Award Data

The Air Force, Department of Defense (DoD) and Industry, have minimal capabilities for utilizing networked intelligence in critical testing of its prime weapon systems at all phases of maintenance. Furthermore, the Air Force is not facilitated to dynamically utilize real-time or historical information in its maintenance facilities for the improvement of test and repair. Current DoD test systems ( ...

RCI has developed one JSF clutch friction material system whose performance exceeds by more than 50%, the original JSF design goal for total engagements. This wear life is a factor of 3 to 4 times the current C/C clutch material being used for the STOVL version of JSF (F-35B). The experimental testing performed in Phase I has been done at full scale conditions (full speed and full inertial mass o ...

Large format data such as hyperspectral images contain a lot of information about various targets. Subpixel detection is now achievable. As a result, these images are becoming popular in military surveillance reconnaissance operations. However, one serious limitation of hyperspectral images is that many constituent members (materials) may be present in a single pixel, making accurate target detect ...

Aircraft fire protection requires high reliability in that there is no escape, short of ejection and loss of aircraft, from onboard fires.  With an abundance of flammable fluids and materials and ignition sources the threat of onboard fire is of great concern.  Prevention of fire is the best practice of design thereby minimizing the hazard.  However, history has shown that fires are a reality a ...

In Phase I we will demonstrate the feasibility of a wireless communication system that can remotely interrogate numerous passive SAW-based sensors at 2.4GHz, simultaneously extracting high bandwidth data from all of them. Our work will also address the feasibility of enhancements to the WSG sensors that improve the overall systems performance and ease of use. Earlier work has already demonstrated ...

Syntonics proposes to demonstrate the feasibility of a simple COTM multi-band antenna system based on the our pixel-addressable reconfigurable conformal antenna (PARCA) Software-Defined Antenna technology. PARCA is a phased array technology that operates under software control to be pointing-agile, frequency-agile, polarization-agile, low profile, and affordable. One concept uses a PARCA panel tha ...

Damage detection and health monitoring is a of rising interest for Air Force systems. Health monitoring systems can be implemented as retrofits to existing platforms as included in the design phase of next generation vehicles. Techno-Sciences, Inc. (TSI) and the University of Maryland (UMD) propose to develop a novel damage detection concept to be designed and tested during the STTR effort. T ...

Health monitoring and management of engine and engine components will provide savings of life cycle costs as parts are replaced on an as-needed basis.  TSI proposes and innovative  hardware and software system which utilizes advanced signal processing algorithms  coupled with high frequency vibration signatures captured from engine and engine  accessories.  The hardware sensor systems uses sm ...

Due to packaging and maneuverability concerns, micro air weapons development is leading towards smaller and more capable platforms.  This miniaturization ultimately results in constraints of volume and energy for all systems onboard.  Actuator technologies have thus been investigated to meet the needs of the changing system requirements.  Significant research has gone into active material syste ...

The progress in reliable fuel cell technology will have a tremendous impact towards the development of a robust hydrogen economy. However, the requirement of high-purity hydrogen for fuel cell performance imposes a major technical barrier against the utilization of fuel cells in the DOD applications. In particular, hydrogen extracted from military logistical fuel (JP8) by reformers contains sulfur ...