Award Data

In this Phase I SBIR, Microlink Devices in collaboration with Prof. Jeehwan Kim of MIT will develop a low cost, flexible, radiation hard dual junction InGaP/GaAs solar cell using graphene assisted epitaxy for space application.The innovation in this Phase I SBIR is the development of low cost, light weight, flexible epitaxial lift-off (ELO) InGaP/GaAs dual junction (DJ) solar cells with improved b ...

This Phase II project will extend the investigation of Phase I effort to further enhance and mature a sealant technology to limit or prevent environmental degradation of aircraft exhaust coatings that provide thermal and corrosion protection to the underlying substrate. The environmental degradation problem is a severe and urgent problem faced by DoD across many advanced aircraft platforms resulti ...

To reduce size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-c), military platforms have been evolving towards more integrated platforms that utilize all available space. For radiating systems, this will require exploring innovative design methods, materials and manufacturing approaches to realize cost-effective, customizable and conformal antennas. An attractive solution to this challenge is offered by additive ...

This project aims to develop a low-cost millimeter-wave (mmW) imaging system for ground vehicles, to operate in combination with a long-wave infrared (LWIR) camera. Such a system will mitigate the challenges of driving in degraded visual environments (DVE) including night time, fog, dust, or smoke by providing real-time image of the vehicle surrounding independent from the presence of naturally oc ...

Future U.S. Army vehicles will require engines with low heat rejection, high power density, lower-friction (15 % reduction), reduced fuel consumption (2-5% lower), and higher durability. Our team, NanoCoatings, Inc. (NCI) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), will down-select the most promising coating technologies and coating materials for both piston-rings and cylinder-liners. Our preliminary ...

During Phase I Hy-Tek Mfg. Co. Inc. (HMC) designed, fabricated and tested an innovative FOB shelter platform capable of satisfying the performance and materiel requirements delineated by U.S. Army. HMC coined this FOB soft shelter platform design concept the Modular Expeditionary Platform System (MEPS). MEPS is comprised of engineered components i.e. tiles, corrosion coated mounting plates and jac ...

Currently available thermal cameras do not meet the combined weight, power, field-of-view (FOV), and detection requirements necessary for use on nano-UAVs for applications such as Soldier Borne Sensors (SBS). Increasing the angular FOV while maintaining a desired probability of detection under specified conditions typically means increasing pixel count. Once the detector technology is at the minim ...

EPIR and Brimrose propose to design and fabricate multiband infrared adjunct (MIRA) sensors to enhance the detection/identification capability of the existing aviation-threat warning systems. Four spectrometers, arranged in a linear array, are designed to cover the wavelength range from ultraviolet to long-wave infrared. Each spectrometer is an integration of an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) ...

Driving ground vehicles in heavily degraded visual environments brings significant risk since course corrections cannot be made safely without visual cues. Infrared imagery can improve visibility in degraded visual environments, however when heavily degraded, this method alone is insufficient. Obscurants and noise can be rapidly categorized and suppressed in real-time by having an artificial intel ...

MicroLink Devices proposes the development of a 40W floating solar array and rechargeable battery system that can continuously provide 5W of power for sonobuoys. The solar sheet will be composed of flexible, highly efficient (>30% AM1.5), lightweight (>1000 W/kg) multijunction GaAs solar cells. It will be accompanied by a state of the art battery (>400 Whr/kg, lasting over 2000 cycles) that will s ...