Award Data

ABSTRACT: Chalcogenide glass fibers are commercially available and are used for delivery of mid-infrared wavelengths (1.5um to 6.5um).These fibers allow compact, robust and low-weight laser platforms designs.Laser systems in high-power and high-stress environments find their reliability and performance limited due to free-space optical components.Free-space components suffer from vibration and the ...

This program will develop and analyze a design for a high performance, low cost, one-person-mobile telescope, mount, and camera to track space debris. It will use an innovative optical design, unique optical fabrication technology, and a novel mirror bl...

We propose to research the feasibility of rapidly reconstituting a ground based sensor system for space situational awareness with a large fraction of the capability of the GEODSS sensor system. This system can be deployed quickly to a GEODSS site where ...

ABSTRACT: Our focus in this proposal is to perform basic research to create bio-inspired 3-D morphing mechanical structures which are a gateway technology to enable true 3-D morphing flight. Prioria and Virginia Tech University will team to perform basic research into bio-inspired structure such as artificial bones/wings/feathers and artificial muscles. Prioria will establish technical feasibility ...

ABSTRACT: The goal of this STTR is to design micro air vehicles (MAVs) capable of adaptively changing wing geometry utilizing novel active materials that overcome limitations of previous attempts at implementing practical biomimetic multifunctional structures. The basic idea of a morphing aircraft wherein the vehicle changes its shape to optimally perform in multiple flight segments holds the prom ...

ABSTRACT: Infrared sources and sensors are becoming increasingly useful for military and commercial applications. We propose to exploit recent advances in multimaterial fiber technology to produce a new class of optical infrared fibers that are robust and low in cost for high-power, high-stress environments. The use of beam confining fiber optics reduces or eliminates issues with misalignment or d ...

Increasing system capabilities in terms of weapon systems, ISR payloads, GNC, etc., enabled by smaller and more capable electronics systems have led to a trend for overall size reduction in military aircraft. This has resulted in a reduction in the avail...

Space-Division-Multiplexing (SDM) provides a path towards increasing the capacity of fiber optic links.Chiral Photonics has developed proprietary vanishing core technology, which can serves as the basis for multiplexing devices for SDM, called Pi...

This STTR Phase I project will develop a unified information theoretic framework for multi-sensor target recognition system that enables quantification of information contribution and synergistic combination of features from different sensor modalities. ...

Tensile-strained germanium tin structures will be developed for infrared emitters and detectors that are compatible with silicon fabrication processes.Optical detectors in the wavelength range of 2-5 microns will be developed by using GeSn on silicon ...