ARMY
SBIR 09.2 PROPOSAL SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
The US Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM) is responsible for execution of the Army SBIR Program. Information on the Army SBIR Program can be found at the following Web site: https://www.armysbir.com/.
Solicitation, topic, and general questions regarding the SBIR Program should be addressed according to the DoD portion of this solicitation. For technical questions about the topic during the pre-Solicitation period, contact the Topic Authors listed for each topic in the Solicitation. To obtain answers to technical questions during the formal Solicitation period, visit http://www.dodsbir.net/sitis. For general inquiries or problems with the electronic submission, contact the DoD Help Desk at 1-866-724-7457 (8:00 am to 5:00 pm ET). Specific questions pertaining to the Army SBIR Program should be submitted to:
Chris Rinaldi
Program Manager, Army SBIR
US Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM)
ATTN: AMSRD-SS-SBIR
6000 - 6th Street, Suite 100
Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-5608
(703) 806-2085
FAX: (703) 806-0675
The Army participates in three DoD SBIR Solicitations each year. Proposals not conforming to the terms of this Solicitation will not be considered. The Army reserves the right to limit awards under any topic, and only those proposals of superior scientific and technical quality will be funded. Only Government personnel will evaluate proposals.
SUBMISSION OF ARMY SBIR PROPOSALS
The entire proposal (which includes Cover Sheets, Technical Proposal, Cost Proposal, and Company Commercialization Report) must be submitted electronically via the DoD SBIR/STTR Proposal Submission Site (http://www.dodsbir.net/submission). When submitting the mandatory Cost Proposal, the Army prefers that small businesses complete the Cost Proposal form on the DoD Submission site, versus submitting within the body of the uploaded proposal. The Army WILL NOT accept any proposals which are not submitted via this site. Do not send a hardcopy of the proposal. Hand or electronic signature on the proposal is also NOT required. If the proposal is selected for award, the DoD Component program will contact you for signatures. If you experience problems uploading a proposal, call the DoD Help Desk 1-866-724-7457 (8:00 am to 5:00 pm ET). Selection and non-selection letters will be sent electronically via e-mail.
Army Phase I proposals have a 20-page limit (excluding the Cost Proposal and the Company Commercialization Report). Pages in excess of the 20-page limitation will not be considered in the evaluation of the proposal (including attachments, appendices, or references, but excluding the Cost Proposal and Company Commercialization Report).
Any proposal involving the use of Bio Hazard Materials must identify in the Technical Proposal whether the contractor has been certified by the Government to perform Bio Level - I, II or III work.
Companies should plan carefully for research involving animal or human subjects, or requiring access to government resources of any kind. Animal or human research must be based on formal protocols that are reviewed and approved both locally and through the Army's committee process. Resources such as equipment, reagents, samples, data, facilities, troops or recruits, and so forth, must all be arranged carefully. The few months available for a Phase I effort may preclude plans including these elements, unless coordinated before a contract is awarded.
If the offeror proposes to use a foreign national(s) [any person who is NOT a citizen or national of the United States, a lawful permanent resident, or a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3) – refer to Section 2.15 at the front of this solicitation for definitions of “lawful permanent resident” and “protected individual”] as key personnel, they must be clearly identified. For foreign nationals, you must provide resumes, country of origin and an explanation of the individual’s involvement.
No Class 1 Ozone Depleting Chemicals/Ozone Depleting Substances will be allowed for use in this procurement without prior Government approval.
Phase I Proposals must describe the "vision" or "end-state" of the research and the most likely strategy or path for transition of the SBIR project from research to an operational capability that satisfies one or more Army operational or technical requirements in a new or existing system, larger research program, or as a stand-alone product or service.
PHASE I OPTION MUST BE INCLUDED AS PART OF PHASE I PROPOSAL
The Army implemented the use of a Phase I Option that may be exercised to fund interim Phase I activities while a Phase II contract is being negotiated. Only Phase I efforts selected for Phase II awards through the Army’s competitive process will be eligible to exercise the Phase I Option. The Phase I Option, which must be included as part of the Phase I proposal, covers activities over a period of up to four months and should describe appropriate initial Phase II activities that may lead to the successful demonstration of a product or technology. The Phase I Option must be included within the 20-page limit for the Phase I proposal.
09.2 Solicitation Pre-release April 20 – May 17, 2009
09.2 Solicitation Opens May 18 – June 16, 2009
09.2 Solicitation Closes June 17, 2009; 6:00 a.m. ET
Phase I Evaluations June - August 2009
Phase I Selections August 2009
Phase I Awards October 2009*
*Subject to the Congressional Budget process
PHASE II PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
Note! Phase II Proposal Submission is by Army Invitation only.
For Phase II, no separate solicitation will be issued and no unsolicited proposals will be accepted. Only those firms that were awarded Phase I contracts, and are successfully executing their Phase I efforts, will be invited to submit a Phase II proposal. Invitations to submit Phase II proposals will be released at or before the end of the Phase I period of performance. The decision to invite a Phase II proposal will be made based upon the success of the Phase I contract to meet the technical goals of the topic, as well as the overall merit based upon the criteria in section 4.3. DoD is not obligated to make any awards under Phase I, II, or III. DoD is not responsible for any money expended by the proposer before award of any contract. For specifics regarding the evaluation and award of Phase I or II contracts, please read the front section of this solicitation very carefully. Every Phase II proposal will be reviewed for overall merit based upon the criteria in section 4.3 of this solicitation, repeated below:
a. The soundness, technical merit, and innovation of the proposed approach and its incremental progress toward topic or subtopic solution.
b. The qualifications of the proposed principal/key investigators, supporting staff, and consultants. Qualifications include not only the ability to perform the research and development but also the ability to commercialize the results.
c. The potential for commercial (defense and private sector) application and the benefits expected to accrue from this commercialization. The Army exercises discretion on whether a Phase I award recipient is invited to propose for Phase II. Invitations are issued no earlier than completion of the fourth month of the Phase I contract award, with the Phase II proposals generally due one month later. In accordance with SBA policy, the Army reserves the right to negotiate mutually acceptable Phase II proposal submission dates with individual Phase I awardees, accomplish proposal reviews expeditiously, and proceed with Phase II awards.
Invited small businesses are required to develop and submit a technology transition and commercialization plan describing feasible approaches for transitioning and/or commercializing the developed technology in their Phase II proposal. Army Phase II cost proposals must contain a budget for the entire 24 month Phase II period not to exceed the maximum dollar amount of $730,000. During contract negotiation, the contracting officer may require a cost proposal for a base year and an option year. These costs must be submitted using the Cost Proposal format (accessible electronically on the DoD submission site), and may be presented side-by-side on a single Cost Proposal Sheet. The total proposed amount should be indicated on the Proposal Cover Sheet as the Proposed Cost. Phase II projects will be evaluated after the base year prior to extending funding for the option year.
Fast Track (see section 4.5 at the front of the Program Solicitation). Small businesses that participate in the Fast Track program do not require an invitation. Small businesses must submit (1) the Fast Track application within 150 days after the effective date of the SBIR phase I contract and (2) the Phase II proposal within 180 days after the effective date of its Phase I contract.
CONTRACTOR MANPOWER REPORTING APPLICATION (CMRA)
Accounting for Contract Services, otherwise known as Contractor Manpower Reporting Application (CMRA), is a Department of Defense Business Initiative Council (BIC) sponsored program to obtain better visibility of the contractor service workforce. This reporting requirement applies to all Army SBIR contracts.
Beginning in the DoD 2006.2 SBIR solicitation, offerors are instructed to include an estimate for the cost of complying with CMRA as part of the cost proposal for Phase I ($70,000 maximum), Phase I Option ($50,000 max), and Phase II ($730,000 max), under “CMRA Compliance” in Other Direct Costs. This is an estimated total cost (if any) that would be incurred to comply with the CMRA requirement. Only proposals that receive an award will be required to deliver CMRA reporting, i.e. if the proposal is selected and an award is made, the contract will include a deliverable for CMRA.
To date, there has been a wide range of estimated costs for CMRA. While most final negotiated costs have been minimal, there appears to be some higher cost estimates that can often be attributed to misunderstanding the requirement. The SBIR Program desires for the Government to pay a fair and reasonable price. This technical analysis is intended to help determine this fair and reasonable price for CMRA as it applies to SBIR contracts.
· The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower & Reserve Affairs) operates and maintains the secure CMRA System. The CMRA Web site is located here: https://cmra.army.mil/.
·
The CMRA requirement consists of
the following items, which are located within the contract document, the
contractor's existing cost accounting system (i.e. estimated direct labor
hours, estimated direct labor dollars), or obtained from the contracting
officer representative:
(1) Contract number, including task and delivery order number;
(2) Contractor name, address, phone number, e-mail address, identity of contractor employee entering data;
(3) Estimated direct labor hours (including sub-contractors);
(4) Estimated direct labor dollars paid this reporting period (including sub-contractors);
(5) Predominant Federal Service Code (FSC) reflecting services provided by contractor (and separate predominant FSC for each sub-contractor if different);
(6) Organizational title associated with the Unit Identification Code (UIC) for the Army Requiring Activity (The Army Requiring Activity is responsible for providing the contractor with its UIC for the purposes of reporting this information);
(7) Locations where contractor and sub-contractors perform the work (specified by zip code in the United States and nearest city, country, when in an overseas location, using standardized nomenclature provided on Web site);
· The reporting period will be the period of performance not to exceed 12 months ending September 30 of each government fiscal year and must be reported by 31 October of each calendar year.
· According to the required CMRA contract language, the contractor may use a direct XML data transfer to the Contractor Manpower Reporting System database server or fill in the fields on the Government Web site. The CMRA Web site also has a no-cost CMRA XML Converter Tool.
Given the small size of our SBIR contracts and companies, it is our opinion that the modification of contractor payroll systems for automatic XML data transfer is not in the best interest of the Government. CMRA is an annual reporting requirement that can be achieved through multiple means to include manual entry, MS Excel spreadsheet development, or use of the free Government XML converter tool. The annual reporting should take less than a few hours annually by an administrative level employee. Depending on labor rates, we would expect the total annual cost for SBIR companies to not exceed $500.00 annually, or to be included in overhead rates.
DISCRETIONARY TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
In accordance with section 9(q) of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 638(q)), the Army will provide technical assistance services to small businesses engaged in SBIR projects through a network of scientists and engineers engaged in a wide range of technologies. The objective of this effort is to increase Army SBIR technology transition and commercialization success thereby accelerating the fielding of capabilities to Soldiers and to benefit the nation through stimulated technological innovation, improved manufacturing capability, and increased competition, productivity, and economic growth.
The Army has stationed Technical Assistance Advocates (TAAs) in five regions across the Army to provide technical assistance to small businesses that have Phase I and Phase II projects with the participating organizations within their regions.
For more information go to http://www.armysbir.com/sbir/taa_desc.htm.
COMMERCIALIZATION PILOT PROGRAM (CPP)
In FY07, the Army initiated a CPP with a focused set of SBIR projects. The objective of the effort was to increase Army SBIR technology transition and commercialization success and accelerate the fielding of capabilities to Soldiers. The ultimate measure of success for the CPP is the Return on Investment (ROI), i.e. the further investment and sales of SBIR Technology as compared to the Army investment in the SBIR Technology. The CPP will: 1) assess and identify SBIR projects and companies with high transition potential that meet high priority requirements; 2) provide market research and business plan development; 3) match SBIR companies to customers and facilitate collaboration; 4) prepare detailed technology transition plans and agreements; 5) make recommendations and facilitate additional funding for select SBIR projects that meet the criteria identified above; and 6) track metrics and measure results for the SBIR projects within the CPP.
Based on its assessment of the SBIR project’s potential for transition as described above, the Army will utilize a CPP investment fund of SBIR dollars targeted to enhance ongoing Phase II activities with expanded research, development, test and evaluation to accelerate transition and commercialization. The CPP investment fund must be expended according to all applicable SBIR policy on existing Phase II contracts. The size and timing of these enhancements will be dictated by the specific research requirements, availability of matching funds, proposed transition strategies, and individual contracting arrangements.
NON-PROPRIETARY SUMMARY REPORTS
All award winners must submit a Non-Proprietary Summary Report at the end of their Phase I project and any subsequent Phase II project. The summary report is unclassified, non-sensitive, and non-proprietary and should include:
· A summation of Phase I results
· A description of the technology being developed
· The anticipated DoD and/or non-DoD customer
· The plan to transition the SBIR developed technology to the customer
· The anticipated applications/benefits for government and/or private sector use
· An image depicting the developed technology
The Non-Proprietary Summary Report should not exceed 700 words, and is intended for public viewing on the Army SBIR/STTR Small Business area. This summary report is in addition to the required final technical report and should require minimal work because most of this information is required in the final technical report. The summary report shall be submitted in accordance with the format and instructions posted within the Army SBIR Small Business Portal at http://www.armysbir.com/smallbusinessportal/Firm/Login.aspx and is due within 30 days of the contract end date.
ARMY SUBMISSION OF FINAL TECHNICAL REPORTS
All final technical reports will be submitted to the awarding Army organization in accordance with Contract Data Requirements List (CDRL). Companies should not submit final reports directly to the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).
ARMY SUBMISSION OF FINAL TECHNICAL REPORTS
All final technical reports will be submitted to the awarding Army organization in accordance with Contract Data Requirements List (CDRL). Companies should not submit final reports directly to the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).
