Award Data

High power microwave (HPM) sources have been developed over the past few decades for many important DoD missions ranging from electronic warfare to intentional EMI to impulse radar. In this proposal, we describe an integrated program that seeks to develop innovative solutions based on mesoband source and antenna technology to improve the effectiveness of HPM-based BMD systems. Our research will ...

Recent advances in electrically small antennas have been proposed for a range of communications applications. In general these antennas have wide impedance bandwidths, but low efficiency and power handling capabilities. Recently members of our team at the University of Arizona have developed a class of efficient electrically small antennas (EESAs) that we call the EZ antenna that gets around the ...

Our proposed Defensive Engagement System (DES) is designed to provide the submarine decision maker with automated actions, decision aids, and workflow cues to maximize the effectiveness of defensive actions when they are required. The DES encompasses automated defensive payload assignments, automated and optimized presets, evasion planning with options, rapid counter fire capability, and other def ...

Background – Maintenance of complex Tactical systems is generally responsive in nature, often addressing failures through a piecemeal approach. The current maintenance environment requires an inherent level of system knowledge to monitor and maintain equipment. There are also time constraints placed on system maintenance due to the increased operational tempo of today’s submarine force. Approa ...

We are proposing to develop high altitude CO2 analyzer technology that can be deployed on the research aircraft of NASA's Airborne Science Program (ASP). The ultimate scientific goal is the calibration/validation of CO2 observations made from spacecraft. Two forms of the analyzer are to be developed, pod for unmanned aircraft and rack for more general purpose platforms. The CO2 payloads are small ...

Eighty-five percent of America

Small satellites working in coordinated manner as part of a distributed constellation hold the promise to revolutionize DoD space operations. However, small satellites also have significant inherent limitations. Their size limits the types of sensors that they can accommodate. It also limits propulsion, power generation and attitude control capabilities. One way of overcoming some of these lim ...

Aurora Flight Sciences and MIT have been developing tools and techniques that, together with existing 3D environment decision-making and navigation tools developed by AMRDEC in the PALACE program, are well-suited to the problem of autonomous vertical landing on unprepared landing sites. In this program, Aurora will team with MIT researchers and UC Santa Cruz (UCSC licenses PALACE technologies for ...

Aurora Flight Sciences and MIT propose to develop a model-based adaptive health estimation and real-time proactive control to identify gas turbine engine stability risks and avoid them through control action. In this concept, the engine control system actively monitors sensors and actuators, compares them against physical models, and infers which components may be performing poorly and may need to ...

Titan is ideally suited for balloon exploration due to its low gravity and dense atmosphere. Current NASA mission architectures baseline Montgolfiere balloon systems, which use waste heat from a radioisotope power system to heat balloon interior gases to provide buoyancy. A disadvantage of this approach is that the balloon is unable to make rapid changes in altitude which limits system utility. ...