Award Data

During the proposed Phase 1 research and development effort, the project team will design an innovative turbopump system for a target vehicle upper stage using “Green" liquid propellants that meet Missile Defense Agency's requirements. The use of a turbopump will result in an upper stage that has a greater than 50% improvement in delta velocity in comparison to a previously designed, pressure fe ...

This proposal will outline a bi-directional software defined Free Space Optics (FSO) laser communications testbed with flexible optical elements and reprogrammable waveform and signal processing elements. Vulcan Wireless Inc. currently manufacturers a 1550nm, eye safe, software defined Laser Communications Testbed MD-LC-1 and will use this as a basis for the Phase 1 effort. We will also be teaming ...

The Phase II effort will be to clearly demonstrate the feasibility and build a prototype of a noncontact, high-quality holographic polarimetry system with pixel level depth and Mueller matrix information with a user-friendly interface to image and display this data. The measurements of each data product will be validated with trusted truth samples. The system will be reproducible and will have a d ...

For this research program, Mainstream will collaborate with Colorado State University (CSU) to develop a nanostructured heater capable of curing aerospace grade composites out-of-autoclave (OOA). The use of autoclaves is the primary cost driver in composite manufacturing due to size limitations, long processing times, and inefficient energy usage. Therefore, the Navy is looking to develop a nanost ...

We propose the development of a membraneless water purification system using continuous, self-contained, vacuum-assisted diffusiophoresis. Using diffusiophoresis allows the system to clean water contaminated with particulates and bacteria without membranes or filters, while producing a stream of fresh, drinkable water. The system will operate using only electricity supplied by portable batteries/s ...

With the advent of the Navy’s newest classes of all-electric vessels, the interdependence and functional correlation of the power plant with other mission-critical ship systems such as integrated cooling, weapons, navigation, air surveillance, and IT control network systems, maintaining optimal oversight and control of power distribution aboard ship becomes increasingly challenging. As the opera ...

Sensors based on chip-scale atomic devices (CSADs) offer portability, manufacturability, and high performance for precision navigation and timing (PNT) missions. Key systems for PNT including atom interferometric gyroscopes (AIG) and atomic clocks. Ongoing advances and innovations in photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are directly relevant to CSADs. Different material bases have been used in PICs ...

Large ground-based telescopes require adaptive optics (AO) to correct for distortions introduced by atmospheric turbulence. In order to function, the AO system must track a bright point source. Although a natural star may be used, full sky coverage requires an artificial beacon created with a laser. The most common type of laser guide star (LGS) employs the mesospheric layer of sodium atoms at an ...

Barron Associates has teamed with a prominent researcher in the field of formal verification of cyber physical systems to propose a new paradigm in runtime assurance for complex autonomous systems controlled and operated by artificial machine intelligence. A two-stage approach is considered in which formal verification processes are first performed offline at algorithm design time. Online, during ...

Current aircraft operations within the National Airspace System (NAS) rely heavily on the presence of an on-board pilot to safely manage the flight. Integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the NAS requires a high confidence that these operations can meet or exceed the safety afforded through manned operations. Specifically, these UAS operations must not pose an undue risk to persons, s ...