Award Data

Active imaging in the short- and mid-wave infrared has well-known benefits versus shorter wavelengths: eye safety, better visibility through battlefield obscurants, high atmospheric transmission, and reduced background emission. However, there are no suitable imaging detectors at eye-safe wavelengths. In Phase I, CTI proposed a nonlinear sum-frequency generator (SFG) to convert an image at 1.55 mm ...

This SBIR Phase II project will develop and demonstrate self-imaging laser technologies for eyesafe remote sensing applications. Laser based remote sensing applications require a variety of output formats, including amplitude modulated (AM) and frequency modulated (FM) continuous wave (CW) lasers; and pulsed lasers. There are currently no eye safe technologies available with the adaptive waveform ...

Directed energy missile defense applications require a new generation of compact and efficient high power solid-state electrical lasers. Scalability of current state-of-the-art kW-class solid-state Master Oscillator/Power Amplifier (MOPA) systems is limited by thermo-optic aberrations in the gain medium, and by heat transport/disposal. Beam-combining by multiplexing several 1-10kW class MOPAs pr ...

Ship defense requires 100 kW-1MW near diffraction-limited lasers with optimal wavelength and temporal format. Laser efficiency, beam quality, atmospheric transmission, thermal-blooming, and target interactions must be taken into account. Navy efforts to date have focused principally on the free electron laser (FEL) to fulfill this need due to the wide wavelength tuning range and projected high e ...

The rapid development UAVs and UGVs for the Future Combat System is producing requirements for remote sensing of volumetric winds and wind hazards such as wind shear, gusts, and clear air turbulence for safe and efficient vehicle operation. Mission specific parameters such as aerosol plume detection and tracking, terrain mapping, and helicopter rotor turbulence detection must also be measured. T ...

The ability of remote robotic vehicles to effectively achieve their targeted tasks is dependent, in large part, on how well they can be controlled. The human machine interface and related controls are critical to successful tele-operated and semi-autonomous operations. In Phase I, AnthroTronix, Inc. showed the feasibility of two interface concepts for robot control: 1) An instrumented glove w ...

The Air Force is currently developing many airborne sensors for a variety of airborne platforms, but the increased use of smaller uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) requires significant reductions in sensor size, weight, and power consumption. Many systems that were originally designed for larger platforms may not be easily scaled down to meet these tighter requirements and still provide high-qua ...

CTI has extensive experience with high performance, mil-spec, flight-qualified LADAR systems, and we are keenly aware that the environmental control systems for such lasers can often be larger, heavier, and more power-hungry than the lasers themselves. Additionally, transmitters for LADAR systems urgently need to take a technological step forward from their present-day configurations that tend to ...

Coherent Technologies Inc., proposes "Coherent Ladar Algorithm for Robust Acquisition, Discrimination, Aimpoint Selection and Maintenance" to address MDA Ladar algorithm development and signature processing for advanced missile seekers. The proposed algorithm exploits unique capabilities of emerging Doppler Ladars, fused with passive sensors, to acquire/discriminate threats that may contain off-n ...

Frequency-agile lasers with ultra-narrow linewidth are required for several coherent laser applications, including correction for Doppler frequency shifts between satellite platforms in low earth orbit. Coherent Technologies, Inc. proposes to develop a compact near-monolithic laser operating at 1.064 microns, tunable over its full range of 60GHz in 1ms. This tuning range allows correction for al ...