Award Data

Current fielded sensor protection is limited to fixed wavelength filters. Broadband filters designed to circumvent multi-wavelength laser threats are plagued by low transmittance, which degrades the sensitivity and performance of the sensor. Future warfighter threats include frequency agile lasers and thus have the potential of defeating fixed filters. Self-activating (passive) devices where prote ...

Current scene projection hardware is challenged to simultaneously meet the requirements for high peak temperature (> 2000K), high resolution (> 1Kx1K), response time < 1 ms, cryogenic and temporally uniform photon flux. MEMS, Resistor arrays, liquid crystals, and photonic crystals all suffer in one or more areas. MEMS suffer from flicker and low dynamic range. Resistor arrays suffer from low frame ...

The development of compact and telescope-deployable laser sources emitting in the yellow portion of the visible spectrum is critical for the advancement of DoD-relevant adaptive optics capabilities. The objective of this project is to continue the development of novel laser architectures based on optically-pumped substrate-transferred epitaxial gain media capable of efficient thermal management an ...

MZA partnered with the Michigan Technological University (MTU) proposes development and testing of key components for our unified Atmospheric Refractivity and Turbulence Sensor (ARTS.) Software upgrades will be made to MZA’s DELTA-Sky sensor to enable atmospheric refraction measurements in addition to existing turbulence profiling. The illuminator assembly to implement the ARTS probe laser ...

The objective of this project is to develop human intelligence-inspired algorithms that exploit multi-modal sources of low and high quality data to achieve a series of objectives such as detection, localization, tracking, and classification. A Bayesian model-based hierarchical adaptive decision making (HADM) algorithm will be developed which includes multiple levels of decision making organized in ...

Recent advances and successes of deep learning neural networks (DLNN) techniques and architectures have been well publicized over the last several years. Voluminous, high-quality and annotated training data, or trial and error in a realistic environment, is required to achieve the promised performance potential of DLNNs. Unfortunately for DoD and/or Intelligence Community (IC) applications of mult ...

The team at South 8 Technologies is the first to develop a novel and patented Liquefied Gas Electrolyte chemistry for rechargeable lithium metal batteries which meets these Air Force requirements. The proposed non-hazardous chemistry has already demonstrated world-record performance on the lithium metal anode (99.9% plating/stripping efficiency over hundreds of cycles) while maintaining high perfo ...

Vital sign, such as respiration rate and heart rate, provide important indications of the physiological and mental conditions of an Airman. Being able to understand the physiological and mental conditions of an operator is therefore of vital importance to improving the efficiency and efficacy of future Air Force operations. Current state-of-the-practice in continuous cardiopulmonary vital sign mon ...

Current techniques for supporting Multi-Level Security (MLS) on embedded devices rely on maintaining secure connections back to centralized servers or dedicated computers for managing authentication and access controls. To provide the embedded devices with the capability to handle content of differing security levels directly on device, the operating system (OS) must properly and securely isolate ...

Carbon-carbon (C-C) composites are used in the fabrication of aeroshells and thermal protection systems (TPS) in hypersonic and atmospheric reentry applications because they maintain their strength at elevated temperatures and have desirable thermal conductivity properties. Although these materials have been used in mission-critical components for decades, the effects of variations in processing m ...