Award Data

Current software development and testing methodologies are inadequate for validating software in mission-critical applications. As Dijstra famously stated: "testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." When lives and national security is at stake, there is a need for mathematically rigorous techniques that can verify the absence of bugs. We propose to devel ...

MZA proposes design, integration, testing, and simulation of electro-optical (EO) imaging and computer processing hardware for operating a phased array consisting of 7-12 subapertures. Our implementation of image processing on a graphics processor units (GPUs) for subaperture piston control will be upgraded and computer hardware will be built in Phase II to operate at control rates exceeding 1 kH ...

This Phase II effort will further develop a technique to improve current seeker discrimination and tracking capabilities using a unique particle filter algorithm (PFA) approach. The advancement represents a significant upgrade to current and future seekers facing advanced threats in stressing environments. Quantifiable improvements over many facets of the current approach have been realized during ...

Advances in electronically controlled injection technologies for diesel engines have provided a method to improve medium- to heavy-duty engine performance through increased injection pressures, multiple injections, and injection rate shaping. Although these injection systems have been primarily limited to larger engines, the ability to rapidly and precisely meter fuel for smaller engines is partic ...

In miniature gas turbines for UAV applications, traditional bearings exhibit a typical lifetime of only 25 hours due to excessive axial loading. Mainstream proposes to use a passive, permanent magnet thrust bearing to alleviate this problem and increase service life to over 1000 hours. Since this type of bearing is non-contacting, it can operate at very high rotational speeds with minimal heat gen ...

Military shelters currently use electrically driven Environmental Control Units (ECUs) to provide cooling for the air inside the shelter. The ECU is vapor compression cycle powered by a diesel generator, operating on JP-8 fuel. Other than fueling jet engines, the largest drain on U.S. military fuel supplies in current operations comes from running generators at forward operating bases. In hot cli ...

Recent advances in dielectric and magnetic materials have spurred renewed interest in the field of solid state pulse and RF burst generation using Non-Linear Transmission Lines (NLTL) . The NLTL approach to HPM and UWB generation eliminates the need for an electron beam, vacuum system and magnets required in conventional HPM sources. Furthermore, the novel waveforms of NLTL generated pulses promi ...

Intelligent Fiber Optic Systems Corporation (IFOS) and Georgia Tech propose a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) integrated sensor system capable of measuring the pipe wall "breathing mode" in order to infer the fluid-borne sound pressure level (SPL) in a pipe. The proposed new measurement technique makes it possible to externally measure the fluid-borne sound level in a noisy piping system. The state-of-a ...

IFOS will demonstrate the feasibility of a minimalistic, yet powerful, distributed network of piezoelectric actuators and ultrasonic wave detecting fiber optic Bragg grating (FBG) sensors interrogated by a high frequency parallel processing FBG interrogator together with innovative mathematical and computational algorithms to process, store and visualize (via damage index maps) massive amounts of ...

The expected life of satellite Li-Ion batteries is determined by many factors, including thermal considerations, electrode chemistries, orbit and mission life, DOD, and pulse power requirements. First-principles battery model literature pertains primarily to orbital cycling at moderate DOD under isothermal conditions without variable power loads. Knowledge must be extended to encompass wider life ...