ARMY SBIR PROGRAM COORDINATORS (PC) and Army SBIR 09.2 Topic Index
Aviation and Missile RD&E Center (Aviation) PJ Jackson (757) 878-5400
A09-013 Airworthy Cable Angle Measurement System for Slung Load Operations
A09-014 Crack Initiation Resistant Processes for Case Hardened Steels
A09-015 Self-Powered, High-Temperature, Wireless Sensors for Rotorcraft Applications
A09-016 UAV Sensor Controller for Manned Aircraft
A09-017 Reactive Real-time Planners for Coordinated Aggressive Maneuvers
A09-018 End-User Development of Robust Part-Task Pilot Models for Simulated ATC
A09-019 Embedded Component Health Management for Rotorcraft
A09-020 Hybrid Vorticity Transport Method for Rotorcraft Comprehensive Analysis
A09-021 Open Source Comprehensive Optical Diagnostic Analysis Suite
Aviation and Missile RD&E Center (Missile) Otho Thomas (256) 842-9227
A09-022 20 year backup battery
A09-023 Aberration corrected imager for missile dome and window applications
A09-024 New Thermal Battery Electrochemistry
Armaments RD & E Center Carol L’ Hommedieu (973) 724-4029
A09-025 Wafer-level manufacture, energetic loading and packaging of metal MEMS S&A devices for fuzes
A09-026 Innovative Real Time Probes
A09-027 Nanostructured High Performance Energetic Materials
A09-028 Innovative High Strength Nanostructured Aluminum-Based Composites
A09-029 Advanced High Energy Density Propellants
A09-030 Advanced Weapon Sighting Systems
A09-031 Automated Manufacturing of Composite Materials including Armament Applications
A09-032 High Energy Density Inertial Harvesting Power Source for Spin Stabilized Small- and Medium-
Caliber Fuzing
A09-033 Miniaturization of Sensors on Flexible Substrates
A09-034 Image Analysis for Personnel Intent
A09-035 Tamper-proof Protection of Critical Combat Ammunition Fuze and Guidance Technologies
A09-036 Swarm/agent Technology For Small Unit Scalable Effects
A09-037 Smart Dense Detector Arrays
A09-038 Innovative Wide Area Forward/Side Looking On-the-Move Laser Based Explosives Detection System
A09-039 Innovative Coatings for Lightweight Alloys
Army Research Laboratory John Goon (301) 394-4288
A09-040 Scalable and Temporal Data Analytics for Mobile ad hoc Networks
A09-041 Scalable Programming models for Battle Command Applications on emerging multi-core
architectures
A09-042 Approaches and Techniques for Specialized Character Recognition (CR) and Hand Writing
Recognition (HWR) of Named-Entity Categories in Arabic Script and Romanized Document
I mages
A09-043 Gas Phase Sulfur Sensor for JP-8 Fueled Auxiliary Power Generation System
A09-044 Novel flexible sensor array integrated with a Flexible Display
A09-045 Development of GaN Substrates for High Power and Multi-Functional Devices
A09-046 Ultra Resolution Camera for C4ISR Applications
A09-047 Eye-safe fiber-coupled laser pumps for high power laser applications
A09-048 Controlled Bandwidth Transmission Systems for Ultra-Wideband Radars
A09-049 High-G Simulator for In-Flight Test Article
A09-050 Consolidation of Materials by Liquid Particle Acceleration
A09-051 Innovative manufacturing research on forming of large light armor alloy sections resistant to blast
and penetration
A09-052 Novel Variable Explosive Yield Concept
A09-053 Disruptive fibers and textiles for flexible protection
A09-054 Full Field, Out-of-Plane Digital Image Correlation (DIC) from Ultra-High Speed Digital Cameras
A09-055 Versatile Micro/Nano-mechanical Load Frame For In Situ Studies
Army Research Office Dr. Roger Cannon (919) 549-4278
A09-056 Photonics-enabled Radio-Frequency Arbitrary Waveform Generation
A09-057 Ultraviolet photodetectors based on wide-bandgap oxide semicondcutors
A09-058 ZnO alloy based LEDs and laser diodes
A09-059 The Energetics of Cognitive Performmance: Regulation of Neuronal Adenosine Triphosphate Production
U.S. Army Test & Evaluation Command Nancy Weinbrenner (703) 681-0573
Joanne Fendell (410) 278-1471
A09-060 Virtual RF Environment
A09-061 Compact, Robust, Real Time, High Capacity Data Storage for test Instrumentation
A09-062 Causality & Prediction of Radio Frequency Encroachment on Test & Training Ranges
Communication Electronics Command Suzanne Weeks (732) 427-3275
A09-063 Chaotic Modulation for Satellite Communications (SATCOM) Communications Systems
A09-064 Micro Cryocooler for Low Temperature Superconductor Electronics Systems
A09-065 Free Space Optical Connections for Airborne On-the-Move Nodes at High Data Rates Over
Extended Distances
A09-066 Distributed Satellite Communications (SATCOM) On-the-Move (OTM) Aperture
A09-067 Content Dependent Bandwidth (BW) Enhancement
A09-068 Conformal, Printable Antennas for VHF and UHF Applications
A09-069 High Output and Multi-Band Laser for Electro-Optical/Infra Red Counter Measure (EO/IRCM)
A09-070 Detection and Neutralization of Explosive Hazards
A09-071 Window Mounted UHF Antenna System
A09-072 Network Fault Management and Self Healing
A09-073 Clutter Mitigation Techniques for Ground-Based, Ground Moving Target Radars
A09-074 High Efficiency, Highly Linear, Solid-State Power Amplifier for Wide Band Applications
A09-075 Advanced Algorithms and Architecture for Multimodal Biometrics Fusion (A3MBF)
A09-076 Forward HUMINT (Human Intelligence) Automatic Collection
A09-077 Domain Name Server (DNS) Protection Techniques
A09-078 A Dynamic and Knowledge Driven Architecture for Airborne Minefield Detection
A09-079 Transition Metal Oxide Optical Switch
A09-080 Array Processing Techniques for III-V Material, Strained Layer Superlattice, Mid and Long
Wavelength, High Sensitivity Infrared (IR) Sensors
A09-081 Identity Management of Biometric Data (IMBD) across the Global Information Grid (GIG) using
a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Framework
A09-082 High resistivity VOx for Continuous Bias Read-outs
A09-083 Develop High Operating Temperature Infrared Detectors and Systems
A09-084 Small Pitch Flip-Chip Interconnects for Focal Plan Arrays/Readout Integrated Circuit
Hybridization
A09-085 Proactive Adaptive Channel Reconfiguration (PACR)
A09-086 Refillable Liquid Fuel Cartridges for Portable Methanol Fuel Cell Systems
A09-087 Any-Time Cognition for Network Centric Environments
A09-088 Context Based Data Abstraction
A09-089 Innovative Silicon Imager for Head-Mounted Night Vision
A09-090 Heat Actuated Cooling System
A09-091 Rapid Frame Rate Focal Plane Arrays for Active Electro-Optic Applications
A09-092 50- 100 Watt Wind Energy Harvesting in Light Tactical Applications
A09-093 Metadata Databases
A09-094 Novel Growth and Processing of an Extremely High Performance, Low Defect FPAs Utilizing
HgCdTe on InSb Substrates
Engineer Research & Development Center Theresa Salls (603) 646-4591
A09-095 Integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and Geographic Information System for
Environmental Management
A09-096 Self Healing, Self-Diagnosing Fiber Reinforced Multifunctional Composites
A09-097 Tension/Extension Test Device for Ultra High Strength Concretes
A09-098 Vehicle Payload Detection at Low Speeds through Weigh-in-Motion
A09-099 Optimally Designed Wireless Seismic/Acoustic Ordnance Impact Characterization System
JPEO Chemical and Biological Defense Larry Pollack (703) 767-3307
A09-100 Point and Stand-off Microwave-Induced Thermal Emission (MITE) of Chemical, Biological, and
Explosive Materials
A09-101 Passive Standoff Detection of Chlorine
Medical Research and Materiel Command Dawn Rosarius (301) 619-3354
A09-102 Application of Finger-Mounted Ultrasound Array Probes
A09-103 Surgical Debridement Assist Device
A09-104 Improved Robot Actuator Motors for Medical Applications
A09-105 Developing a Point-of-Care Diagnostic Assay for Leptospirosis
A09-106 Biocompatible Materials for Repair of Bony Defects in Craniofacial Reconstruction
A09-107 Malarial Vaccines Utilizing Antigen/Adjuvant Display on Viral-Like Particles
A09-108 Development and Commercialization of Analyte Specific Reagents (ASRs) for the Diagnosis of
Selected Arthropod-Borne Viruses on FDA-Cleared Real-time PCR Platforms
A09-109 Personnel High Rate Data Recorder
A09-110 Personnel Borne Blast Dosimeter
A09-111 Development and Commercialization of Analyte Specific Reagents (ASRs) for the Diagnosis of
Rickettsial Diseases on FDA-cleared Real-time PCR Platforms
Program Executive Office Ammunition Seham Salazar (973) 724-2536
William Sharpe (973) 724-7144
A09-112 Dual Purpose Handgrenade with Enhanced Non-Lethal and Lethal Effects
A09-113 Advanced low-power personnel/vehicle detecting radar for smart unattended ground
sensor/munition systems
Program Executive Office Aviation Layne Merritt (256) 313-4976
Iris Prueitt (256) 313-4975
A09-114 Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) for Non-Destructive Test/Non-Destructive Inspection/Non-
Destructive Evaluation/Non-Destructive Test Evaluation (NDT/NDI/NDE/NDTE) of Composite
Rotor Blades
A09-115 High Integrity, Low Cost Rotor State Measurement System
Program Executive Office Soldier King Dixon (703) 704-3309
TJ Junor (703) 704-3310
A09-116 Man Portable Desalination System
A09-117 Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Mitigating Helmet Pad
Space and Missiles Defense Command Denise Jones (256) 955-0580
A09-118 Ultra Compact Energy Efficient High Voltage Switches for Switching Very Small Energy Stores
A09-119 Coherent High Power Diode Laser Array
A09-120 Lightweight Nanosatellite Deployable Array
A09-121 Rapid Identification of Ordnance and IED Materials
Simulation & Training Technology Center Thao Pham (407) 384-5460
A09-122 HemSim - Hemostatic Agent Hemorrhage Control Simulator
A09-123 Interactive Simulation on High Performance Computers
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY PROPOSAL CHECKLIST
This is a Checklist of Army Requirements for your proposal. Please review the checklist carefully to ensure that your proposal meets the Army SBIR requirements. You must also meet the general DoD requirements specified in the solicitation. Failure to meet these requirements will result in your proposal not being evaluated or considered for award. Do not include this checklist with your proposal.
____ 1. The proposal addresses a Phase I effort (up to $70,000 with up to a six-month duration) AND (if applicable) an optional effort (up to $50,000 for an up to four-month period to provide interim Phase II funding).
____ 2. The proposal is limited to only ONE Army Solicitation topic.
____ 3. The technical content of the proposal, including the Option, includes the items identified in Section 3.5 of the Solicitation.
____ 4. The proposal, including the Phase I Option (if applicable), is 20 pages or less in length (excluding the Cost Proposal and Company Commercialization Report). Pages in excess of the 20-page limitation will not be considered in the evaluation of the proposal (including attachments, appendices, or references, but excluding the Cost Proposal and Company Commercialization Report).
____ 5. The Cost Proposal has been completed and submitted for both the Phase I and Phase I Option (if applicable) and the costs are shown separately. The Army prefers that small businesses complete the Cost Proposal form on the DoD Submission site, versus submitting within the body of the uploaded proposal. The total cost should match the amount on the cover pages.
____ 6. Requirement for Army Accounting for Contract Services, otherwise known as CMRA reporting is included in the Cost Proposal.
____ 7. If applicable, the Bio Hazard Material level has been identified in the technical proposal.
____ 8. If applicable, plan for research involving animal or human subjects, or requiring access to government resources of any kind.
____ 9. The Phase I Proposal describes the "vision" or "end-state" of the research and the most likely strategy or path for transition of the SBIR project from research to an operational capability that satisfies one or more Army operational or technical requirements in a new or existing system, larger research program, or as a stand-alone product or service.
____ 10. If applicable, Foreign Nationals are identified in the proposal. An employee must have an
H-1B Visa to work on a DoD contract.
Army SBIR 09.2 Topic Index
A09-013 Airworthy Cable Angle Measurement System for Slung Load Operations
A09-014 Crack Initiation Resistant Processes for Case Hardened Steels
A09-015 Self-Powered, High-Temperature, Wireless Sensors for Rotorcraft Applications
A09-016 UAV Sensor Controller for Manned Aircraft
A09-017 Reactive Real-time Planners for Coordinated Aggressive Maneuvers
A09-018 End-User Development of Robust Part-Task Pilot Models for Simulated ATC
A09-019 Embedded Component Health Management for Rotorcraft
A09-020 Hybrid Vorticity Transport Method for Rotorcraft Comprehensive Analysis
A09-021 Open Source Comprehensive Optical Diagnostic Analysis Suite
A09-022 20 year backup battery
A09-023 Aberration corrected imager for missile dome and window applications
A09-024 New Thermal Battery Electrochemistry
A09-025 Wafer-level manufacture, energetic loading and packaging of metal MEMS S&A devices for fuzes
A09-026 Innovative Real Time Probes
A09-027 Nanostructured High Performance Energetic Materials
A09-028 Innovative High Strength Nanostructured Aluminum-Based Composites
A09-029 Advanced High Energy Density Propellants
A09-030 Advanced Weapon Sighting Systems
A09-031 Automated Manufacturing of Composite Materials including Armament Applications
A09-032 High Energy Density Inertial Harvesting Power Source for Spin Stabilized Small- and Medium-
Caliber Fuzing
A09-033 Miniaturization of Sensors on Flexible Substrates
A09-034 Image Analysis for Personnel Intent
A09-035 Tamper-proof Protection of Critical Combat Ammunition Fuze and Guidance Technologies
A09-036 Swarm/agent Technology For Small Unit Scalable Effects
A09-037 Smart Dense Detector Arrays
A09-038 Innovative Wide Area Forward/Side Looking On-the-Move Laser Based Explosives Detection
System
A09-039 Innovative Coatings for Lightweight Alloys
A09-040 Scalable and Temporal Data Analytics for Mobile ad hoc Networks
A09-041 Scalable Programming models for Battle Command Applications on emerging multi-core
architectures
A09-042 Approaches and Techniques for Specialized Character Recognition (CR) and Hand Writing
Recognition (HWR) of Named-Entity Categories in Arabic Script and Romanized Document
I mages
A09-043 Gas Phase Sulfur Sensor for JP-8 Fueled Auxiliary Power Generation System
A09-044 Novel flexible sensor array integrated with a Flexible Display
A09-045 Development of GaN Substrates for High Power and Multi-Functional Devices
A09-046 Ultra Resolution Camera for C4ISR Applications
A09-047 Eye-safe fiber-coupled laser pumps for high power laser applications
A09-048 Controlled Bandwidth Transmission Systems for Ultra-Wideband Radars
A09-049 High-G Simulator for In-Flight Test Article
A09-050 Consolidation of Materials by Liquid Particle Acceleration
A09-051 Innovative manufacturing research on forming of large light armor alloy sections resistant to blast
and penetration
A09-052 Novel Variable Explosive Yield Concept
A09-053 Disruptive fibers and textiles for flexible protection
A09-054 Full Field, Out-of-Plane Digital Image Correlation (DIC) from Ultra-High Speed Digital Cameras
A09-055 Versatile Micro/Nano-mechanical Load Frame For In Situ Studies
A09-056 Photonics-enabled Radio-Frequency Arbitrary Waveform Generation
A09-057 Ultraviolet photodetectors based on wide-bandgap oxide semicondcutors
A09-058 ZnO alloy based LEDs and laser diodes
A09-059 The Energetics of Cognitive Performmance: Regulation of Neuronal Adenosine Triphosphate
Production
A09-060 Virtual RF Environment
A09-061 Compact, Robust, Real Time, High Capacity Data Storage for test Instrumentation
A09-062 Causality & Prediction of Radio Frequency Encroachment on Test & Training Ranges
A09-063 Chaotic Modulation for Satellite Communications (SATCOM) Communications Systems
A09-064 Micro Cryocooler for Low Temperature Superconductor Electronics Systems
A09-065 Free Space Optical Connections for Airborne On-the-Move Nodes at High Data Rates Over
Extended Distances
A09-066 Distributed Satellite Communications (SATCOM) On-the-Move (OTM) Aperture
A09-067 Content Dependent Bandwidth (BW) Enhancement
A09-068 Conformal, Printable Antennas for VHF and UHF Applications
A09-069 High Output and Multi-Band Laser for Electro-Optical/Infra Red Counter Measure (EO/IRCM)
A09-070 Detection and Neutralization of Explosive Hazards
A09-071 Window Mounted UHF Antenna System
A09-072 Network Fault Management and Self Healing
A09-073 Clutter Mitigation Techniques for Ground-Based, Ground Moving Target Radars
A09-074 High Efficiency, Highly Linear, Solid-State Power Amplifier for Wide Band Applications
A09-075 Advanced Algorithms and Architecture for Multimodal Biometrics Fusion (A3MBF)
A09-076 Forward HUMINT (Human Intelligence) Automatic Collection
A09-077 Domain Name Server (DNS) Protection Techniques
A09-078 A Dynamic and Knowledge Driven Architecture for Airborne Minefield Detection
A09-079 Transition Metal Oxide Optical Switch
A09-080 Array Processing Techniques for III-V Material, Strained Layer Superlattice, Mid and Long
Wavelength, High Sensitivity Infrared (IR) Sensors
A09-081 Identity Management of Biometric Data (IMBD) across the Global Information Grid (GIG) using
a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Framework
A09-082 High resistivity VOx for Continuous Bias Read-outs
A09-083 Develop High Operating Temperature Infrared Detectors and Systems
A09-084 Small Pitch Flip-Chip Interconnects for Focal Plan Arrays/Readout Integrated Circuit
Hybridization
A09-085 Proactive Adaptive Channel Reconfiguration (PACR)
A09-086 Refillable Liquid Fuel Cartridges for Portable Methanol Fuel Cell Systems
A09-087 Any-Time Cognition for Network Centric Environments
A09-088 Context Based Data Abstraction
A09-089 Innovative Silicon Imager for Head-Mounted Night Vision
A09-090 Heat Actuated Cooling System
A09-091 Rapid Frame Rate Focal Plane Arrays for Active Electro-Optic Applications
A09-092 50- 100 Watt Wind Energy Harvesting in Light Tactical Applications
A09-093 Metadata Databases
A09-094 Novel Growth and Processing of an Extremely High Performance, Low Defect FPAs Utilizing
HgCdTe on InSb Substrates
A09-095 Integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and Geographic Information System for
Environmental Management
A09-096 Self Healing, Self-Diagnosing Fiber Reinforced Multifunctional Composites
A09-097 Tension/Extension Test Device for Ultra High Strength Concretes
A09-098 Vehicle Payload Detection at Low Speeds through Weigh-in-Motion
A09-099 Optimally Designed Wireless Seismic/Acoustic Ordnance Impact Characterization System
A09-100 Point and Stand-off Microwave-Induced Thermal Emission (MITE) of Chemical, Biological, and
Explosive Materials
A09-101 Passive Standoff Detection of Chlorine
A09-102 Application of Finger-Mounted Ultrasound Array Probes
A09-103 Surgical Debridement Assist Device
A09-104 Improved Robot Actuator Motors for Medical Applications
A09-105 Developing a Point-of-Care Diagnostic Assay for Leptospirosis
A09-106 Biocompatible Materials for Repair of Bony Defects in Craniofacial Reconstruction
A09-107 Malarial Vaccines Utilizing Antigen/Adjuvant Display on Viral-Like Particles
A09-108 Development and Commercialization of Analyte Specific Reagents (ASRs) for the Diagnosis of
Selected Arthropod-Borne Viruses on FDA-Cleared Real-time PCR Platforms
A09-109 Personnel High Rate Data Recorder
A09-110 Personnel Borne Blast Dosimeter
A09-111 Development and Commercialization of Analyte Specific Reagents (ASRs) for the Diagnosis of
Rickettsial Diseases on FDA-cleared Real-time PCR Platforms
A09-112 Dual Purpose Handgrenade with Enhanced Non-Lethal and Lethal Effects
A09-113 Advanced low-power personnel/vehicle detecting radar for smart unattended ground
sensor/munition systems
A09-114 Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) for Non-Destructive Test/Non-Destructive Inspection/Non-
Destructive Evaluation/Non-Destructive Test Evaluation (NDT/NDI/NDE/NDTE) of Composite
Rotor Blades
A09-115 High Integrity, Low Cost Rotor State Measurement System
A09-116 Man Portable Desalination System
A09-117 Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Mitigating Helmet Pad
A09-118 Ultra Compact Energy Efficient High Voltage Switches for Switching Very Small Energy Stores
A09-119 Coherent High Power Diode Laser Array
A09-120 Lightweight Nanosatellite Deployable Array
A09-121 Rapid Identification of Ordnance and IED Materials
A09-122 HemSim - Hemostatic Agent Hemorrhage Control Simulator
A09-123 Interactive Simulation on High Performance Computers
Army SBIR 09.2 Topic Descriptions
A09-013 TITLE: Airworthy Cable Angle Measurement System For Slung Load Operations
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Aviation
DESCRIPTION: Slung load dynamic feedback will be necessitated by future heavy-lift vertical resupply operations with large flexible airframes and large load mass fractions. Also, unmanned helicopters with low-frequency position stabilization will require accurate cable angle feedback to conduct sling load operations. Fleet helicopters currently undergoing fly-by-wire upgrades could benefit greatly from having the ability to stabilize external loads by means of load position and rate feedback. In addition helicopters without cable angle feedback control systems would benefit from a means to provide display guidance to the pilot for stabilizing the load.
