Award Data

Higher efficiency solar cells are needed to reduce solar array mass, volume, and cost for Air Force space missions. Intermediate-band quantum-dot (QD) solar cells can yield dramatically higher efficiencies than current multi-junction (MJ) technologies. However, several issues must be addressed to demonstrate manufacturable, high efficiency devices. CFDRC aims to develop: 1) High-efficiency, ligh ...

The objective of this Phase I project is to evaluate the use of novel Laser Induced Surface Improvement (LISI) techniques to provide surface modification to substrate materials which will provide superior wear resistance in extreme conditions. The specific application of interest is the hypersonic metal-to-metal contact that occurs at high speed test track facilities that can and has lead to catas ...

The design of future hypersonic vehicles requires detailed understanding of flow regimes ranging from rarefied to continuum. Hypervelocity flows are characterized by high temperatures, real gas effects, nonequilibrium chemistry, and ionization. The goal of this project is to develop unified kinetic/continuum solution methods with automatic domain decomposition for a wide range of Air Force applic ...

AEDC personnel have developed and demonstrated the effectiveness of coupling a control volume model with a wind tunnel control system. The performance of the model was hampered because parameters of the model were assumed to be constant, when they are likely variables. A method for using facility data to determine functional relationships defining these parameters would allow them to vary during ...

Accurate and timely surveillance of objects in the near-Earth space environment is becoming increasingly critical to US national security. One of the main difficulties in this domain is efficiently and accurately modeling trajectories of the vast number of objects in orbit around the Earth. The orbital trajectory of a single object is typically modeled as a second-order system of equations which ...

Space surveillance is the component of space situational awareness focused on the detection of resident space objects (RSOs) and the use of multisource data to track and identify space objects. While the propagation of the states of RSOs has been investigated extensively over the last fifty years, the correct propagation of their covariance or the more general (non-Gaussian) probability distribut ...

A mathematical framework for detection and classification of weak, distributed patterns on computer networks is proposed. The framework will provide rigorous methods for understanding performance bounds and optimality of intrusion detection methods, while also providing concrete and implementable algorithms. The algorithms will find immediate application in cyber-security efforts, as well as mor ...

The Air Force Phase I STTR program would develop and demonstrate high temperature version of ‘sensor skins’ capable of multi-axis flow characterization on air breathing hypersonic engines. This would build upon NanoSonic’s successful demonstration of Metal Rubber™ transducer materials for the measurement of flow-induced skin friction and pressure at low temperatures and transonic and super ...

Owing to a unique set of intellectual property and core expertise, this Phase II team, led by Traycer Diagnostic Systems, will build and characterize a packaged, 16x16 terahertz focal plane array (FPA) for broadband video-rate imaging at frequencies up to 1.3 THz. Traycer’s competitive advantage is based on its record-performing detectors, novel antennas, and array architectures that permit a d ...

Nanoscale infrared detectors are emerging as a potentially powerful alternative to traditional infrared detector technologies. The University of New Mexico has developed dots in a double well (DDWELL) quantum dot infrared photodetectors which have a spectral responsivity that can be tuned by controlling the bias voltage applied. In this Phase II effort, Polaris Sensor and UNM would fabricate a g ...