Award Data

Target tracking and aimpoint maintenance are critical functions within a laser directed energy system. Traditionally, the optical sensor is a conventional camera viewing an actively illuminated target. In the absence of turbulence, it is still difficult to point the laser weapon to a specific hit spot when there are no features in the required direction. Further, atmospheric turbulence scintillate ...

Large ground-based telescopes require adaptive optics (AO) to correct for distortions introduced by atmospheric turbulence. In order to function, the AO system must track a bright point source. Although a natural star may be used, full sky coverage requires an artificial beacon created with a laser. The most common type of laser guide star (LGS) employs the mesospheric layer of sodium atoms at an ...

New, innovative laser spectroscopy technology will be developed for performance quantification and combustion characterization in a Rotational Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). The effort will push the state of the art in tunable laser absorption spectroscopy to enable fast time response diagnostics of the extreme pressure and temperature conditions of an RDRE.

We will deliver a new software architecture for scene generation named the Realistic Image and Neighborhood Generator (RING). Instead of being tied to a single tool, RING will provide interfaces suitable for a wide variety of image and scene rendering tools to run and interact with other codes. As an initial implementation of the interfaces, we will incorporate Stellar Science’s powerful, f ...

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 ...

hazardous chemicals such as JP8, chromium, and byproducts of led-free frangible ammunition and to hazardous environments. Of the many dangers Airmen face, the hypoxia-like unexplained physiological events pilots face are some of the most dangerous and elusive. Current wearable sensors cannot decouple complex, interdependent in vivo response. We propose to develop (design, fabricate, test, and demo ...

The proposed effort aims to deliver a novel process model for carbon-carbon manufacturing to determine thermo-mechanical properties of these materials and their components, thereby enabling a faster cycle for material development for hypersonic platforms. The proposed solution consists of (1) requirement and functionality analyses, (2) a six-level model representing the key steps of the manufactur ...

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 ...

The objective of this effort matures a technology called EagleEye Sentinel Hosted – Secure Overlay System Protect (ESH-SOSP), to provide a new security layer for normal cyber physical system (CPS) operations as the basis for detecting system anomalies and cyber-attacks for the U.S. Air Force. ESH-SOSP technology provides the security analyst the means to have all the necessary and relevant ...

The Biomagnetics Micro Dosimetry System (BMDS) program will design, model, and simulate a microdosimetry system that can measure and create a three dimensional map of weak radiofrequency signals in biological organisms. The heart of the BMDS project is the front end that delivers very sensitive, broad band measurements with high spatial resolution. The front end is a valuable tool in the investiga ...