Award Data

The Barron Associates/Virginia Tech team believes that intelligent use of ambient riverine environmental factors together with novel drifter design and low-energy articulation is the key to enabling large non-overlapping river coverage. The proposed phase I research program focuses on (1) identifying key river characteristics which may be leveraged by riverine drifters, (2) fabricating a novel riv ...

Electromagnetic launchers or rail guns are a key component of the Navy’s all-electric ship of the future, but they lack the durability required for repeated firings. TDA Research and the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) are developing a tough, durable and conductive refractory metal coating that will protect the copper alloy conductors (rails) from the extreme heat and wear conditions inside the ...

Micro gas turbine engines with state-of-the-art ultra-compact recuperators could be a real game-changer for small unmanned air vehicles and portable power generation. A key enabling technology for these engines is a low-cost, high speed bearing system that has long life, while operating without either a separate lubrication system, or oil in the fuel. For this Phase I STTR effort, Xdot Engineerin ...

Military shelters currently use electrically driven Environmental Control Units (ECUs) to provide cooling for the air inside the shelter. The ECU is vapor compression cycle powered by a diesel generator, operating on JP-8 fuel. Other than fueling jet engines, the largest drain on U.S. military fuel supplies in current operations comes from running generators at forward operating bases. In hot cli ...