Award Data

Biologically-inspired motions such as flapping, perching, walking, running, swimming, grasping and manipulating, are difficult for the most advanced robots today. The primary limitation comes from actuation technology in terms of stress/strain ratio delivered to the joint by the actuator overcoming specific resistance. Electromagnetic motors have low torque at high speeds and hence cannot be used ...

Despite advances to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, intelligence analysts in the theater cannot achieve true multi-INT exploitation and cross-cueing due to the stove-piped nature of fielded ISR systems. Current ISR systems: 1) force human-to-human interaction to be the primary method to discover relevant intelligence data, despite its inefficiency; 2) require sig ...

This project proposes to develop versatile, lithography-free technology for fabricating high-performance polymer photonic devices. This innovation utilizes laser processing to achieve low-cost, simplified production method without compromising the performance necessary for high-speed optical telecommunication devices. The proposed approach is a (a) flexible fabrication platform spanning from nano ...

Photonic devices are used to produce, transmit, modulate, and detect light. These devices are widely used in the data storage and communications industries. Commercial photonic devices are typically made of rigid materials including inorganic oxides and semiconductors, however, these materials are costly, expensive to deposit and process, and have poor mechanical properties (e.g., brittle, delica ...

In this SBIR program, TeraDiode, Inc. will develop a record brightness fiber-coupled diode laser system for pumping high power fiber lasers. TeraDiode has an exclusive license on intellectual property developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on a means of combining many diode lasers while scaling the brightness, to obtain an exceptionally bright fiber-coupled diode laser system. TeraDiode will demons ...

Operations centers for tactical military activities, incident response, and other domains all involve multiple teams of individuals interacting with people and systems within and outside of their organization to enable continuous mission success. In these organizations, effective coordination and collaboration is critical. To improve collaboration, an end-to-end sensor and analysis technology is n ...

Use of"Smartphones"and cellular networks is becoming an increasing priority for military applications. By placing the source of information directly with the solider on the ground via a Smartphone, the vision of"every soldier a sensor"becomes attainable. mZeal proposes to facilitate this vision with the Adaptive Multi-Media Streaming for Android (AMMSTAR) system. AMMSTAR will capture photographic ...

Uncertainty on the modern battlefield makes mission planning and decision making extremely complex for field commanders. Mission planners can be aided by initial and ongoing situation assessment, future state estimation, assessment of the current plan"s probability of success, what-if analysis, and suggestions for decisions. At present, few automated tools exist to provide mission planners with th ...

Today"s robots require a great deal of control and supervision, and are unable to intelligently respond to unanticipated and novel situations. To address this problem, we developed a preliminary architecture for Cognitive Patterns which includes Cognitive Patterns Knowledge Generation (CPKG) and has the ability to connect to various knowledge-based models, multiple sensors, and to a human operator ...

Human Socio-Cultural Behavioral (HSCB)-based models have the potential to help tactical commanders assess situations and project consequences of actions in counterinsurgency (COIN) missions. Unfortunately, the potential utility of these models been limited due to a lack of area of interest (AOI) data traditionally collected by local subject matter experts (SMEs). The short supply of SMEs has creat ...