A key component in being able to do any of this is an airworthy and robust sensor system that can provide slung load cable angle and angular rate measurements to the flight control system. This is a difficult and challenging problem given the loads involved and the difficult operational environment. However, such a system would allow load stabilization and rapid precision load placement in degraded visual conditions or turbulent atmospheric conditions.
There are a large number of approaches to cable angle sensing as outlined next, with components that might be distributed in the hook hatch, the hook, the sling or the load, depending on the approach taken. The principle effort is in selecting and applying a sensor type and developing a system that is feasible for field use and accommodates to operations with a variety of slings and loads and environmental factors. Previous experience in the application of the proposed sensor type and in flight instrumentation should be included in the proposal.
PHASE I: Develop a preliminary system design, confirm accuracy, range, and data rate performance, and show through analysis or other means that the concept can meet requirements for field operations, including vibrations, robustness, reliability, interface requirements and safety of flight in a feedback load control system. It is desirable that brown-out conditions be considered.
PHASE II: Demonstrate a prototype system first as the data source for a panel-mounted pilot display system and then as part of a load feedback system on an existing fly-by-wire Black Hawk helicopter. The Black Hawk, the cockpit displays and the feedback control system are provided as Government- furnished equipment (GFE). The prototype package should facilitate alignment with helicopter axes with analog or 1553 outputs and pass safety of flight review for research flight testing. The prototype system for these tests can be single string, but it should be indicated how safety of flight in field operations with load feedback control would be met.
PHASE III: In addition to the military applications noted above, potential civil applications based on a cable angle sensor package include (1) passive displays to monitor difficult loads for impending load instability in forward flight (e.g. Bambi buckets in firefighting, transporting trailers and sheds) or (2) flight director guidance for load stabilization by the pilot in the case of difficult loads (e.g., the system tested in [5]), and (3) precision load control in hover in such operations as rooftop equipment installation and air rescue with a Helibasket.
BACKGROUND & OTHER INFO:
For this discussion, cable angles are the direction angles of the hook-to-load-cg line segment relative to helicopter body axes. These can be measured as the direction angles of the cable in a single cable sling, or as the direction of the hook force vector or directly as the direction angles of the hook-to-load-cg line segment.
A large number of sensor types and approaches to this problem have been mentioned in the literature. A few nascent single-string mechanical and optical systems for load position measurement have been implemented to support research flight tests (refs [1] to [6]). However, none of these has been developed to a level of accuracy, reliability and robustness for airworthy operational use.
A 1974 survey of cable angle measurement methods [1] notes three general approaches; (1) plane piercing methods in which the location of the cable in an x-y field is detected, (2) force resolution with load cells or strain gauges on the hook or sling attachment assembly, or, more generally, instrumented hooks, and (3) load position sensing. Cable following methods can be added to the list.
In the plane piercing methods, the position of the (single) cable is measured in an x-y field below the attachment point. Cable position detection hardware such as LEDs and diode detectors has been developed in other applications and might be brought to bear here.
Force resolution was proposed in [1] to instrument a winched cable with 3-axis strain gages on a winch assembly. Other instrumented hook assemblies include the Navy’s gimbaled winch for sonar detectors in which cable angles are given directly from the gimbal angle readouts. A version of the UH60 hook has been instrumented with a 2-axis strain gage for the limited purpose of measuring weight and this could be expanded to include a measurement of the roll axle angle to obtain the cable angles and the hook force magnitude. Alternatively the hook could be redesigned to rotate around a pitch axle imbedded in the roll axle, thus giving a gimbaled hook with angle readouts. Another example of an instrumented hook is mentioned in [2], [3] using string pots to determine hook angles in the trolleyed KMAX hook and this system has been flown in an experimental load feedback control system.
Direct load position tracking can be done using radar, LIDAR, IR, etc or image processing in passive systems with or without reflectors or in active systems with transponders on the load, some with multiple transponders and triangulation data processing. Image processing of video from a pen camera mounted to the side of the hook hatch was done post-flight in work related to the flight-testing in [4]. The load had a large circular target on top and existing software was used to locate the target and its center in the image frame. This optical approach can potentially evolve to a real-time flight system. Image processing was carried further into flight test in a system that used a hatch camera and marker ring around the (single) pendant cable [5] to track the cable position in the image frame. A cable following system was included in an advanced controllable suspension designed for the HLH in the early 70’s [6]. This consisted of a gimbaled ring mounted below the helicopter thru which the pendant cable passed, thus giving cable angles from the gimbal angle read outs. This was used on both cables of a dual point suspension.
REFERENCES:
1. Knoer, H., "Helicopter Payload Position Sensor Investigation", Nov 1974. (AiResearch Manufacturing Co for USAAMRDL.
2. Colbourne et al, "System Identification and Control System Design for the BURRO Autonomous UAV", presented at the 56th Annual Forum of the AHS, May, 2000.
3. McGonagle, J.G., “The Design, Test, and Development Challenges of Converting the K-MAX Helicopter to a Heavy Lift Rotary Wing UAV”, 57th Annual Forum of the AHS, May, 2001.
4. Cicolani, L, et al, “Flight test, Simulation and Passive Stabilization of a Cargo Container Slung Load in Forward Flight’. 63d Annual Form of the AHS, May 2007.
5. Hamers, M., Hinüber, E. and Richter, A., "CH53G Experiences with a Flight Director for Slung Load Handling", Proceedings of the American Helicopter Society 64th Annual Forum, Montreal, Canada, April 29 - May 1, 2008.
6. Garnett, T., Smith, J., and Lane, R., "Design and Flight Test of the Active Arm External Load Stabilization System (AAELSS II)", presented at the 32nd AHS forum, May 1976. (Vertol)
KEYWORDS: slung load, helicopter, cable angle, sensor system, position feedback
A09-014 TITLE: Crack Initiation Resistant Processes for Case Hardened Steels
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Materials/Processes
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Aviation
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: This topic seeks to increase the high cycle fatigue strength of case carburized steels through the development of a manufacturing process that can create a shallow, highly compressive, crack initiation resistant surface structure with negligible effect on the roughness of the existing surface.
DESCRIPTION: Improvements in power density (horsepower/lb) of rotorcraft drive trains is critical to increased performance of the total aircraft. The fatigue strength of mechanical elements such as gears, shafts and bearings typically sizes these components. These components are typically manufactured from high strength case carburized steel. To achieve the desired dimensional precision and surface finish, the parts are typically finish ground. To enhance the fatigue strength, shot peening is often applied to critical areas as a final process. It is well known that shot peening imparts a compressive residual stress in a shallow layer at the material’s surface, and that this residual compressive stress resists the formation of fatigue cracks as the part is exposed to cyclic tensile stresses. Shot peening is also recognized as an affordable manufacturing process. Achieving greater depth of surface residual compression (and hence fatigue strength) via higher intensity shot peening (or harder peening media) produces unacceptable surface roughness. In addition, the shot peening process involves a high degree of cold work. It is thought that there is the potential for relaxation of these residual stresses after exposure to high localized temperatures and repeated stress cycles. This topic seeks to develop a technique which can create a shallow (0.005 inches), highly compressive surface layer in a typical case carburized steel (9310 or X-53) with a near-surface magnitude in excess of -175 ksi (compressive). The process should also have minimal impact upon the surface roughness characteristics thus enabling the process to be final process applied to the part. The proposed process and required equipment should have operation and maintenance costs comparative to conventional shot peening. The process should be able to effect small radius corners such as those on small gear teeth and splines.
PHASE I: During the phase I effort, analysis and small scale experiments shall be conducted utilizing the technical approach proposed. This analysis should include discussions with rotorcraft airframe manufacturers to identify the specific requirements for application of the process to a gear typically used in a rotorcraft transmission. A preliminary analysis of the potential power density increase and projected cost of the proposed approach should be conducted. Small scale manufacturing trials and material characterization testing may be conducted to establish basic feasibility and guide the effort to be conducted in Phase II.
PHASE II: The results of the Phase I effort shall be further developed to scale-up the proposed approach and optimize the manufacturing methods. The specific approach to conducting this optimization and scale-up effort shall be closely coordinated with a rotorcraft airframe manufacturer. This development work shall be supported by necessary design and modeling effort. Manufacturing trials and material property development of increased complexity shall be conducted to evaluate the performance of the specific approach. Application of the process to a full scale gear shall be conducted. Fatigue testing to establish the potential benefits shall be conducted. Potential target applications shall be identified and plans for technology insertion and product development conducted.
PHASE III: Effort in this phase would involve further collaboration with the helicopter manufacturer regarding design and manufacture of a specific component to which the process could be applied. Additional specimens would be fabricated incorporating any improvement resulting from the Phase II effort. Additional testing necessary further prove the advantages of the process and potentially qualify it for service could be performed.
REFERENCES:
1. Zhumg, W., Halford, G., “Investigation of residual stress relaxation under cyclic load”, International Journal of Fatigue 23 (2001) 531-537.
2. Liu, Z., et al., “Microstructural evolution and nanocrystal formation during deformation of Fe-C alloys”, Materials Science and Engineering A 375-377 (2004) 839-843.
3. Wang, T., et al., “Surface Nanocrystallization induced by shot peening and its effect on corrosion resistance of 1Cr18Ni9Ti stainless steel”, Surface and Coatings Technology 200 (2006) 4777-4781.
4. Shaw, B. A., et al., “The role of residual stress on the fatigue strength of high performance gearing” International Journal of Fatigue, 25 (2003) 1279-1283.
KEYWORDS: Shot Peening, Residual Stress, Gears, Shafts, Bearings, Steel, Fatigue
A09-015 TITLE: Self-Powered, High-Temperature, Wireless Sensors for Rotorcraft Applications
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Sensors, Electronics
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Aviation
OBJECTIVE: Develop an advanced self-power reliable wireless sensor for measuring temperatures and pressures on turboshaft rotorcraft engines.
DESCRIPTION: The ability to monitor the health of rotorcraft turboshaft engines is limited by the suite of sensors on the engine. In order to take advantage of emerging engine diagnostic algorithms, additional sensors need to be added to engines. However, the weight associated with the additional sensors and wiring needs to be overcome. To reduce weight, wireless sensors are a potential solution. Thus, there is a requirement for self-powered, wireless sensors in order to take full advantage of engine monitoring algorithms that provide improved on-board performance evaluation, improved diagnostics for reduced false removals/maintenance, improved troubleshooting, and prognostic capabilities for fleet management. However, the extreme environment of a turboshaft engine offers challenges that make wireless communication very complicated and must be overcome.
The standards to be applied are: sensor will be self-powered (no batteries), operate in extreme temperature environments (-40 - +250 degrees centigrade), contain a self-test, capable of storing and wirelessly transmitting data to an on-board Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS), measuring temperatures (0 -1000 degrees centigrade), and pressures (0-500psi) with less than one percent error in locations such as engine inlet temperature (T1), compressor discharge temperature (T3), compressor discharge pressure (P3) and inlet pressure (P1).
Other desired attributes to consider for phase III are (1) impact per Mil-Std 810F, Method 516.5; (2) vibration requirements of Mil-Std 810F, Method 514.5; (3) acceleration per Mil-Std 810F, Method 513.5; (4) altitude per Mil-Std 810F, Method 500.4; (5) rain per Mil-Std 810F, Method 506.4; (6) fungus per Mil-Std 810F, Method 508.5; (7) humidity per Mil-Std 810F, Method 507.4; (8) salt spry/fog per Mil-Std 810F, Method 509.4; (9) sand/dust per Mil-Std 810F, Method 510.4; (10) fluid susceptibility per Mil-Std 810F, Method 504; and (11) electromagnetic interference (EMI) per Mil-Std 461E as modified by ADS-37A-PRF Table 1.
PHASE I: Design and develop the architecture for the electronic sensor(s) to include its wireless communication configuration. Perform an analysis/bench test of the feasibility for the self-powered, concept electronics and that the wireless sensor weighs less than a wired configuration.
PHASE II: Develop and fabricate a prototype new sensor(s) and related electronics to demonstrate on a turboshaft engine via a test cell.
PHASE III: The technology is applicable to both military and commercial turboshaft engines (qualified to military standards listed in description) to monitor components and performance in real time. The sensor will alert the both user and monitor to component(s) stressed beyond their intended boundaries. Besides alerting the user this technology should reduce both weight and maintenance required to operate safely thereby saving both down time and resources.
As this technology matures it can be transition to other turboshaft engines. Presently within the Army there are both ground and air vehicles using turboshaft engines, and many more throughout the DoD force. With the reduction of the wire weight and related problems and issues associated with maintaining electronic and aerial platforms so prove to be very beneficial.
REFERENCES:
1. MIL-STD-810F, DOD Test Method Standard for Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests, 1 January 2000.
2. MIL-STD-461E, DOD Interface Standard Requirements for the Control of Electromagnetic Interference Characteristics of Subsystems and Equipment, 20 August 1999.
3. ASD-37A-PRF, Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (E3) Performance and Verification Requirements, 28 May 1996.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Self-powered technology, High temperature applications, wireless technology
A09-016 TITLE: UAV Sensor Controller for Manned Aircraft
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Sensors
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Aviation
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Define, design and develop an innovative sensor control interface for US Army aircrew members operating in manned aircraft to easily and intuitively operate the sensor systems on Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). Operating the UAV sensor systems from within the noisy, vibrating, maneuvering environment of a manned aircraft cockpit is very different from operating the UAV sensor systems from within the stable UAV Ground Control Station (GCS). The Army is proliferating UAVs, and as the Army moves forward with the implementation of manned-unmanned teaming, an improved Man-Machine Interface (MMI) for control of the UAV sensors from the manned aircraft cockpit during flight conditions is required.
DESCRIPTION: US Army Research & Development (R&D) programs that prototyped, tested, demonstrated, and evaluated manned-unmanned teaming between US Army helicopters and UAV aircraft have show that manned-unmanned teaming provides significant added value to Army Aviation operations. Consequently, the Army is developing and incorporating manned-unmanned teaming capabilities into fielded systems like the AH-64D Longbow Apache. During the R&D programs, one area that needed improvement that was consistently identified was the control interface for the UAV sensor.
The GCS UAV sensor control interface is typically a sensitive joystick which provides precision manipulation of the UAV sensor’s pointing vector with some additional control input devices (switches, knobs, etc.) While not tested in flight, the precision joystick type of control interface is believed to be unsuitable for use in a manned helicopter during flight conditions. Other types of man-machine interfaces have been tried with limited success. Recent flight test programs used thumb force controller type of interfaces. While this type of interface was successful in controlling the UAV sensor within the flight environment, the aircrew members who used them universally disliked the interface. When operated for more than a short period of time, the constant pressure on the thumb became uncomfortable, and this type of sensor controller was felt to be insufficiently responsive for military missions.
