Award Data

Accurate real-time waterborne pathogen detection is of paramount importance to security of U.S. military forces and installations. Fieldable high-throughput pathogen concentration is a critical analytical need for enhanced detection performance. Existing concentration methods are time-consuming, bulky, labor-intensive, power- and reagent-hungry, and consequently ill-suited for battlefield deployme ...

Mayflower Communications has partnered with the Boston University Hearing Research Center to propose novel techniques for speech enhancement in reverberant environment based on advanced auditory modeling of higher-level processing in the human auditory brain. Speech enhancement or noise suppression has been an area of active research for well over three decades. State-of-the-art single-microphone ...

LADAR light reflection from a target is highly dependent of the spectral reflectivity and texture properties of the surface. Such dependencies could be exploited for target recognition based on surface characterization with appropriate imaging conditions and processing algorithms. Target surface light reflection is characterized by the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF), which ...

Recent advances in THz-source stability, power and practicality have opened the door for active THz imaging in both commercial and military settings. AEgis is teaming with U Buffalo to develop a THz detection device that utilizes classical rectification effects in semiconductor point contacts (SPCs) to achieve response in the 1 to 10 THz range and is capable of operating at temperatures over 150 K ...

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and Duke University propose to develop a hybrid, multifunctional, ultraviolet (UV) beam conditioner intended for laser beam switching, deflection, and frequency shifting for quantum computing applications. The beam conditioner consists of three functional blocks, separating the technology for frequency control, fast amplitude control, and electronic beam shuttering int ...

The proposed Autonmous Reactive Ferrrying Drifter (ARF-D) provides wide measured swath, autonomously maintains a buffer distance from close-shore snags, and by utilizing river flow provides a very low power approach to obtaining cross-river surveying, providing greater coverage with minimal power penalty. By randomizing the cross-river transit paths multiple ARF-D units will naturally overcome the ...

The Navy is developing an electromagnetic (EM) launcher for long-range naval surface-fire-support. Severe operating conditions of the EM system place stringent requirements for materials, including high current and magnetic fields, high temperatures, contact with liquid metals, high stress/gouging from balloting contacts and high-speed-sliding electrical-contact with an Al armature. Engineered Coa ...

Nanotrons Corporation, in collaboration with Professor Byungki Kim at NSF Nanomanufacturing Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML), proposes to develop the low-cost high-rate manufacturing technique for flexible explosive detection sensors to significantly increase sensitivity of detection of trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives. The new approach combines cutting-edge nanomate ...

JM Harwood, LLC, and UAH Propulsion Research Center propose the development of an electronic miniature Direct Fuel Injection (DFI) system for 5-20 hp heavy fuel engines. This highly integrated Very Small Injection Technology (V-SInTech) DFI system will be capable of (a) multiple injections per cycle, (b) variable injection timing, (c) variable spray penetration depth, (d) real-time closed loop mod ...

We propose to design a high average power Er:Fiber ultrafast laser system which is pumped at 14xxnm, and at the same time solve other problems related to ultrashort pulses in fiber lasers. The advantage of using 14xxnm pumping is the reduction of the standard quantum defect from 37% to 5%, thus greatly reducing the thermal load on the system, which makes it inherently more efficient. We also inten ...