Award Data

The major drawback to the use of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells as auxiliary power units (APUs) by deployed forces is their inability to directly use battlefield fuels. PEM systems require clean, essentially sulfur-free hydrogen to prevent the poisoning of the anode catalyst. Unfortunately, battlefield fuels (i.e., NATO-76, JP-8) contain high levels of refractory sulfur species (up to ...

Lack of accurate geo-positioning (GPS) information integrated within the miniature footprint of a wireless sensor handicaps rapid ad-hoc deployments. Self-mapping data analysis tools, as a result, do not dynamically display measurements real-time. In a battlefield or situation requiring rapid deployment and situational awareness, this is unacceptable. ADA Technologies proposes to address this nee ...

A key element in the mission of the United States Armed forces is the ability to identify and track multiple objects of concern and to then coordinate forces to take appropriate action. To this end, the use of multiple sensors on multiple platforms greatly enhances this tracking and identification capability. Thus, the overall goal of this program is to develop a network-centric class of multip ...

Sulfur compounds in JP-8 are a barrier to use of fuel cells since sulfur poisons the catalysts used in fuel cells and fuel processors. Mesoscopic Devices has developed a continuous, self-regenerating desulfurization system that can treat fuel to fuel cell standards while utilizing sulfur sorbents many times more efficiently than typical fixed bed approaches. The approach exploits three key innov ...

Engineered Coatings, Inc. (ECI) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) propose to investigate thick ceramic & metal (cermet) and semiconductor or metal-doped diamondlike carbon (DLC) physical vapor deposited (PVD) coatings over thick PVD metal underlayers as low-friction, corrosion-resistant surfaces for small-arm weapon components. Engineered Coatings and SwRI plan to mitigate the issues with e ...

Wearable electronics are of significant interest in several military and commercial applications. The goal of this technology is to optimize performance over a broad bandwidth while minimizing impact on the user. FIRST RF proposes to develop and deliver field-expedient prototypes and models of at least five different technologies for wearable multi-function distributed antenna systems for Land Wa ...

There is a need for an Obstacle Avoidance System (OAS) for small unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) to detect fixed obstacles (e.g., trees, buildings, and wires) and proximity to manned aircraft or other UAVs. Small UAVs impose many different constraints, such as flying close to the ground, and limited size, weight and power (SWAP) for system components and on-board processing. Therefore, obstacle avo ...

Community Power Corporation (CPC) and its team members will research the potential of using field-feeding waste to provide on-site power for a variety of applications. The team will begin by developing an in-depth understanding of the Army's field-feeding process and the requirements for a military-grade waste to energy converter. We will then perform a detailed assessment of the biomass resourc ...

A solution is needed to support training operations in both an outdoor and indoor environment with precise 3-D positioning and weapon orientation to allow geometric pairing. Research solutions are needed to provide a cost effective approach for dealing with this tough problem. Our proposed solution is to leverage an ultra-low power military GPS tracking capability integrated with a low power inert ...

PercepTek proposes the development of a software package that will process 3D point data from a range sensors such as LADAR or stereo to produce formats more suitable for navigation algorithms. The approach is based on an octree data structure used by PercepTek on its 3D from Video project. The representation serves as an efficient access mechanism for an extensible set of model primitives rangi ...