This SBIR topic seeks an innovative, reliable, control interface system (hardware and possibly software) that can transfer precise joystick like pointing inputs smoothly to the UAV sensor system while operating in the hot, noisy, vibrating, pitching, and rolling aircraft environment. The controller should be able to operate optical sensors such as TV cameras and FLIR cameras, safely operate laser rangefinder/designators, and provide growth capability to control other currently fielded sensor systems such as a laser spot tracker. The controller should be able to point and move the pointing vector of the optical sensor system, zoom, select between multiple fields of view, select between multiple sensor types (ie TV and FLIR) and engage/disengage the autotracker. In addition, the controller should be able to handle all commonly used sensor control functions such a contrast, brightness, selecting black/white hot, etc. The controller should be suitable for installation into a manned aircraft cockpit, not impede aircrew egress in an emergency, and be useable while wearing standard Army pilot gloves. The sensor controller should be suitable for use for controlling the UAV sensor for an extended period of time; up to 20 minutes of continuous operation, and comfortable enough to use for up to 2 hours of operation with short breaks of up to 5 minutes. The control input system should be simple, intuitive, and easy to use.
The environment in an Army cockpit is very saturated from a sensory and cognitive workload point of view. Within the cockpit, there are a large number of audio and visual alerts and cues, high noise levels, and a situational awareness split between real world outside the A/C and the displays, controls, and teammates inside the cockpit. Many technologies have been looked at for controlling a cursor on the cockpit display that are potentially applicable. Relevant technologies include, but not limited to: eye tracking, head tracking, virtual controls (gesture, hand), touch screen, touch pad, thumb force controllers and and many variations on the joy stick theme. Many of these, while providing good control in a lab environment, are either not applicable to the environment of an aircraft cockpit, or are too cumbersome and/or complex to implement. While the scope of this effort does not exclude any of the technologies or combinations of technologies listed above, the need to keep it simple from an implementation point of view should guide contractors on the applicability of their concept.
PHASE I: Define an appropriate control input interface concepts to control the sensor on a UAV that will be suitable for integration into the manned aircraft cockpit and that will be useable in the high vibration, high motion flight environment. Include some analysis and explanation on why the controller interface is appropriate. This may potentially include top level human factors testing and analysis of the controller system to assess the usability ,sensitivity, and accuracy of the system in an equivalent or similar environment. These factors will be compared to the overall simplicity of the system to ultimately produce and integrate into a manned aircraft. If feasible, create bread board mockups and conduct proof of concept assessment of any critical technologies.
PHASE II: Develop the controller design from Phase I. Using mockups and simulation, bench test the technology to conduct and validate the human factors and accuracy analysis, and refine the design to enhance the control of UAV Sensors. As a minimum, high resolution simulated or surrogate UAV sensors may be used in testing and should be able to test the system in a variety of UAV operational environments to include some degraded sensor control. Conduct testing to characterize system performance. Define requirements and goals for follow-on system development efforts based on the results of this research.
PHASE III: Commercialization will include refinement, ruggedization, and productionization of the controller from Ph II. This technology addresses a core need for the Army’s current aviation systems and similar related DoD systems. The need for simple, accurate and intuitive controls for remote sensors, like on UAVs, is crucial to enable teaming of manned and unmanned systems on today’s battlefield. Application of this technology does extend to controlling remote sensor systems from both the ground vehicles and watercraft. As sensor systems are added to more and more Army aircraft, this control interface system would also be suitable for operating the manned aircraft’s ownship sensors. Application of innovative new technology from this program could have far reaching application across both military and commercial markets, and could enable a vast assortment of new and unanticipated applications in as control of unmanned systems and remote sensors in environments that currently are deemed too hostile for such interaction.
REFERENCES:
1. J.R. Wilson, UAVS AND THE HUMAN FACTOR, Aerospace America, July 2002, AIAA web site: http://www2.aiaa.org/aerospace/Article.cfm?issuetocid=233&ArchiveIssueID=28
2. Morphew, M.E., Shively, J.R., & Casey, D. (2004). Helmet mounted displays for unmanned aerial vehicle control. Paper presented at the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) conference, April 12-16, Orlando, FL; link: http://www.humanfactors.uiuc.edu/Reports&PapersPDFs/TechReport/05-05.pdf
3. Anthony G. Kraay, Michelle L. Pouliot and William J. Wallace, “ Test and Evaluation of the Man-Machine Interface Between the Apache Longbow and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle”; Paper presented at the RTO SCI Symposium on “Warfare Automation: Procedures and Techniques for Unmanned Vehicles”, held in Ankara, Turkey, 26-28 April 1999 and published in RTO MP-44.; link: http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public/PubFulltext/RTO/MP/RTO-MP-044/MP-044-B14.pdf
4. Tim Condon: “Teaming Manned and Unmanned Systems for the Future”, 10 January 2008 to the Unmanned Military Systems Conference, Washington DC.
KEYWORDS: UAV, sensor, helicopter, control, man-machine, interface, intuitive, sensor
A09-017 TITLE: Reactive Real-time Planners for Coordinated Aggressive Maneuvers
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Information Systems
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Aviation
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Develop a system that can dynamically plan 3-D routes for a team of manned and unmanned aircraft to aggressively maneuver in a coordinated manner avoiding collisions to accomplish a required mission. This effort will seek to develop a reactive planner that balances navigation, mission and survivability needs exploiting the flight envelope of the unmanned or manned aircraft to the maximum extent.
DESCRIPTION: In flight with manned and unmanned aircraft, there is a need for quick aggressive maneuvers to evade threats and avoid collisions. Manned aircraft rely heavily on the experience of the pilot. As the increasing workload and multiple system interface duties draw the pilot away from purely pilotage responsibilities, it is anticipated that future aviators will be relying more heavily on automated navigation functions inherent in fly-by-wire aircraft. In order for these future automated navigation systems to be able to handle pilotage duties, the ability to control the air vehicle over the entire flight regime is needed especially as it reacts to threats and stationary and moving obstacles. Similarly unmanned systems have a need to be able to react in the same way but in a fully autonomous manner. Complicating the matter, future systems envision teaming manned and unmanned vehicles together, adding a further requirement that entities in a team do not collide with each other during maneuvers. Real-time dynamic vehicle route planners have been developed under multiple UAV autonomy programs to fly the vehicle in real-time avoiding obstacles or tracking targets as it progresses between previously planned way points (planned from a mission planner). To date they have demonstrated limited capability and their latencies restrict vehicle forward speeds. In order to show true operational capability and allow operations in mixed airspace in the vicinity of manned aircraft, they need to be able to support highly responsive flight by aircraft balancing the needs of evasive maneuvering while accomplishing the team’s mission. To meet this need research is needed into algorithms and sensor data processing software that enable highly reactive, real-time route planning. Although this type of planner needs to be very vehicle specific, feasibility of a modular approach with common algorithms that can be tailored to individual manned and unmanned platforms should be assessed. It is conceivable that different instantiations of similar algorithms will need to be associated with each vehicle. This technology should enhance the ability of unmanned and automated manned systems to maneuver in a coordinated fashion to avoid detection & targeting by threats, avoid collisions in a constrained air space, enable target tracking in complex environments, or advance tactical team behaviors like avenge kill or coordinated urban reconnaissance.
This SBIR topic comes out of an effort by the Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) out of Ft Eustis VA, to develop a Team Survivability Planner for Manned and Unmanned Aviation Team under the program, "Survivability Planner Associate Re-router (SPAR)". The near real-time route planning portion of SPAR was not achieved and this effort is meant to develop technology capable of filling this need. The three main objectives that were not addressed during the SPAR program were; the addition of specific vehicle flight constraints for aggressive maneuvering (for instance to break line of sight and minimize exposure to threats to prevent being targeted), collaborative countermeasure planning (for instance two vehicles flying in close proximity to use a single vehicle''s RF jammer without colliding), and maintain line of sight communication planning with team and higher echelon, all integrated into the 3-D route optimization engine. While this effort will not include development of or integration with a communication or survivability planner, it will seek to develop a real-time, dynamic, 3-D route planner that supports use of the full flight envelope of the air vehicle to meet multiple potentially conflicting mission constraints and objectives. Although there is substantial research into dynamic path planners throughout industry and academia, they have primarily focused on the obstacle avoidance function; the need to manage survivability and adapt dynamically to multiple missions, flight vehicle and team coordination constraints in real-time has not been addressed and makes this effort extremely challenging.
This effort will focus on developing a software set of one or more real time dynamic route planners that can be adapted to individual aircraft be they fixed wing or rotary wing air vehicles. At a minimum, the path planner(s) need to account for vehicle states, aircraft rate limits, external safe airspace constraints imposed that account for restricted operating zones, terrain types, datalink and line-of-sight limits, actions by threats, potential collisions and obstacles in the flight path and other mission constraints imposed by pilots or air vehicle controllers. The system must work in conjunction or augment other planners for UAVs and equivalent autopilot on manned vehicles. This effort can include approaches that are directly tied to the autopilot and actually control the flight vehicle but the ability to adapt to a variety of different types of interfaces is preferred. The system should be adaptable depending on the desired constraints of the maneuver and urgency or priority set by pilot or operator. It is desirable that the software work with both autonomous and piloted flight factoring in appropriate reactions time and coordination constraints for a mixture to provide new flight paths and flight cues. For this effort, the offeror can assume that all external data needed such as airspace constraints and safe flight zones, obstacle and threat data, 3D representation of terrain and position data for entities in the vicinity including team members are provided to the planner system.
PHASE I: The phase 1 end product should assess proof of concept and key components of your approach in simulation. This effort could include a trade study to identify/determine what algorithms should be used but is not limited to best methods. It should identify top level differences between different manned and unmanned platforms as far as how they integrate on the autopilot on each.
PHASE II: The contractor shall continue development of their dynamic route planner software system for either a fixed wing or rotary wing aircraft configuration at a minimum and conduct performance testing as needed. The software will be integrated into a high resolution flight simulation environment (hardware in the loop preferred) representing a surrogate manned aircraft and UAV and tested to assess the system performance. At the end of the program, the dynamic characteristics of the software should be demonstrated (flight test preferred) to the Government. The contractor is encouraged to work with platform (manned and unmanned) developers in Phase 2 in order to make sure they are designing to an interface and control system representative of military systems.
PHASE III: This technology addresses an essential capability for manned aircraft and autonomous UAVs for the Army’s FCS goals and similar related DoD systems. This technology should enhance the ability of unmanned and automated manned systems to maneuver in a coordinated fashion and advance tactical team behaviors. This technology is necessary to make unmanned and pilot-optional-vehicles safer and allow them to fly with very tight flight constraints, which would contribute to making them applicable to flying in NAS. Moreover this technology could play an important role in manned aircraft as an emergency maneuvers system to avoid collision especially in case of pilot injury and inability. Besides all future DoD aircraft, this technology would also be an enabler in any future commercial markets for unmanned and automated air vehicles. Applicable industries include commercial aviation, logging, emergency rescue, medical evacuation, etc.
REFERENCES:
1. Jongwoo Kim a, Joel M. Esposito b, and Vijay Kumar; Sampling-Based Algorithm for Testing and Validating Robot Controllers; www.usna.edu/Users/weapsys/esposito/pubs/J7_accepted.pdf
2. Prof. Brian C. Williams: “Probabilistic Methods for Kinodynamic Path Planning”; MIT Open Courseware 16.412/6.834J Cognitive Robotics, February 7th, 2005, http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Aeronautics-and-Astronautics/16-412JSpring-2005/2F61C742-312C-4C15-9A63-F2F69B36A14E/0/l2_pro_path_plan.pdf
3. Emilio Frazzoli, Munther A. Dahleh, Eric Feron; “Real-Time Motion Planning For Agile Autonomous Vehicles” CS 497: Algorithmic Motion Strategies, Fall 2001, http://msl.cs.uiuc.edu/~lavalle/cs497_2001/papers/frazzoli.pdf
4. Ian M. Mitchell, Shankar Sastry: “Continuous path planning with multiple constraints”, (2003) in Proceedings of the 42nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Maui; http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mitchell/Papers/cdcMCPP.pdf
5. Li, Yan; Ding, Mingyue; Zhou, Chengping:”Man-machine interactive 3D route planner for unmanned aircraft”, Proc. SPIE Vol. 4553, p. 398-402, Visualization and Optimization Techniques, Yair Censor; Mingyue Ding; Eds.
6. Anthony Stentz :“CD*: A Real-time Resolution Optimal Re-planner for Globally Constrained Problems”, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
7. J. Bellingham, Y. Kuwata, and J. How, “Stable Receding Horizon Trajectory Control for Complex Environments”, Proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, August 2003
8. A. Richards and J. P. How, “Aircraft Trajectory Planning With Collision Avoidance Using Mixed Integer Linear Programming”, Proceedings of the American Control Conference, May 2002.
KEYWORDS: route planner, real-time, kinodynamic, aggressive maneuvers, manned, unmanned, dynamic, MUM, team survivability, SPAR
A09-018 TITLE: End-User Development of Robust Part-Task Pilot Models for Simulated ATC
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Information Systems, Human Systems
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Aviation
OBJECTIVE: Develop capabilities that allow for rapid, end-user scripting of robust behavior models that can bridge the gap between simulation-specific Computer Generated Forces (CGFs) interfaces and human Air Traffic Control (ATC).
DESCRIPTION: There is a growing need in the military and commercial sectors to reduce the cost and improve the fidelity of multi-aircraft aviation simulations to support airspace deconfliction, air traffic management experimentation, and forward air control training. Because of the difficulty in (and cost of) staffing simulated experiments and exercises with qualified human controllers, many make do with a large number of scripted aircraft behavior models that control embedded computer-generated forces (CGFs). While cost-effective, these models are often simplistic and minimally responsive to events and other exercise stimuli. This significantly limits the effectiveness of the experiment or exercise. A third option that is widely employed is to employ human operators (or ‘pucksters’) who, rather than simulate the exact operation of aircraft in the exercise (e.g. via flight simulator), instead control CGFs via its simulation’s native graphical user interface (GUI). However, because training and experimentation systems are often constructed from multiple, federated simulations - each with its own capabilities and control GUI - training human controllers to perform this function can be costly. In addition, because these varied aircraft simulations have varying capability levels, simultaneous control of CGFs within different simulations can be confusing and inefficient.
To shield the human controller from the inefficiencies of managing these aircraft simulations, AMRDEC seeks to develop variable-capability pilot behavior models that control for the variations in simulated aircraft capability and command protocols. Such models act as a proxy between the human controller and the aircraft simulation, providing a unifying command grammar and additional automation where the simulation lacks required capabilities. While recent research has shown that human behavior modeling techniques can be used to develop such proxy models (Stensrud et al, 2008), the cost of updating the proxy models (to handle new domain knowledge, CGFs with unsupported capability sets, or new command protocols) can be expensive and time-consuming. To make such a capability viable, these proxy model behaviors must be exposed for end-user modification and development. We propose a GUI language editing, compiling, and runtime engine tool(s) that will work across the board with current simulation architecture like IDEEAS, OneSAF, ModSAF, JANUS, etc. that can be commercialization into both existing and future military applications and the industry sector as well.
This SBIR envisions the development of an end-user programming environment consisting of a textual or visual scripting language, an integrated development environment with debugging capabilities, and a behavior execution engine. Phase II would construct a prototype GUI interface to provide this environment(s). These environments must be usable to expert military controllers or trainers, who are typically not engineers or programmers. These environments must enable the development of behaviors that can act as proxy pilots, providing control instructions for a wide variety of underlying simulated aircraft over varying capabilities. This SBIR is interested primarily in the development of new rapid behavior editing and execution tools and, where possible, respondents should leverage COTS/GOTS simulation systems, behavior engines, human-system interfaces, and aircraft models. Simulation-independent solutions are required.
PHASE I: Design end-user programming language/environment, and run-time engine for variable-capability proxy pilot models. Identify target military training or experimentation system and related user population. Determine feasibility of candidate language and engine in supporting this population.
PHASE II: Develop a prototype GUI language editing, compiling, and runtime engine tool(s) that will work across the board with current simulation architecture like IDEEAS, OneSAF, ModSAF, JANUS, etc... Integrate this GUI tool(s) with selected simulation and human-systems interface, as in a Air Traffic Controller console. Evaluate, Demonstrate and plan for commercialization.
PHASE III: Military applications: The product could provide a flexible and cost-effective mechanism for improving the human control of a wide range of kinetic simulations and training systems. The product can also be applied to human control of military robotics, providing a means to unify operator control units across a range of platforms. Commercial applications: Similar to military systems, this product could enable cost-effective end-user control and customization of commercial simulations, training systems, robotic, and automation control systems.
