSOs has been investigated extensively over the last fifty years, the correct propagation of their covariance or the more general (non-Gaussian) probability distribut ...

A mathematical framework for detection and classification of weak, distributed patterns on computer networks is proposed. The framework will provide rigorous methods for understanding performance bounds and optimality of intrusion detection methods, while also providing concrete and implementable algorithms. The algorithms will find immediate application in cyber-security efforts, as well as mor ...

Michigan Aerospace Corporation proposes to develop an optical MEMS based skin friction sensor specifically designed for hypersonic applications. This instrument will be capable of shear stress resolutions as small as 0.01 Pa, have a high dynamic range, and data rates in excess of 100 Hz. The sensor will be compact and tolerant of the extreme environmental conditions of hypersonic propulsion test f ...

High energy density and high power capacitors operating at a high frequency are in great demand for a variety of residential, military, medical, and industrial applications. In fact, a large percentage of the cost of alternative energy components is consumed by the cost of capacitors. Although there have been some developments in the fabrication of inorganic super-capacitors, the problems encoun ...

The realization of materials with record mechanical and electrical properties is of paramount importance to the Air Force and other branches of the US Armed Forces. Layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly is capable of producing nanocomposite materials with record properties surpassing those made by many traditional composite preparation techniques. However the process is time consuming and typically yiel ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Research phase I program will develop a new class of uncooled THz detectors for the 1-10THz band with a novel design using surface plasmon resonant cavities with integrated metal-insulator-metal tunneling diodes as the detecting element. Tunneling diodes provide ultrafast broadband response, potentially into the visible (300THz), but demonstrated performanc ...

The Phase I deliverable will be a physic-based model which represents a CMC gas turbine component concomitantly at the material level and the structural level. This model will be probabilistically analyzed to account for the uncertainties in material properties and the uncertainties in the size and impact velocities of possible foreign objects (FOD). A ceramic material must display sufficient capa ...