Award Data

Nutronics, Inc. and Montana State University propose to develop a method for characterization of the full Mueller matrix for reflective scattering from a test object. The Complex Object Reflectance Characterization System (CORCS) will initially be designed for laboratory use and characterization of test objects by active imaging to measure both the Mueller Matrix and the target depth associated wi ...

Design analysis of parachute recovery systems has relied on a combination of core design principles, historical empirical data, and extensive testing for decades. Parachute motion involves complex phenomena involving porous bluff-body aerodynamics and highly deformable cloth. The proposed project is a plugin for the DoD CREATE-AV Kestrel simulation suite that will enable high-fidelity simulations ...

This Air Force Phase I STTR program would develop self-calibrating, conformal nanomembrane (NM) based pressure sensors for embedded sensing applications, using SOI (Silicon on Insulator) NM techniques in combination with our pioneering nanocomposite materials.Such low-modulus, conformal nanomembrane sensor skins with integrated self-calibration, interconnect elements and electronic devices that ca ...

This proposed project combines advanced thin film materials engineering technology with state of the art photonic integrated circuit device concepts to develop next generation integrated electro-optic modulator devices. The proposed high speed thin film electro-optic modulator technology fills a critical need for compact, low voltage, and high analog bandwidth linear electro-optic modulators in si ...

Modern Directed Energy (DE) missions require target engagements at low elevation angles and long ranges.These engagement geometries require propagation through distributed-volume turbulence. To correct for distributed-volume turbulence effects, an estimation of the turbulence along the propagation path is required. Correcting for these image aberrations will improve the quality of the target image ...

This SBIR Phase I project proposes a visual processing system for automated target recognition. Inspired by biological vision systems and hierarchical memory models, the proposed system is capable of learning hierarchical invariant features from unlabeled data that are independent of object labels. The model exploits these learned features to create hierarchical representations of target memories ...

The advancement of flight vehicles, including hypersonic vehicles, requires increased performance from RF shielding material capable of withstanding the dynamic and thermal loads of the vehicle while maintaining RF performance.Efforts conducted as a response to this program will develop and characterize material for use as radomes and conformal apertures of flight vehicles and other extreme enviro ...

Nutronics, Inc. and Montana State University propose to develop an approach for non-linear control of hysteresis and incorporate (if necessary) integrated Multi-Input-Multi-Output real time control with this capability.Our control systems already include a proven high speed real time control approach to determine the optimal set of actuator commands that satisfy inter-actuator stroke limitations.O ...

Adaptive optics (AO) system performance is hindered by the mechanical limits of the deformable mirror (DM), namely stroke limits, interactuator stroke limits, and mechanical resonance.The nature of the multi-in multi-out (MIMO) control system does not lend itself well to notch filters to combat the mechanical resonances, and the stroke limits introduce non-linearities to the system.The traditional ...

This SBIR project will develop and demonstrate efficient electron emitter based on carbon nanotubecopper (CNT-Cu) composite for passive discharging of spacecraft in plasma environment. A spacecraft moving through harsh plasma environment collects electrons, which leads to the spacecraft charging up to several kilovolts. High voltage between different parts of the spacecraft can ignite arcing, whic ...