REFERENCES:
1. Stensrud, B., Taylor, G., Schricker, B., Montefusco, J. and Maddox, J. (2008). “An Intelligent User Interface for Enhancing Computer Generated Forces,” Proceedings of the 2008 Fall Simulation Interoperability Workshop (SIW), Orlando, FL, September 15-19, 2008.
2. Nardi, B. (1993). A Small Matter of Programming; Perspectives on End User Computing. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
KEYWORDS: Modeling and Simulation, Human Factors, Automation, End-User Programming, Computer Generated Forces, Pilot, Aircraft, Air Traffic Control, ATC
A09-019 TITLE: Embedded Component Health Management for Rotorcraft
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Materials/Processes
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Aviation
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this SBIR is to develop a comprehensive and networked health management capability that can be embedded directly into a rotorcraft component. The capability should include unique identification, health status, performance monitoring, remaining useful life and component history. Army Aviation has initiatives to convert to a condition based maintenance (CBM) philosophy. Implementing CBM requires knowledge of the health of critical components across the entire aircraft fleet. Tracking individual components and the associated data creates a burden in infrastructure and management. The dynamic environment of Army aviation complicates this requirement as aircraft must operate for periods disconnected from main operations and without network connectivity. This project would embed the capability to monitor and store the applicable information on to the component itself, minimizing the infrastructure burden and the probability of lost or corrupted data. The goal is to provide seamless configuration and parts management.
Current Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) include numerous external sensors and associated wiring that adds weight to the aircraft. Sensors and wiring can account for 70% of the HUMS weight. The wiring and sensors can be difficult to install and can cause maintenance issues. There is a need to embed the health management capability into components to minimize the weight and maintenance impact.
DESCRIPTION: This effort will develop an embedded system capable of component self assessment, usage tracking and part history. The system should include unique identification to enable tracking both installed and uninstalled. Health, performance or usage indicators that correspond to the failure modes of the component should be calculated from embedded sensors. Remaining useful life estimates should be made if possible. This information needs to be stored in a rugged and reliable manner to ensure that the part history is accurately maintained for flight safety. This data needs to be assembled at an aircraft level with minimal effort by the crew or maintenance personnel. The process for removal and installation of a component should be considered.
Technologies are available to uniquely identify parts and digitally store information directly on components. Technology advances have been made in embedded sensors, low power microprocessors, wireless data transmission and energy harvesting/energy transmission. The focus of this effort is to synergistically combine these technology areas to meet CBM requirements.
PHASE I: Phase I of the effort will prove the feasibility of the proposed technology approach. Phase I will develop the technology sufficiently to prove the ability to embed the required capabilities and implement an aircraft level system for consolidation and reporting. The Phase I effort should address the system requirements for a representative aircraft component. The effort should address the monitoring requirements for the chosen component, as well as the associated sensors and processing. Technology to embed the capability such as power requirements (replacing batteries is not acceptable), and any wireless or wired network architecture should be identified. Low weight and high reliability are essential. Aircraft level network topology for consolidation and reporting should be considered. The source of data for the selected component as well as any performance, usage or diagnostics models should be identified in the Phase I proposal. A roadmap for implementation should be defined under this phase.
PHASE II: Phase II will develop the Phase I technology into a fully functional prototype. The system will be tested to assess the accuracy of the embedded capabilities as well as an aircraft level architecture. Component testing would be conducted along with the ability to combine multiple components in an aircraft level system.
PHASE III: This technology could be used for any rotorcraft. Commercial operators as well as other military services could use the technology developed to better manage the aircraft, track components and manage fleet logistics. This technology could be integrated into high value and flight safety critical aircraft components.
REFERENCES:
1. Department of Defense Instruction Number 4151.22, Condition Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+) for Material Maintenance, December 2, 2007.
2. Department of The Army, G4, Army Aviation Condition Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+) Plan, 29 November 2004.
3. Concept of Operations for AIT in an Automated Maintenance Environment for Army Weapon Systems, Durant, Ronald W., Thompson, Owen R., March 2002.
KEYWORDS: Condition Based Maintenance, Unique Identification, Health and Usage Monitoring
A09-020 TITLE: Hybrid Vorticity Transport Method for Rotorcraft Comprehensive Analysis
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Aviation
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Develop hybrid aerodynamics methodology combining a vorticity transport method with a near-body CFD solver and interface this methodology with a rotorcraft comprehensive code for accurate, computationally efficient airloads and flowfield predictions for interdisciplinary rotorcraft applications.
DESCRIPTION: Computational modeling and simulation tools are critical for all phases of rotorcraft research, design, development, and engineering. Fast, accurate, easy-to-use computational tools are the foundation for developing future rotorcraft having mission performance, life cycle cost, and reliability needed to meet tomorrow’s requirements. Rotorcraft aeromechanics specifically deals with both the airloads and the interacting flowfields of lifting surfaces and immersed bodies. Unsteady rotor wake modeling remains one of the most challenging aspects of rotorcraft analysis. Current modeling techniques for rotorcraft wakes typically either use grid-based Navier-Stokes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods or Lagrangian discrete vortex free wake methods. Both methods have serious drawbacks. Traditional Lagrangian methods are lower-order models based on discrete vortex singularities that are severely limited by the potential flow assumption and are heavily dependent on numerous modeling assumptions and input parameters. Vortex interactions with wakes, airframes, ground, ships, etc., are poorly modeled. Current Navier-Stokes methods are overly dissipative of vorticity and the grid density required to accurately model tip vortex structures and reduce dissipation makes full resolution exceedingly expensive computationally.
Alternative approaches for solving the Navier-Stokes equations have shown promise. For example, the Eulerian vorticity transport method (VTM), Ref. 1, uses a vorticity-conservation form of the Navier-Stokes equations, rather than a conservation variable (density, momentum, energy) formulation, to convect wakes more accurately over long distances with reduced dissipation. Another method coupled CFD method with a particle vortex transport method (PVTM) for application to rotorcraft and fixed wing problems, Ref. 2. More recently, significant progress has been reported applying a viscous vortex particle method (VVPM) to rotorcraft wake flowfields, Ref. 3. The VVPM is based on first principles and addresses the fundamental vortex physics to accurately solve for complex wake distortion and diffusion/dissipation of vorticity.
A first-principles-based, vorticity transport method combined with a near body computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver and interfaced with a rotorcraft comprehensive analysis is sought. Under the hybrid approach, the CFD solver will address the surface near field and boundary layer flow while the vorticity transport method will accurately resolve the wake flowfield. Given the state-of-the-art in rotorcraft CFD, Ref. 4, a model which can interface with a well-validated conservation-variable CFD formulation is preferred. Similarly the U.S. Army’s RCAS code provides an ideal comprehensive analysis for interfacing the aerodynamic methods with full interdisciplinary aeromechanics applications. It has been extensively used for CFD/CSD coupling methodology, Ref. 5. Other promising opportunities exist for leveraging emerging tools. The DOD HPC Modernization Office HI-ARMS Program at AFDD is developing the Helios rotorcraft analysis CFD/CSD tools with coupling protocols based on a Python scripting framework. Possible integration and leveraging opportunities include employing Helios-SAMRAI grid adaptation (adaptive mesh refinement), and an accompanying Poisson solver.
Areas of interest for enhancing vorticity transport methods include improving computational efficiency, inclusion of realistic and resolved viscous effects, evaluation of modeling (grid or particle) requirements, and turbulence issues (RANS, LES). With respect to interfacing the hybrid vorticity transport and CFD methods, compressibility, viscosity, interface/equation compatibility, stability, and construction of the velocity field may be addressed. Other potential issues include CFD numerical coupling issues at interfaces such as overset methods, equation matching, wave reflection, etc. Computational efficiency is important and parallelization and scalability for implementation on high performance parallel processors should be considered. The accuracy of the methodology should be evaluated against experimental data, including rotor airloads in separated flow and BVI conditions and flowfield problems such as brownout and rotor-fuselage interaction.
PHASE I: Phase I will formulate a vorticity transport method hybrid interface. As required, research and preliminary development to demonstrate the feasibility of an interface with an existing conservation-variable CFD code will be performed.
PHASE II: Phase II will refine the vorticity transport method with full interface implementation with existing CFD codes. Efficiency and parallelization will be addressed. Validation of airloads and wake flowfield solutions will be performed on a range of rotorcraft datasets. The hybrid method will be interfaced with the comprehensive analysis and demonstrated with suitable test problems.
PHASE III: The resulting technology will have application to the analysis, design, and development of current and future military and civilian rotorcraft configurations. Numerous government agencies and industrial manufacturers would be interested in obtaining this technology as part of their rotorcraft design methodology to improve vehicle mission capabilities and cost effectiveness and to increase design cycle effectiveness by reducing development risk and cost.
REFERENCES:
1. Kelly, M.E. and R.E. Brown. “Predicting the Wake Structure of the HART II Rotor using the Vorticity Transport Model.” 34th European Rotorcraft Forum. 2008, Liverpool, UK.
2. Anusonti-Inthra, Phuriwat, “Development of Rotorcraft Wake Capturing Methodology Using Fully Coupled CFD and Particle Vortex Transport Method,” Proceedings, American Helicopter Society 62nd Annual Forum, Phoenix, AZ, May 9-11, 2006.
3. Zhao, Jinggen and He, Chengjian,``A Viscous Vortex Particle Model for Rotor Wake and Interference Analysis," American Helicopter Society 64th Annual Forum, Montreal, Canada, April 29 - May 1, 2008.
4. Chan, W.M., Meakin, R.L. and Potsdam, M.A., "CHSSI Software for Geometrically Complex Unsteady Aerodynamic Applications," AIAA Paper 2001-0593, January, 2001.
5. Mahendra J. Bhagwat , Robert A. Ormiston, Hossein A. Saberi, and Hong Xin, “Application of CFD/CSD Coupling for Analysis of Rotorcraft Airloads and Blade Loads in Maneuvering Flight,” Presented at the American Helicopter Society 63rd Annual Forum, Virginia Beach, VA, May 1-3, 2007.
KEYWORDS: vorticity transport method, CFD, wakes, rotors
A09-021 TITLE: Open Source Comprehensive Optical Diagnostic Analysis Suite
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Information Systems, Materials/Processes
OBJECTIVE: To perform the required research and development work for an open source comprehensive optical diagnostic analysis suite.
DESCRIPTION: The ability to rapidly and accurately evaluate new and innovative rotorcraft concepts and configurations in rotorcraft testing is vital to the development of next generation rotorcraft for the Army. A variety of non-intrusive optical diagnostic techniques are currently used (e.g. paritcle image velocimetry (PIV), pressure sensitive paint (PSP), photogrametry, projection Moiré interferomentry (PMI), laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), Schlieren, etc). These techniques deliver critical information enabling rapid evaluation. One of the most time consuming tasks is the transform of optical data to qualitative measurements. Currently a mixture of commercial and research code is used to reduce the data. This applies not only to the different techniques, but can also apply within a technique (i.e. multiple codes for preprocessing, other codes for processing and finally another set of codes to post process the data). Increasing the complexity of the data reduction process is the lack of a common data format to enable data from the various measurement techniques to be examined and interrogated simultaneously. This capability is critical to enabling rapid understanding of the flow field thus enabling rapid decision making.
The goal of this SBIR is to research and develop a comprehensive optical diagnostic analysis suite. The suite shall have a modular structure consisting of a front end and open-source modules for the data analysis (i.e. a module for each diagnostic technique). The front end must be able to incorporate the results of each module into a global dataset that can be mapped onto a surface grid or measurement plane as appropriate to enable visualization and interrogation of the global dataset. The open source modules should be written in a language commonly found in the engineering community (e.g. MatLab or FORTRAN) to enable tweaking by the researchers.
PHASE I: Phase I of the project begins with a state-of-the-art assessment of the large volume of work to date on optical analysis techniques, data integration, interrogation and visualization techniques. In Phase I and II, only PSP and PIV analysis techniques will be considered. From this, provide new technology software that will address the objectives of the topic. Provide the top-level preliminary design of the proposed software including the interfaces and PSP and PIV analysis modules. Develop the mathematical basis and algorithms needed to address the problems defined in the topic. Outline the technology approaches and tools for the software modules to be implemented in Phase II. In key areas, design and implement prototype software modules to demonstrate viability and benefits relative to existing technology.
PHASE II: Based on the top-level system design and prototype demonstrations in Phase I, complete the detailed design for the full software system. Following the detailed design, complete all math basis and algorithm development, and implement all software modules. Integrate the software modules in the comprehensive optical diagnostic analysis suite. In Phase I and II, only PSP and PIV analysis techniques will be considered. Test the integrated software and generate representative results based on Government furnished PIV and PSP data. Generate timing results to measure improved runtime efficiency and throughput, where applicable. For software components having increased functionality and accuracy, demonstrate the new capabilities and compare results with existing codes to quantify improvements. Prepare test reports, software documentation, user manuals and example application descriptions.
PHASE III: The comprehensive optical diagnostic analysis suite will be transitioned to, and used by, DoD R&D organizations (such as U.S. Army AMRDEC) and equivalent Government organizations (such as NASA) for ongoing research investigations and engineering analysis support of rotorcraft research and development. The suite will be transitioned to the rotorcraft industry for application to rotorcraft testing, to reduce the time required to evaluate advanced concepts and configurations. Development of additional modules (PMI, model deformation, etc) to enhance the suite’s capability is anticipated at this time. This advanced analysis, visualization and interrogation methodology will be equally applicable to both military and civilian vehicles. Particularly relevant for DoD rotorcraft will be the new joint heavy lift rotorcraft. Extensive testing will be required to aid the understanding of the associated aeromechanics and validation of design and predictive methods.
REFERENCES:
1. Liu, T. and Sullivan, J.P., Pressure and Temperature Sensitive Paints, Springer, Berlin, 2005.
2. Bell, J.H., Schairer, E.T., Hand, L.A., and Mehta, R.D., “Surface Pressure Measurements Using Luminescent Coatings,” Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. Vol. 33, 2001, pp. 155-206.
3. Ruyten, W., “Real-Time Processing of Pressure-Sensitive Paint Images,” Aerospace Testing Alliance, AEDC-TR-06-6, Arnold AFB, TN, December 2006.
4. Burner, A.W., Snow, W.L., Goad, W.K., and Childers, B.A., “A Digital Video Model Deformation System,” ICIASF ’87 – International Congress on Instrumentation in Aerospace Simulation Facilities, IEEE, New York, 1987, pp. 210-220.
5. Bell, J.H. and Burner, C.A., “Data Fusion in Wind Tunnel Testing – Combined Pressure Paint and Model Deformation Measurements,” AIAA Paper AIAA-1998-2500, June 1998.
6. Burner, A.W. and Liu, T., “Videogrammetric Model Deformation Measurement Technique,” J. Aircraft, Vol. 38, No. 4, 2001, pp. 745-754.
7. Fleming, G.A., Soto, H.L., South, B.W., and Bartram, S.M., :Advances in Projection Moiré Interferometry Development for Large Wind Tunnel Applications,” SAE World Aviation Congress, SAE, 1999, and published as SAE Paper No. 1999-01-5598.
8. Fleming, G.A. and Gorton, S.A., “Measurement of Rotorcraft Blade Deformation using Projection Moiré Interferometry,” J. Shock Vibration, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2000.
9. Willert, Christian, “Stereoscopic digital particle image velocimetry for application in wind tunnel flows,” Meas. Sci. Technol. 8 (1997) 1465–1479.
10. Westerweel, J., “Fundamentals of digital particle image velocimetry,” Meas. Sci. Technol. 8 (1997) 1379–1392.
11. Schwartz, R.J., Fleming, G.A., “Virtual Diagnostics Interface: Real Time Comparison of Experimental Data and CFD Predictions for a NASA Ares I-Like Vehicle”, Instrumentation in Aerospace Simulation Facilities, ICIASF, Monterey, CA, 2007.
12. Watkins, A.N., Leighty, B.D., Lipford, W.E., Wong, O.D., Oglesby, D.M. and Ingram, J.L., “Development of a Pressure Sensitive Paint System for Measuring Global Surface Pressures on Rotorcraft Blades”, ICIASF, Monterey, CA, 2007.
KEYWORDS: Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP), Video Model Deformation (VDM), photogrametry, optical diagnostics, data reduction, open source, data analysis, flow visualization
A09-022 TITLE: 20 year backup battery
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Ground/Sea Vehicles, Electronics
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Missiles and Space
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Contractor shall develop a low power battery capable of providing 3.3 volts DC at 10 microamps average current for 20 years. The battery shall have a 20 year storage life.
DESCRIPTION: Contractor shall develop a long shelf life, low power battery, for embedded sensor applications. The phase I section describes the requirements for the 20 year backup battery.
