Award Data

Description (provided by applicant): The goal of this Phase II project is to demonstrate the prototype of a fully implantable rotary ventricular assist device (VAD). This pump utilizes the advanced three-dimensional magnetic suspension for the rotor demonstrated during Phase I. This bearing system requires neither position sensors nor active feedback electronics, resulting in the simplest 3-0 magn ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Limb-shortening deformities and bone segmental defects remain among the most difficult challenges faced by patients and orthopaedists. Traditional techniques to correct these problems rely primarily on transverse pins or wires, which are subject to pain, scars, contractions, and risk of infection. The Phase I research demonstrated the feasibility of a new metho ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this Phase II program is to develop and demonstrate a compact, highly accurate, and easy-to-use diagnostic system for monitoring the "health" of implanted rotary blood pumps. Based on promising results from Phase I, this blood pump diagnostic system (BPDS) will use only external sensors and, therefore, will be completely nonintrusive and readily ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The fundamental goal of this research is to develop an intravascular catheter pump of adequate output, appropriate size, high blood compatibility, and adequate durability to be used as a temporary assist pump in the operating room or interventional cardiology lab. The Phase I program demonstrated the ability to meet this goal by satisfying all success criter ...

During this Phase II study Instructional Systems R&D (ISRD) will develop and test a software tool designed to assist novice instructional designers and SMEs. The tool, called the Courseware Designer Support Tool (CDST), is based on the innovation of aunique cognitive model of expert instructional design practice identified by ISRD during the Phase I study. The CDST will help users follow an expert ...

Intelligent Automation Corporation (IAC) has developed under a Phase I SBIR topic a signal processing technique to detect the onset of turbine engine augmentor instabilities known as

The key to producing more confident, real-time, on-wing diagnoses resides in the processing of multisensor data. Adding expensive new sensors is not the solution, but data fusion is. Fusion saves cost and weight; no new sensors are required. Fusionreduces false alarm rates; faults to be seen across multiple sensors. Diagnostic performance is improved by allowing detection of unique fault patte ...

Accurate and timely measurement of the developing environment toxicity is of great importance for general pollution control and for military operations. Biosensors, which are based on a combination of biological sensing element and an electronic signaltransducer, are finding a wide spread use in the environment toxicity measurements. Standard statistical approaches used commonly in the analysis of ...

Engine component fatigue life prediction is based upon material conditions such as temperature, stress and exposure time, all of which are induced by system and flight cycle usage. With increasing demands on weapon systems to perform a greater variety ofmissions like those envisioned for JSF and UAVs/UCAVs, asset usage and mission tracking are becoming crucial for life assessment. Concurrent press ...

Accurate usage information collected by Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) coupled with improved structural fatigue life calculation methodologies promise to reduce helicopter operational and support costs while maintaining current flight safetylevels. Current fatigue life calculations assume worst-case flight profiles in determining component life. This approach may be outdated or not r ...