Award Data

The goal of this Phase I proposal is to develop a synthetic, low cost, and benign simulant for biowarfare agents (BWA) to be used in the testing of standoff sensors. Orono Spectral Solutions Inc. (OSS) has performed preliminary work leading to the identification of benign ingredients that, when combined in a predefined mass ratio, mimic UV-Vis and infrared signatures of BG spores. This work was pe ...

Boston Fusion Corp. and Arizona State University propose to research and develop Big Open Source Social Science (BOSSS). In BOSSS, we will create a unified approach that combines social and computer science methodologies to collect and interpret big open source data, yielding meaningful focused analysis of selected populations. We will develop a system framework that adaptively learns social behav ...

Historically, the monitoring and detection of biological threats has been carried out via the deployment of high sensitivity / high complexity monitoring nodes to insure high probability of detection and low false alarm rate. Unfortunately, this detection strategy has inherent limits with respect to coverage and response due to its high deployment/support costs, mandating a new approach to environ ...

The synthesis of ammonia through nitrogen fixation is a vital component to all plant life and the world economy as a fertilizer and commodity chemical. The global industial production of ammonia exceeded 140MM tons in 2009 and is expected to grow to 160MM tons by 2020. Most ammonia,>90% is synthesized through the Haber-Bosch processThe Haber-Bosch process produces more than 90% of the industrial ...

Implementation of new technologies for soldier survivability often requires lightweight and reliable power sources. Direct-Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFCs) are attractive both in military and consumer electronics applications where their energy density, power output, and lifetime make them ideally suited to address weight and power limitations. DMFCs have been slow to materialize especially due to dras ...

In a low-texture indoor environment, landmark-based navigation is difficult due to lack of distinctive micro-features such as SIFT and SURF. Intelligent Automation, Inc. (IAI) and GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania propose a Bio-Inspired Visual Navigation System with the following three innovations: First, we propose a segmentation-based method to extract landmarks as closed contou ...

Physical Sciences Inc. in cooperation with University of Notre Dame proposes to develop a method for the persistent surveillance and detection of aerosolized biological warfare agents using a distributed point bioaerosol detector network, local meteorological sensors, existing infrared surveillance cameras, and crowdsourced georeferenced network traffic and phrase monitoring. The proposed technolo ...

We are proposing a helmet-mounted sound localization system that incorporates two subsystems, one that restores and enhances the soldier's natural hearing, and another that makes decisions on the acoustic scene and displays the information to the soldier. The system will integrate auditory processing models from a variety of biological sources to aid in detection and analysis.

Situational awareness is a critical factor for the soldier in the field. An acoustic source localization system can greatly benefit the soldier by detecting threat and displaying its location. The goal of this proposal is to study a promising algorithm based on a biologically inspired technology and verify its ability to perform in various environments and with multiple sources. The proposed ...

Frontier Technology, Inc. (FTI) and University of Florida (UF) propose to validate and demonstrate designs for biomimetic camouflage systems (