PHASE I: Contractor shall research and determine the feasibility of developing a battery to meet the following requirements:
(1) operating temperature range of – 40 degrees C to + 85 degrees C. Operation over a wider temperature range up to the full military temperature range of – 55 degrees C to +125 degrees C will be considered a plus.
(2) battery output voltage shall be between 3.0 and 3.5 volts.
(3) battery shall provide 10 microamps average current,
100 microamps for 0.1 seconds per day,
1 time peak current of 1 milliamp for 1 second.
(4) environmentally friendly battery, with minimal disposal issues.
conventional chemical batteries will be given a higher priority than nuclear batteries
(5) battery that can be certified flight worthy
(6) battery shall be no larger then 1.5 by 1.5 by 1 inches.
(7) battery shall weigh no more than 2 ounces.
PHASE II: Contractor shall develop proposed 20 year backup battery. Contractor shall perform an accelerated aging test to verify 20 year battery life at -40 degrees C, +25 degrees C, and +85 degrees C. Contractor shall provide the government with a report describing the test and test results.
Contractor shall have an independent test and evaluation conducted on the prototype battery. Contractor shall provide the independent test and evaluation report to the Government. Contractor shall deliver 2 prototype batteries to the government point of contact.
Contractor shall provide a final report, and a preliminary data sheet for the prototype battery.
PHASE III: Batteries are problematic in military systems. Current batteries do not have more that 5 to 10 years of shelf life at -40 degrees C or +85 degrees C. A new battery that has a 20 year shelf life over the -40 to +85 degrees C temperature range would reduce system maintenance by not requiring batteries to be replaced every 5 years.
Low power consumer electronics would benefit from low cost, and long life batteries. In the PC computer world, a long life CMOS backup battery would be beneficial. High end computer redundant array of independent disks (RAID) disk controllers would benefit from a longer life backup battery.
REFERENCES:
1. F. Shearer: “Power Management in Mobile Devices,” December 2007, ISBN-13: 9780750679589.
2, N. Weste, and D. Harris: “CMOS VLSI Design: A Circuits and Systems Perspective,” Addison Wesley, 2004. ISBN: 0321149017.
3. R. Kaushik, S. Prasad: “Low Voltage CMOS VLSI Circuit Design,” Wiley, 1999, ISBN: 047111488X.
4. D. Linden and T. Reddy: “Handbook of Batteries,” McGraw-Hill Companies, 2001, ISBN: 0071359788.
5. V. Barsukov and F. Beck: “New Promising Electrochemical Systems for Rechargeable Batteries:
6. R. Dell, and D. Rand: “Understanding Batteries,” Royal Society of Chemistry, 2001, ISBN: 0854046054.
7. T. Minami, et al.: “Solid State Ionics for Batteries,” Springer-Verlag New York, LLC, 2005, ISBN: 4431249745.
8. N. Nguyen and S. Wereley: “Fundamentals and Applications of Microfluidics, Second Edition,” Artech House, 2006, ISBN: 1580539726.
KEYWORDS: Battery, long shelf life, low current.
A09-023 TITLE: Aberration corrected imager for missile dome and window applications
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Electronics, Weapons
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Missiles and Space
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: The goal of this topic is to develop novel methods or techniques for correcting aberrations introduced in the seeker by the missile dome.
DESCRIPTION: Multimode seekers are of interest to the Army as well as other services. Much of the increased optical demands of the seeker depend heavily on the properties of the missile dome. As a result, missile dome designs have become more complicated and optical specifications have become tighter. Meeting transmitted wave front specifications is difficult. Optical finishing of these domes accounts for a large percentage of the final dome cost. By shifting the aberration correction from the dome to the imager, dome tolerances can be relaxed. The result should be a reduction in finishing costs leading to less expensive domes.
Compensating for transmitted wave front error in the imager could also eliminate the need for specialized corrective optics. If the seeker optics could be reduced or eliminated, the size and weight of the seeker could also be reduced. This technology is of interest to the Navy for their conformal windows and dome work. Corrector optics for these shapes is difficult and expensive to manufacture. Eliminating the need for these corrective elements could expedite the use of conformal optics in military systems.
The goal of this topic is to produce and demonstrate a functional prototype imaging mid-infrared sensor capable of imaging through hemispherical domes with high aberrations using wave front sensing and digital aberration correction. This sensor will be developed for missile systems using 4 to 7 inch diameter domes.
PHASE I: Establish feasibility of the proposed concept by modeling and bench-top demonstration of key components. Demonstrate imaging with phase reconstruction of the wave front. Provide hardware requirements, such as size, power, and weight, for implementing the algorithm in seeker/imaging applications.
PHASE II: Develop and demonstrate a prototype aberration correcting imaging seeker compatible with 4 to 7 inch diameter missile domes. Demonstrate real-time digital correction of dome related aberrations in the mid-infrared. Develop and provide required calibration procedures. Package in a form factor that does not exceed 8 pounds and 125 cubic inches. Provide design specifications including size, power, weight, field of view, resolution, and frame rate. The government may provide aberrated domes to be included in the final system demonstration.
PHASE III: Demonstrate commercial production capability for building the sensor developed in Phase II by integrating the sensor into a missile seeker package chosen by the Army. The seeker will be for Army missiles in the range of 2.75 to 7 inch diameter. Since this is an imaging sensor, this technology could potentially find its way into commercial cameras and video systems. The commercial applications may include security and surveillance, rugged robotic vehicles for police, firemen, and first responders, and in biomedical imaging including endoscopy. It could also have application space imaging and underwater photography where the harsh environments may limit the usefulness of conventional techniques. This technology could also be used by the military for surveillance, robotic vision, and medical applications.
REFERENCES:
1. "Material for Infrared Windows and Domes," Dan Harris, ISBN 0-8194-3482-5, SPIE Press, 1999.
2. "Materials for infrared windows and domes: Properties and performance", Daniel C. Harris, Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, Bellingham, August 1999.
3. "Tri-mode seeker dome considerations", James C. Kirsch, William, R. Lindberg, Daniel C. Harris, Michael J. Adcock, Tom P. Li, Earle A. Welsh, Rick D. Akins, Proc. SPIE Vol. 5786, p. 33-40, Window and Dome Technologies and Materials IX; Randal W. Tustison; Ed., 18 May 2005.
4. "Durable coatings for IR windows", Lee Goldman, Sartsh Jha, Nilesi Gunda, Rick Cooke, Neeta Agarival, Suri Sastri, Alan Harker, and James Kirsch, Proc. SPIE Vol. 5786, p. 381-392, Window and Dome Technologies and Materials IX; Randal W. Tustison; Ed., 18 May 2005.
5. “Development of hot-pressed and chemical-vapor-deposition Zinc Sulfide and Zinc Selenide in the United States for optical windows”, Dan Harris, Proc. SPIE Vol. 6545, Window and Dome Technologies and Materials X; Randal W. Tustison; Ed., 29 April 2007.
KEYWORDS: aberration correction, imaging sensor, missile dome, seeker
A09-024 TITLE: New Thermal Battery Electrochemistry
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Ground/Sea Vehicles, Weapons
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Missiles and Space
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate a new thermal battery electrochemistry based on higher energy density cathode and anode materials, to obtain improvements in specific energy of reserve power systems for long term storage munitions.
DESCRIPTION: Future thermal battery performance demands were recently defined and delineated by a DOD Power Sources Working Group in report entitled: “Technology Roadmap for Power Sources: Requirements Assessment for Primary, Secondary and Reserve Batteries”, dated 1 December 2007. This government/ industry consortium identified several areas of improvement needed, relating specifically to thermal batteries.
The present thermal battery technologies, including the cobalt disulfide batteries, cannot currently meet future requirements. As systems become smaller, lighter and more capable, they require increased energy and operating life, preferably in a smaller, lighter package. Based on these requirements, their recommended goals included a specific energy increase of 25% in 5 years and 50% in 10 years.
The principle avenue for dramatically increasing thermal battery specific energy is to identify and develop new cathode and/or anode materials and electrolytes which provide higher specific capacity (amp-hr per gram of active material) at higher operating voltages across the range of discharge rates typically required of thermal batteries. The combination of higher specific capacity and higher operating voltage translates directly to higher specific energy at the battery level.
Cobalt disulfide (CoS2) cathodes enabled a significant improvement in specific energy over conventional iron disulfide (FeS2) cathodes; however, it is clear that this is still not sufficient for future weapon systems. New electrode and electrolyte materials based on recent improvements in materials synthesis and processing (nano structured, doped materials) have shown promise of much higher specific energies.
Lithium-silicon alloy (LiSi), nominally comprised of 44 w% lithium and 56 w% silicon, has been the standard anode material in thermal batteries for the last 25 years. The cobalt disulfide thermal battery has been a significant improvement while retaining the basic manufacturing process. However, other materials capable of providing higher cell voltage, higher peak current, and higher specific energy need to be evaluated.
The goal of this program is to combine improvements in cathode and anode materials and create a battery which can deliver more than twice the specific energy of the LiSi/FeS2 electrochemistry (baseline) while maintaining or improving the peak current capability.
PHASE I: Outline a technical approach to an improved ltihium iron disulfide or cobalt disulfide thermal battery that considers both electrochemical and manufacturing processes. Determine candidate compounds for testing, including nanostructured compounds currently available, and estimate performance improvements. Particular attention should be paid to manufacturing methods and improvements in processing these materials. Conduct test cell performance characterizations of the various chemistries. Thermal stability analyses using techniques like Thermo-Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) may be necessary in addition to cell voltage determination and internal resistance. The selected candidate compositions will be developed further in Phase 2.
PHASE II: Demonstrate an improved lithium iron disulfide or cobalt disulfide thermal reserve battery suitable for use in munitions. Finalize the candidate designs from Phase I cell testing, and scale up to full-size prototype batteries. Identify and resolve any compatibility or manufacturing issues. The goals are to obtain a specific energy of 100 Wh/kg, and improve specific power to 1200 W/kg. Phase II deliverables should include a prototype demonstration of an assembled unit meeting the improvement goals as described, and include a complete description of the fabrication and test processes, test data and results, and a sufficient model to describe these results.
PHASE III: Demonstrate the increased energy storage system improvements in a relevant environment, and provide complete engineering and test documentation for development of manufacturing prototypes. A Phase III application for Army missile systems could include battery miniaturization in legacy programs as well as incorporation into emerging programs. Programs that would benefit from this technological innovation would include, but are not limited to, the following programs: TOW, Excalibur, Stinger, Javelin, NLOS, Griffin and JAGM. The development of other military applications of this technology may include future urban warfare surveillance/reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles. This technology is applicable to sonabuoys, which are large users of thermal batteries. Commercial applications of this technology could include smaller emergency backup power sources for the aviation industry.
REFERENCES:
1. Handbook of Batteries - Linden, McGraw-Hill, “Technology Roadmap for Power Sources: Requirements Assessment for Primary, Secondary and Reserve Batteries”, dated 1 December 2007, DoD Power Sources Working Group.
KEYWORDS: thermal battery, cobalt disulfide cathode, nanomaterials
A09-025 TITLE: Wafer-level manufacture, energetic loading and packaging of metal MEMS S&A devices
for fuzes
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Electronics
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Soldier
OBJECTIVE: Establish an innovative process for high-rate, low-cost wafer-level manufacture of micro-scale components used in Army Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) safe and arm (S&A) device and micro-scale firetrain designs. The process would utilize advanced metal plating, explosive ink loading and wafer-scale packaging techniques to create packaged S&A mechanisms, explosive components, and electrical interfaces.
DESCRIPTION: The mechanical separation of primary and secondary explosives in munition fuzes has long been a safety requirement for all existing and new fuzes. Historically, these mechanical S&A devices are relatively large and also costly to produce in large quantities in applications like submunition or medium-caliber munition fuzing. Miniaturization of S&A devices in a cost effective manner (on the order of $1-$10/S&A) will be of significant benefit to the Army because of the wide application of MEMS fuzes across munitions. It will also enable smaller smart munitions. MEMS-based technologies have been identified as a solution by USA RDECOM-ARDEC through the completion of a successful science and technology demonstration phase. Currently, the program is maturing manufacturing technologies by evaluating production technologies that will increase design manufacturability in high quantities. Technologies evaluated include electro-plating into both UV and X-ray photolithographic molds, deep reactive ion etching, sintering of molded polymer and metal powders, and micro die-casting. These micro-system production capabilities are ever evolving and becoming more capable and cost effective. Recent developments in wafer-level production and assembly of metal MEMS parts has shown promise as being the ultimate solution for cost effective S&A device production. These wafer-level assembly processes are proving too immature and costly to integrate at the current state of the art but show tremendous promise for high volume cost savings and throughput. Because of this potential payoff for the Army, ARDEC would like to evaluate these emerging technologies for applicability to MEMS products in development.
PHASE I: Phase I would include the process development for wafer scale replication of an Army-designed MEMS S&A to include electrical initiation components, mechanical safe and arm device components, and energetics. Technical risk areas to be addressed include but are not limited to the wafer bonding process, high aspect ratio plating of the MEMS parts, and the energetic loading process. Though phase I is intended to be a paper study, if possible, small scale experiments to identify major hurdles would better define technical risk areas. Hermetic sealing of the MEMS S&A device is a desired attribute but not required. The required deliverables for Phase I is a report outlining the wafer-level replication process flow and an analysis of any major risks to a successful Phase II. Contractor should make the case if the state of the art can acheive the Phase II demonstration goals outlined below.
PHASE II: The Phase II effort would implement and demonstrate the feasibility the wafer scale process developed in Phase I and demonstrate the function and reliability of an S&A developed in this fashion. The government will supply lithographic mask layouts or geometries to be used in fabricating the following functional layers: initiator board layers, MEMS mechanism device layers, and the explosive output base layers. This demonstration would include metal plating and bonding of the layers that make up the MEMS components as well as the energetic loading of the parts. The offeror would load the government-suppled ink or paste -formulation energetic components into the fire train layers in a batch process where all energetic cavities are loaded at the same time. The goal for a final step is to singulate the wafer of fully functional S&A devices ready for placement into the munition. The build process is complex and should be broken into ARDEC reviewed demonstrations of the initiator, demonstration of explosive train transfer, and demonstration of the inertial response of the MEMS S&A components.
PHASE III: The Phase III effort transitions the Phase II process into a commercially viable enterprise. It would scale up the high rate production capability of wafer-level replicated MEMS S&As. The government, at its option, may supply a new or revised set of devices layouts or geometries for the Phase III lithography processes. Full reliability testing of the Phase III devices will be conducted. High rate process yield will be determined and maximized as well. The offeror will work with fuze contractors and ARDEC representatives to maximize the applicability across wide families of munitions from 25mm-155mm applications. The wafer-level assembly and metal MEMS technology should be evaluated for applications across the military and commercial sectors. In the military, this technology could be applied to all fuzing and improving harsh environment sensor applications. The offeror will provide an analysis as to whether wafer-to-wafer level packaging of electrical, metal, and explosive components for commercial and military applications like, 3D metal MEMS, electrical sensing using electro-plating based MEMS, and medical micro-systems will benefit from the improvements in the process integration of electrical initiation components, mechanical safe and arm device components, and energetics. Other non-defense related dual use applications of this technology include safety devices for explosives used in oil field pyrotechnics, mining operations and demolition.
REFERENCES:
1. Patent numbers: 6964231, 7316186
2. http://www.armymantech.com/MTB05/pg14.pdf
3. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA481848
4. Materials, Fabrication, and Assembly Technologies for Advanced MEMS-Based Safety and Arming Mechanisms for Projectile Munitions, C. H. Robinson* et.al, Adelphi, MD, 20783.
KEYWORDS: Metal plating, micro assembly, wafer-scale, micro, MEMS, safety and arming, fuze , S&A, lithography
A09-026 TITLE: Innovative Real Time Probes
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Weapons
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Missiles and Space
OBJECTIVE: Design, develop and demonstrate innovative, hazardous duty, explosion proof probes for quality assurance of explosive production which can provide real time characterization in the following capacities:
1) Particle Size and bulk density measurement in an industrial still during the coating of explosives.
2) Measurement of viscosity of a melt cast explosive as it is mixed and poured into an explosive round.
3) Measurement of water content of an explosive as it is dried.
4) As a caveat, the probes should be rated safe to work with explosive materials.
