Award Data

There is need for fast, easy-to-operate, and low-risk methods for mapping geography, velocity, and bathymetry of rivers. River charts can be nonexistent or inadequate because of changes in water volume, tides, sediment transport, flooding, and other events. This is a hindrance and a hazard for navigation and other operations. Currently, procedures to map rivers involve navigating surface vessels i ...

The main objective of the Phase II work is to enhance the FORECAST algorithms developed in Phase I, extend them to 3D in the case of multi-rate sensors and significant wind effects, develop effective tuning procedures, and evaluate the performance of the FORECAST system on test data. In order to achieve these objectives, we plan to carry out the following tasks: (i) Extend FORECAST algorithms to 3 ...

The predominant method used in electronic support measure (ESM) systems to detect and geolocate noncooperative RF emitters employs arrays of antennas to estimate signal angle of arrival (AOA). There are several issues that preclude wide installation and use of these for emitter geolocation. One issue is accuracy. There are various error sources, including signal noise, multipath effects, and ambig ...

SSCI and MIT (Prof. Julie Shah) propose to develop and test a system that provides real-time assurance and trust in decisions made by autonomous collaborating vehicles. The proposed system is referred to as the RESTORE and represents a decision support tool which facilitates decision making by the operator in cases when decisions by the Collaborative Autonomy (CA) system results in deviations from ...

The Navy has been developing superconducting systems, based on high-temperature superconductors (HTS), for future use on Navy ships. One of the challenges associated with superconducting magnets is the possibility of a quench, which is an event where a local hot spot develops within the superconductor that quickly spreads throughout the device, driving it into its normal and dissipative state. Sen ...

Vescent Photonics proposes to develop a compact laser system and integrate it with a cold-atom micro primary standard developed under the DARPA IMPACT program. In phase I we will investigate performance enhancements resulting from immobilizing the cold-atom sample with an optical lattice formed from an optical field whose wavelength is chosen to minimize the differential light shifts between the s ...

Vescent Photonics and MIT Lincoln Labs (MIT-LL) propose to develop a quantum-based vector magnetometer with low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP+C) for Navy applications. The proposed system will rely on probing magnetically-sensitive, atomic-like transitions of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond to provide stable, high-bandwidth readout of the vector magnetic field with sub-picotesla sen ...

Thermo-mechanical processes of turbine disks have been progressively improved to meet microstructural requirements tailored for advanced, sustainable high temperature performances. However, the chemistry of typical Ni-base turbine disk alloys is very complex, and yields a variety of phases and microstructural anomalies under different thermo-mechanical heat treatments. These microstructural hetero ...

different modes, while using different combinations of subsystems. This presents a challenge for the personnel validating the system during design and development; the number of combinations of environments, modes, and subsystems is exponential. They cannot all be tested, so an optimal subset of tests must be run. We propose to develop VERITAS: Validation and Evaluation of Remote, Interactive Tea ...

Vertical short takeoff and landing (VSTOL) operators face numerous challenges, particularly during takeoff, hover, and landing operations. Threats take the form of power lines, structures, and—in the case of combat—enemy fire. Often, these threats are obscured when visibility is compromised by dust, sand, or snow. Maintaining awareness of the surrounding environment becomes almost impossible. ...