Award Data

MZA partnered with the Michigan Technological University (MTU) proposes development and testing of key components for our unified Atmospheric Refractivity and Turbulence Sensor (ARTS.) Software upgrades will be made to MZA’s DELTA-Sky sensor to enable atmospheric refraction measurements in addition to existing turbulence profiling. The illuminator assembly to implement the ARTS probe laser ...

This proposal will outline a bi-directional software defined Free Space Optics (FSO) laser communications testbed with flexible optical elements and reprogrammable waveform and signal processing elements. Vulcan Wireless Inc. currently manufacturers a 1550nm, eye safe, software defined Laser Communications Testbed MD-LC-1 and will use this as a basis for the Phase 1 effort. We will also be teaming ...

The Phase II effort will be to clearly demonstrate the feasibility and build a prototype of a noncontact, high-quality holographic polarimetry system with pixel level depth and Mueller matrix information with a user-friendly interface to image and display this data. The measurements of each data product will be validated with trusted truth samples. The system will be reproducible and will have a d ...

Research is currently identifying new biochemical markers to help monitor cognition and stress in the human body and enhance human performance. Traditional biometric markers like heart rate, temperature, oxygen partial pressure, blood glucose, electrolyte concentration, and others have been correlated with cognition and stress states. However, the correlation is indirect. Molecular biomarkers with ...

The imaging vibrometer development will be based on a representative Directed Energy (DE) aperture assumed to be 30 cm. This effort will provide both DE and Combat IDentification (CID), modes for relative short range DE operations, and an ISR Combat IDentification (CID) mode for operation at extended range. A combination of analytic derivations and wave optics simulations will be used to define a ...

The Air Force seeks three-dimensional bioprinted tissue that can accurately replicate complex multi-cell function and that can be integrated with biosensors. To address this need, Spectral Energies in collaboration with Prof. Khademhosseini of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) proposes to develop an organ-on-a-chip system. The organ-on-a-chip system will be capable of accurately mod ...

Spectral Energies proposes to design a multisensory diagnostic suite for measurements within elevated-pressure RDEs. This sensor will utilize tunable-laser absorption spectroscopy to measure temperature, pressure and H2O concentrations in the annulus of a rocket-RDE and background-oriented schlieren imaging system for flow density gradient imaging to provide time resolved information about the sho ...

The objective of the proposed Phase-II effort by Spectral Energies LLC is to design and develop a fiber-coupled hyperspectral thermal LWIR imaging sensor suite to provide reliable, accurate 2D surface temperature measurements with high flexibility in practical gas turbine engines and propulsion systems. During the phase-II efforts, our team will work with fiber manufacture on custom designing of a ...

Sensors based on chip-scale atomic devices (CSADs) offer portability, manufacturability, and high performance for precision navigation and timing (PNT) missions. Key systems for PNT including atom interferometric gyroscopes (AIG) and atomic clocks. Ongoing advances and innovations in photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are directly relevant to CSADs. Different material bases have been used in PICs ...

Large ground-based telescopes require adaptive optics (AO) to correct for distortions introduced by atmospheric turbulence. In order to function, the AO system must track a bright point source. Although a natural star may be used, full sky coverage requires an artificial beacon created with a laser. The most common type of laser guide star (LGS) employs the mesospheric layer of sodium atoms at an ...