DESCRIPTION: Three problems plaguing production of explosives, measuring particle size in a still during coating in real time, determining viscosity of a melt cast explosive as it is poured, and analyzing the water content of an explosive as it is dried, can all theoretically be solved by similar devices, explosion proof probes which can measure mechanical properties in real time. The following areas can all be addressed with very similar probes:
1) Measurement of Particle Size: Many plastic bonded explosives (PBX) are produced using a slurry process where micron-sized particles of solid explosives are slowly bound together by polymer binders. The particles then grow to the millimeter sizes suitable for molding powders. The slurry process starts by mixing a water phase containing the high explosive crystals, and a lacquer phase containing solvent, dissolved polymer, and other additives. The solution is then heated to distill off the solvent. The polymer falls out of solution and “coats” the explosive crystals. To produce PBX explosives at an acceptable cost for munitions, the slurry process must be optimized for yield and product quality. To control the slurry process, a new analyzer is needed that can monitor the particle growth and lacquer composition in the production still.
2) Measurement of Viscosity: The viscosity of the material as it is melted is important for process control because low viscosity indicates insufficient solids loading, while excessive viscosity would show that the material would not cast. The ability to measure viscosity would also be helpful in determining the degree of settling which occurs in a melt cast munition, which is an increasing concern in the IM Melt cast munition projects.
3) Measurement of Water Content: The amount of water in an explosive, such as RDX, as it dries is a critical process control parameter. Excessive water can cause decreases in performance and sensitivity, which would result in faulty ammunition. The ability to measure the amount of water in an explosive during the drying process would allow for improved drying procedures and ensure consistency in the drying process, reducing manufacturing variation.
Overall, a company which could develop and provide probes that cover these areas would be improving 3 areas of critical importance to the Army’s production of explosives. This would provide a tremendous boon in product quality, product consistency, and decreasing costs. As the more complicated IM explosives gain usage, the ability to control manufacturing parameters will become even more important. This project is very exciting because it’s showing the ability to solve three problems with one similar solution, making it very cost effective. Improved explosives quality will result in greater insensitivity and safety, improved reliability and lethality, and more manufacturing efficiency.
The probes will have to match the following specifications and environmental conditions:
Particle Size Range: 5-5000 micrometers
Particle Type: Metal or explosive powder
Safety: Rated for explosive conditions
Temperature: 20 – 120 Celsius
Probe Diameter: 2.5cm or less
Probe Length: 10cm up to 100cm (to extend into explosive mixing vessels) Explosives Slurry Water Content: 0-100% Explosives Slurry Solids Content (Viscosity): 0-90% Slurry Air Content: Up to 50% for some explosive mixing Kettle sizes 10 Liter- 6000 Liter
PHASE I: Design innovative lab-bench probes with computer controls and shield sensors/transducers from solvents and explosives, to include real-time particle size measurement on inert/solvent mixtures.
Deliverables:
1.) Drawings for Lab Probes.
2.) Final Report
Metrics:
1.) Size of Probe
2.) Amount of Data obtained by Probe
Milestones:
1.) Initial Research
2.) Perform Modeling to determine necessary specification of system.
3.) Design Probes.
Success in this phase would be demonstration of technical feasibility to obtain real time data on explosives during the manufacturing process while maintaining reasonable costs.
PHASE II: Fabricate demonstration probe for inert materials, calibrate equipment depending on particle size of explosives in question, and test at lab on inert systems. Improve software to add additional features and ensure quality data output. Develop an explosion proof design for equipment capable of being tested at ARDEC. Deliver, install, and prove-out a system that can be used in contractor facilities. Calibrate the equipment depending on results for initial testing. Demonstrate that real-time outputs from the system can be used for process control.
Deliverables:
1.) Probes which can be tested at ARDEC.
2.) Probes which can be tested at contractor facility.
3.) Final Report.
Metrics:
1.) Reliability of Probe
2.) Data Acquisition of Probe
3.) Estimated cost of building and maintaining probe.
Milestones:
1.) Fabricate prototype probe and troubleshoot in lab.
2.) Deliver probe to ARDEC for testing.
3.) Deliver probe to contractor facility for further testing.
Success in this phase would be the fabrication of probes and delivery to a contractor for initial testing. Final report of manufacturing knowledge gained for these probes should show ability to improve manufacturing processes.
PHASE III: Innovative probes developed with this SBIR would be useful in the processing of energetics and polymer materials, making it highly useful for Army production facilities.
In the commercial sector, this technology could be used for quality inspection in food, for example, determining the water content in fruit, finding impurities during a manufacturing process, or determining the viscosity of a liquid. In polymer processing, these probes could be used in a modified fashion to investigate the mechanical properties of plastics during production, allowing for greater quality and efficiency. Finally, in pharmaceutical processes, such as coating, these probes would be useful in controlling particle size and other relevant material properties. Phase III would involve proving out applications in other industries, providing both a military and civilian benefit.
REFERENCES:
1. Norman A. Anderson, Instrumentation for Process Measurement and Control, Third Editon, CRC Press, 1997.
2. Zhenhua Ma, et. al., “On-line Measurement of Particle Size and Shape using Laser Diffraction Particle & Particle Systems Characterization,” Volume 18, Issue 5-6, December 2001, Pages 243-247.
3. Lawrence C. Lynnworth, Ultrasonic Measurements for Process Control, Academic Press, 1989.
4. Paul W. Cooper and Stanley R. Kurowski, Introduction to the Technology of Explosives, Wiley, 1996.
5. Munitions Manufacturing - A Call for Modernization, Committee to Evaluate the Totally Integrated Munitions Enterprise (TIME) Program, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2002.
KEYWORDS: ultrasound, quality assurance, process control, manufacturing
A09-027 TITLE: Nanostructured High Performance Energetic Materials
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Develop a cost-effective method to synthesize an environmentally safe and stable (under ambient conditions) polymeric nitrogen material with high energy density and reduced sensitivity, which can be used in new energetic material formulations. High volume production and potential civilian applications should be addressed.
DESCRIPTION: High-energy density energetic materials with increased stability and vulnerability, which are environmentally safe, are needed to meet the requirements of the Department of Defense’s Joint Visions and Future Force. Over 20 years ago it was proposed that polymeric nitrogen would meet and exceed these requirements, with energy release which is about five times that of any conventional energetic material in use today [1,2]. Recently, a polymeric nitrogen phase was synthesized from molecular nitrogen at temperatures exceeding 2000 K and pressures above 110 GPa [3]. This phase could be quenched to ambient pressure but only at low temperatures, which precluded energetic performance testing of the material. X-ray diffraction measurements provided strong evidence for a cubic polymeric nitrogen phase. Related recent experiments [1] have also shown that a polymeric nitrogen phase that is stable under ambient conditions for 2 weeks can be formed by pressurizing sodium azide in the presence of hydrogen to 40 GPa, whereas ab initio calculations and molecular dynamics simulations [4] indicate that singly bonded polymeric nitrogen can be encapsulated and stabilized within a carbon nanotube [4]. In the light of these experimental and theoretical results, it is likely that a stable polymeric nitrogen phase can be produced for application as an ingredient in high performance, green munitions. Moreover, highly nitrogenated nanomaterials produced for this purpose can also function as promising sensors for gases, such as hydrogen.
PHASE I: Identify and describe the most promising method for the production of an environmentally stable polymeric nitrogen material. Deliverables must include demonstration of a prototype set-up and process, description of methods to characterize structure and energetic performance, and preliminary chemical and structural characterization of the material produced. Readiness for Phase II will be judged on meeting the milestones for these deliverables and overall feasibility of the process identified.
PHASE II: Optimize the synthesis process from Phase I. Deliverables must include successful fabrication and demonstration of a scaled up set-up for production and detailed characterization in accordance with the plans from Phase I. Characterization should include measurements of energy density and insensitive properties both in pure form and in munition formulations.
PHASE III: Partner with DoD Program managers to develop application of this novel energetic material in US Army munition formulations and replacement for igniter lead composite compound that is less sensitive to impact and shock. Also partner with companies to develop civilian applications which could involve the use of polymeric nitrogen functionalized carbon nanotubes as sensors for hydrogen and related gases. Techniques such as Atomic Force Microscopy would also benefit from these materials since they already use nanomaterials as tips for imaging surface topology at the nanometer scale.
REFERENCES:
1. Ciezak, J.A. and Rice, B.M., 2006: Polymeric nitrogen: The ultimate, green high performing energetic material. US Army Research Laboratory, Technical Report A468184.
2. Greenwood, N. N. and Earnshaw, A. 1984: Chemistry of the Elements (Pergamon, Oxford).
3. Eremets, M.I., Gavriliuk, A.G., Trojan, I.A., Dzivenko, D.A., and R. Boehler, 2004: Single bonded cubic form of nitrogen. Nature Materials 3, 558.
4. Abou-Rachid, H. et al., 2008: Nanoscale High Energetic Materials: A Polymeric Nitrogen Chain N8 Confined inside a Carbon Nanotube. Phys. Rev. Letters 100, 196401.
KEYWORDS: Energetic materials, polymeric nitrogen, carbon nanotubes
A09-028 TITLE: Innovative High Strength Nanostructured Aluminum-Based Composites
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes
OBJECTIVE: Design a novel composition and process to produce a high-strength, nano-structured, dispersion-strengthened, aluminum-based composite for structural and lightweight armor applications.
DESCRIPTION: Research at Allied Signal and NIST has lead to the discovery of quasi-crystalline alloys and nano-structured dispersion strengthened aluminum alloys. The quasi-crystalline alloys have been the basis for extensive fundamental research and some very strong and tough materials have been discovered, while the dispersion-strengthened alloys discovery pointed the way to an alloying approach for high temperature aluminum alloys (aluminum superalloys) that would have a great impact on turbine engines, perhaps replacing titanium in some applications [1-4]. It is believed that a composite combining the strength and toughness of the quasi-crystalline alloy with the high temperature resistance of the nano-structured, dispersion-strengthened alloy could yield a novel high-strength, nano-structured composite for many applications, including structural and lightweight armor applications. The goal of this SBIR is to design and develop new alloy composition of nano-aluminum metal matrix composites with tensile strength greater than 1 GPa (145 ksi) and tensile failure strain greater than 5 % at room temperature. Cryomilled aluminum composites have demonstrated high strength but little or no ductility.
The challenge is to design a formulation and develop a process to consolidate it into a fully dense composite with good properties, including strength and ductility. Additionally, it is believed that a nano-scale microstructure will enhance the properties of the composite. As such, techniques that use nano or nano-grained powders and consolidation techniques that can be used to preserve the microstructure of the starting powder and achieve a nano-structured composite are of special interest.
PHASE I: Design a formulation and develop the process to produce a fully dense, nano-structured high strength aluminum composite with tensile strength greater than 1 GPa (145 ksi) and a tensile failure strain greater than 2.5 %. Fabricate specimens, and characterize the tensile and compressive strengths and failure strains under static and dynamic loading .
PHASE II: Optimize product formulation to maximize the strength and increase ductility (tensile failure strain greater than 5 % is required), and develop and demonstrate a prototype capability for production of components for sub-scale prototype testing. Characterize the mechanical properties of the fully dense, nano-structured high strength aluminum composite for structural applications and for lightweight armor applications. Mechanical property measurements are required at room temperature and elevated temperature for structural applications. Processing of plates with dimensions of 24” x 24” x 1” (610 mm x 610 mm x 25.4 mm) will be required for demonstration of lightweight armor applications.
PHASE III: Transition the processing technology for structural applications in the aerospace and automotive industries, and for lightweight armor for military and law enforcement applications. This will include partnering with major aerospace and military suppliers with high production capacities.
REFERENCES:
1. Skinner, D.J., Bye, R.L., Raybould, D., and Brown, A.M., Scr. Metall. 20 (1986).
2. Langenbeck, S.L., Griffith, W.M., Hildeman, G.J., and Simon, J., “Development of Dispersion-Strengthened Aluminum Alloys,” Rapidly Solidified Powder Aluminum alloys, ASTM STP 890, Eds. M.E. Fine and E.A. Starke, American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, 1986.
3. Bendersky, L.A., Cahn, J.W., and Gratias, D., “A crystalline aggregate with icosahedral symmetry: implication for the crystallography of twinning and grain boundaries,” Philosophical Magazine B, Vol. 60 (1989).
4. Bendersky, L.A., Biancaniello, F.S., Ridder, S.D., and Shapiro, A.J., “Microstructural characterization of atomized Powder of Al-5Mn-5Fe-2Si (wt%) alloy,” Materials Science and Engineering, A134 (1991).
KEYWORDS: nano-structured aluminum composite, dispersion-strengthened aluminum alloy, aluminum-based composite, lightweight armor, nano-structured material processing
A09-029 TITLE: Advanced High Energy Density Propellants
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Electronics, Weapons
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this program is to develop nanoparticle energetic propellants for guns.
DESCRIPTION: The potential of nanoparticles to drastically enhance the energy density of gun propellants has been demonstrated recently in laboratory and pilot scale studies (1). Nevertheless, there are formidable challenges in implementing these nanoparticle-enabled propellants in the field. The objective of this effort is to overcome technical limitations associated with energetic nanoparticle applications and develop scalable processes that can overcome the limitations.
During the past several years a significant amount of research has been performed to evaluate nano-sized materials in energetic compositions (1), (2). The bulk of this research has been directed toward the evaluation of nano metals in rocket propellants and high explosives. In these applications it is suggested that the very finely divided metal will react more rapidly than the commonly used micron sized materials, thereby increasing the efficiency and burning rate of metalized rocket propellants and explosives. It has been demonstrated that the addition of small amounts of nano metals or other nano sized materials to advanced gun propellants provides improved burning rate tailorability and possibly improves mechanical properties. From the burn rate increase, it would be possible to significantly enhance the system level performance of selected weapon systems. The nanomaterials to be explored in this effort (Al, B, AlB, BNNT) are of significant interest due to their reactivity and tailorability. Of primary interest, is the process to disperse these nanoparticles uniformly throughout the propellant thereby creating a useful intermediate or end product.
While laboratory studies utilizing nanoparticles of aluminum and other energetic materials have shown remarkable “nanoparticle effects” in propellants, there are several problems pertaining to the use of these additives on a larger scale in a practical situation. Nanoparticle dispersions suffer from long term instability: the homogeneous single phase characteristic of a nanoparticle suspension is lost over time, and the material phase separates. Additionally, aglomeration of the nanoparticles during combustion could also reduce the beneficial effects of nanoparticles. Accordingly, the present effort is aimed at delivering “practical” propellant compositions that have nanoparticles incorporated in them. Propellants must be characterized by their ballistic properties, thermal expansion and dispersion in the material. Levels of ballistic and thermal properties to be achieved are those comparable to JA2 propellant.
PHASE I: A feasibility study and theoretical modeling/analysis should be performed on various nano material compositions having good uniformities and dispersion qualities leading to production of nano particle energetic gun propellants. After the theoretical analysis is completed, small scale mixes of gun propellant formulations will be made for initial laboratory scale characterization. Using simulants analogous to Al, B, AlB, and BNNT, demonstrate the feasibility of novel approaches to producing nanoparticle-containing propellants that are both scalable and practical.
Deliverables: A study on the potential theoretical improvements over standard propellant formulations will be provided to the government along with a feasibility study and cost analysis of the proposed process.
PHASE II: Develop and deliver to ARDEC the capability to produce versatile nano particle energetic propellants for guns. The thermochemical data from the candidate propellant formulations incorporated with nanoparticles will be evaluated for thermochemical and ballistic properties. The test data will be analyzed using JA2 propellant as the baseline for tanks and M1 /M30 propellants for the 155 mm artillery.
Differences in the behavior of the simulant and propellants used in the field should be addressed in Phase II with a continued focus on Al, B, AlB, and BNNT. Additionally, the potential hazards of utilizing nanoparticles in this application should be documented. The down-selected formulation will be tested in a small scale gun test fixture such as the 30mm gun using JA2 propellant as the baseline.
Deliverables: Samples will be delivered to the Government for sensitivity, compatibility, and performance testing. Provide full documentation of the process, comparison of theoretical to actual performance data, and data demonstrating the relationship between the quality of the dispersion and the performance and sensitivity characteristics of the material.
PHASE III: The military application is to demonstrate the technology developed in Phase II in large caliber gun systems such as the 120mm tank and the 155mm artillery after the successful small scale testing in Phase II.
One possible commercial application for the nano material BNNT would be its use in the aerospace industry due to its structural properties. Another application for the nano material nano Al is its use in developing novel energetic materials for the air-bag industry.
REFERENCES:
1. P. Braithwaite, T. Manning, and K. Klingaman, “Early Evaluation of Nano Materials in ETPE Propellants,” JANNAF PDCS/SEPS Joint Meeting, Charlottesville, VA, March 2003.
2. T.G. Manning and L.E. Harris, US Army, Army Research and Development Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ 07806 and H. A. Bruck, University of Maryland, College Park, MD,20742 and J.R. Luman, B. Wehrman, K.K. Kuo*, and R.A. Yetter, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, “Development and Characterization of High Performance Solid Propellants Containing Nanosized Energetic Ingredients”, JANNAF Propellant Characterization, PEDCS, March 2006, San Destin, FL.
KEYWORDS: simulants, nanoparticle, energetics, propellants, dispersion, energy density
A09-030 TITLE: Advanced Weapon Sighting Systems
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Weapons
OBJECTIVE: Develop and establish techniques for creating an advanced aiming reticle (crosshair) in bulk glass while yielding a reduced retro reflection signature.
DESCRIPTION: Currently, weapon sight reticles can be fabricated only on a flat surface via etch/fill or metal deposition techniques. Reticle surfaces in focal planes produce retro reflections, increasing detectability. Presently these signatures are reduced by cementing a cover plate to the reticle surface with index matching cement. This index match is never perfect over the spectrum due to mismatch in the dispersion between glass and cement. A considerable advantage would be provided if the reticle could be etched within the bulk of the glass: reduced signature, reduced assembly, reduced parallax, improved optical system design flexibility. One option to accomplish this is using high power laser systems. Laser systems are now powerful enough that a focused beam can be used to create an aiming reticle inside (not on the surface) of a piece of glass, thereby reducing the size and weight of an optical system while also reducing the ability to detect a reflection off the reticle glass. This method of reduced reflection has not been researched and would provide added security for soldiers in active combat. Current research focuses on an anti-reflective coating deposited on the surface of the glass or laser etching on the surface of the glass. Other methods can be used to accomplish this effort, but should meet the application standard (10 micron line width in 10 - 25mm diameter glass lenses) at a depth of 3 - 5 mm and ideally produce zero reflectivity.
PHASE I: Investigate new and innovative ways for an aiming reticle to be created within a glass material. Various optical glass types and processing methods will be analyzed to determine candidate combinations for additional evaluation. Perform laboratory experiments to validate the theory that using specialized processing conditions (i.e. highly focused laser energy) could be used to create a sub-surface aiming reticle within optical glass. The results of these experiments will be evaluated to determine the quality of each reticle made during this phase.
PHASE II: Develop and fabricate a prototype advanced aiming reticle. The reticle will be integrated into a small arms direct view weapon sighting system (to be determined) and test fired to demonstrate they can survive the pyrotechnic shock associated with live fire testing and can maintain similar or better firing accuracy when using laser etched reticles (or commercially available ones). Conduct testing to demonstrate feasibility of the new aiming reticle within a developmental environment and acquire user feedback. The sighting system will also be tested to verify reduced retro reflection (Optical Augmentation).
PHASE III: Military applications for this type of technology involves any weapon sighting system or any system that needs visual superposition of a permanent image on a transparent medium. Commercial applications are hunting rifle scopes, telescopes, binoculars, touch screens, mirrors, and artistry.
REFERENCES:
1. Woo, DK; Hane, K; Lee, SK. (2008). Fabrication of a multi-level lens using independent-exposure lithography and FAB plasma etching. In J. of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, Vol. 10, Issue 4, pp. 044001.
2. Huang, ZQ; Hong, MH; Do, TBM; Lin, QY. (2008). Laser etching of glass substrates by 1064 nm laser irradiation. In Appl Physics A, Vol. 93, Issue 1, pp.159-163.
3. Neiss, E; Rehspringer, J.-L; Mager, L; Fort, A; Fontaine, J; Montgomery, P; Flury, M; Robert, S. (2008). Investigation of laser ablation on hybrid sol–gel material applied to kinoform etching. In Appl Physics A, Vol. 92, Issue 2, pp.351-356.
4. Niino, H.; Kawaguchi, Y; Sato, T; Narazaki, A; Kurosaki, R. (2008). Surface microstructures of silica glass by laser-induced backside wet etching. In Photon Processing in Microelectronics and Photonics VII, Proceedings of the SPIE, Vol. 6879, pp. 68790C-68790C-9.
KEYWORDS: laser, optics, reticle, reflection, weapons sight, optical augmentation, parallax, etching
A09-031 TITLE: Automated Manufacturing of Composite Materials including Armament Applications
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Weapons
OBJECTIVE: Automated Manufacturing of Composite Materials including Armament Applications
Research, develop and demonstrate novel methods to improve cost, schedule, and performance, of composite tape placement technologies to include improved safety and environmental impact.
DESCRIPTION: Commercial off the shelf technology in the automated manufacture of composite components has provided a true breakthrough in armament technology for highly mobile lightweight and lethal combat systems as well as advanced electromagnetic railgun armaments. These technologies have benefited from prior investment including DARPA funding in composite manufacturing technology and the University of Delaware's College of Engineering, the Center for Composite Materials (CCM) In particular the use of automated thermo-plastic carbon fiber tape placement to wind composite jackets around large caliber gun barrels and railgun cores has enabled dramatic increase in lethality while meeting aggressive maneuver requirements. A key breakthrough was achieved by the Army as a lead user to aggressively pursue tape placement under maximum wind tension. This achieves essential compressive pre-load to the gun liner or railgun core.
Three opportunities for substantially increased utility of this technology have been identified. They are operator safety, manufacturing speed, and increased thermal capability. To understand these, the thermoplastic tape placement approach must first be described for the current application of composite jackets to the Army’s four meter railgun, the Navy’s proposed ten meter railgun, and the XM360 120mm tank main armament in system development and demonstration for the Army’s future combat system (FCS) mounted combat system. For these applications, Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) is used as thermoplastic matrix to bind high strength carbon fibers into a unified structure. To ease manufacture, the composite fibers are pre-impregnated with the matrix material used to bond them together. This raw commercial off the shelf prepreg material is supplied as a thin half inch wide uni-directional tape wound on a spool. Very hot nitrogen gas is blown into the crotch formed between the substrate material and tape as it is unwound from the spool and wound around the launch tube. The hot gas temporarily melts the surface of the matrix material of both the substrate and new feed tape. A compaction roller then passes over the tube to consolidate the material into a unified structure as the melted matrix re-solidifies due to heat transfer to the substrate and full thickness of the tape. Tape may currently be applied at three to five inches per second of feed. Technicians, operating the machine, use simple tools, experience, and a careful eye to start new tape placements and to splice occasional tears in the prepreg.
Safety: Machine technicians work very close to high temperature nitrogen gas feeds (electric torches). Although we have not yet had a serious burn in our facility, it has occurred in industry. Alternative technologies could prove safer.
Manufacturing speed: The electric torches employ electrical resistance heating to supply hot nitrogen gas. Hotter gas could conceivably enable a faster feed speed. However, hotter gas can also overheat prepreg tape, causing it to lose too much strength and subsequently tear. Technology that would allow rapid feedback control of the rate of matrix heating, to correlate it to feed rate and design requirements may allow higher feed rates and improved control of structural properties.
Thermal capability: gun tubes tend to get hot when fired. This is particularly true of sustained non-line-of-sight (NLOS) applications desired for NLOS forced entry, FCS NLOS cannon system, naval railguns, and extended area protection systems that provide counter rocket, artillery, and mortar protection. New technology to heat and temporarily melt prepreg matrices may enable higher temperature matrices. (It should be noted that in general terms, matricies that tolerate higher operating temperatures require a higher manufacturing temperature to melt during tape placement.) Nominal improvement in thermoplastics is anticipated. The potential to enable a breakthrough in metal matrix tape placement is exciting.
PHASE I: Investigate innovative means of achieving a temporary melting of matrix material between substrate and prepreg tape as the tape is applied to build structure. Such innovations could include electromagnetic wave energy (e.g., lasers), plasma injection, alternative inert hot gas feeds, conduction heat transfer, and ultrasonic’s. Although heating at the crotch is anticipated, heating behind the crotch is acceptable providing it does not hinder the desirable tension winding benefits. The technology must not be incompatible for later integration as a tape placement head replacement to the Army’s existing commercial off the shelf technology tape placement machine. (Access to the machine and informal discussions of machine operation with government engineers and operators will granted upon request to phase 1 contractors to assist. Figure 2 of the first reference includes an image of machines tape placement head in operation. The principle requirement is that the technology employed can articulate and move along the piece under construction). Develop and document the overall technology advance specifically citing findings or predictions on safety, manufacturing speed, and thermal capability. Proof of principle shall be demonstrated by constructing a cylindrical structure representative of a half meter long 105mm or 120mm steel lined gun tube section using standard geometry for ½” tape. (Suitable gun tube sections may be government furnished if requested.) Advance in speed of manufacture shall be evaluated based upon model predictions, validated to the extent possible by the demonstration tube with a target sustained speed of 25 cm/sec while maintaining over 60MPa of strength subject to ASTM D 2344/D 2344M. Advance in safety shall be evaluated based on size, proximity, and temperature magnitude of hot components within reach of the operator during fabrication and other factors associated with novel approaches (such as laser retinal damage propensity). Advance in thermal performance shall be evaluated based upon model predictions of max temperature that may be tolerated of a tension jacket for a period of 4 hours with less than a 5% loss of pre-stress, validated to the extent possible by the demonstration tube. (Historically, a test to shear out the steel liner from the composite jacket has been used.) Credible progress towards 360C from current standard of 200C is desired. 500C would exceed expectations. It is anticipated that metal matrices would be required to exceed expectations.
Suitability for advancement to phase two shall be based upon anticipated weighted sum of benefit of speed, normalized by 13cm/sec and max tolerable temperature in centigrade, normalized by 200C with a weight of two on temperature. Anticipated safety shall be qualitatively assessed as less safe, as safe, or more safe than the current process using ‘-‘, ‘0’, and ‘+’ respectively. Safety shall be used to discriminate between numerical ties in qualitative speed and thermal capability assessment.
It is anticipated that a minimum quantitative benefit required for advancement to Phase II is 140%.
PHASE II: Further demonstrate the overall technology advance specifically verifying prior predictions on safety, manufacturing speed, and thermal capability for the following three applications: 1) 120mm XM360 gun, 2) forcible entry NLOS cannon, and 3) Army or Navy railgun.
Develop and demonstrate manufacturing capability for improved fabrication of composite cannon and transfer this capability to the US Army. The Army’s existing commercial off the shelf technology tape placement machine may be leveraged if seamless integration with it can be verified. (Suitable gun tube liners may be government furnished if requested.)
PHASE III: Advances in this key domestic manufacturing technology would aid virtually all applications for thermoplastic tape placement systems. Such systems are used to fabricate aircraft including the joint strike fighter, Airbus 310, and Boeing 787. Also, increased focus on construction and enhancement of wind turbine generators is creating an even stronger market for fabrication of their airfoil blades. Interestingly, due to their gargantuan proportions (bigger than a Boeing 747) on site tape placement manufacturing technology is being sought. This successful SBIR could facilitate all of these applications.
REFERENCES:
1. A. Littlefield and E. Hyland, Prestressed Carbon Fiber Composite Overwrapped Gun Tube, http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA481065
2. J. B. Root and A. G. Littlefield, Minimizing Rail Deflections in an EM Railgun, http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA481582
3. E. Kathe, Large Caliber Pre-stressed Launchers: Fabrication via Wind-In Tension, NDIA Classified Seminar on the Applications of Electromagnetic Launch Technology, 03 May 2007.
4. A, Littlefield, E, Hyland, A, Andalora, N,Klein, R. Langone, and R. Becker, Design, Fabrication and Testing of a Thermoplastic Composite Overwrapped Gun Tube, available at: http://www.automateddynamics.com/tech_papers_final.html
KEYWORDS: Thermoplastic tape placement, manufacturing railgun, XM 360 NLOS cannon gun, EM gun, heating safety stress
A09-032 TITLE: High Energy Density Inertial Harvesting Power Source for Spin Stabilized Small- and
Medium-Caliber Fuzing
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Ground/Sea Vehicles, Electronics, Weapons
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Soldier
OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate an inertial setback generator/energy harvester for powering munition fuze electronics and initiation circuits based on micro-fabrication material processing and hardware to achieve greater energy density (smaller overall size), lower cost, optimized power delivery, greater ruggedness and shelf life, and improved reliability and safety compared to those characteristics with existing munition setback generator technology.
DESCRIPTION: A new power generation and delivery system is needed in small to medium-caliber projectile munition fuzes to replace existing setback generators and chemical reserve batteries with cheaper and smaller sources. Recent efforts in miniaturization of fuzing components have led to the integration of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technologies. In particular, the US RDECOM-ARDEC identified MEMS as a solution to reduce the volume and increase the reliability of safety and arming (S&A) devices. Consequently, fuze power sources—e.g. inductive setback generators, reserve batteries, etc.—are another area where a large percentage of the fuze volume is consumed. Batteries have been problematic in life, storage, size, weight balance and cost. Furthermore, existing setback generators are expensive and are bulky, when volume is at a premium for current and future advanced munition fuzing. Miniaturization of fuzing components will enable small to medium-caliber munitions to be smarter (proximity fuzing, airburst, point detonating, and point detonating delay) and cheaper, while maintaining (if not increasing) weapon safety and lethality. Micro-system production capabilities are ever evolving and becoming more cost effective. Micro-fabrication material processing is recognized as a solution to the energy density (energy divided by the system’s total volume) struggle for existing fuze power sources. A power scheme is sought that will complement the MEMS S&A Device with a target volume on the order of 1.5 cm3.
Technical efforts include a concept based on micro-fabrication material processing and analysis of hardware used to achieve harvesting methods. Additionally, proof of concept should be shown utilizing both physics based calculations and coupled-physics based finite element analyses (FEA). Technical risk areas to be addressed include but are not limited to the robustness in harsh inertial environments (up to 100k G’s where G is the acceleration of gravity), 20 year shelf life, -45 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit functional temperature range, and justification that an energy density greater than 40 mJ/cm3—delivering power during a functional time range of 5-15 seconds—is achievable for a setback acceleration greater than 40k Gs. Furthermore, peak setback generation voltages are desired to be less than 50 volts.
PHASE I: The required deliverables for Phase I is a report outlining the inertial energy harvesting method and energy density along with mathematical and computer based models illustrating proof of concept. The report should also include proof of concept laboratory experiments and any major risks impeding a successful transition to Phase II.
PHASE II: The Phase II effort would implement and demonstrate the feasibility, size reduction (relative to existing systems), and energy production of the inertial harvester. Energy production of the prototype inertial harvester will be demonstrated by the contractor’s preferred method. Safety also has to be demonstrated by successfully passing 5 foot drop test where, subsequently, the round remains fully functional and the 40 foot drop safety (round is safe to dispose of), insofar as the safety of the round depends on the setback generator.
PHASE III: The Phase III effort will transition the Phase II inertial harvester design into an optimal and low-cost product. Demonstration and full reliability testing of the energy harvesting device will be conducted via live fire testing through collaboration with ARDEC engineers at an Army test facility. The offeror should work with fuze contractors and ARDEC representatives to maximize the applicability across wide classes of munitions from 25 mm – 40 mm applications. The micro-fabrication material processing technology should be evaluated for additional applications across the military and commercial sectors. Potential commercial and military uses include but are limited to vibration energy harvesting to power wireless sensor nodes in enviroments where low maintenance is required, secondary power source for harsh environment sensors, and impact sensing applications.
REFERENCES:
1. FCS ORD: 3469 (Soldier Survivability)
2. FCS ORD: 1182 (LOS Lethality)
3. FCS ORD: 1248 (Non-Lethal)
4. OICW ORD: 8) Program Affordability, 4A1S) P3I-Reduced weight and reduced cost
5. MIL-STD-1316
KEYWORDS: energy harvesting, peizoelectric, power, micro, MEMS, fuze, electromagnetic, inductive, setback, energy, acceleration
A09-033 TITLE: Miniaturization of Sensors on Flexible Substrates
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Sensors
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate the use of materials printing as low cost method of manufacturing printed electronics on flexible substrates for use in Army smart munition sensors.
DESCRIPTION: The U.S. Army is transforming into a lighter yet more lethal objective force. To that end, U.S. Army scientists and engineers are capitalizing on new technological breakthroughs in nanotechnology, micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), microelectronics, etc., to develop flexible electronic capabilities for sensing, communications, data collection/storage, and power alternatives.
Significant advancements have been made in printed electronics that print function-specific active sensor systems using nano-inks and novel materials on a variety of flexible substrates via ink-jet printers and/or other advanced approaches. These capabilities allow the further design and development of various active sensors systems that meet the Army’s needs for decreased size and weight, lower power requirements, and greater range, sensitivity, and resistivity.
Native properties of select individual nano-materials should be researched to determine which combinations can create specific “recipes” for the development of active sensor systems via materials printing technologies. Similar efforts are required to identify the substrates and polyimide films upon which the inks will be printed and which can be used in the ink-jet printing process.
As the success of the nano-ink recipes are tied to the substrate upon which it’s printed, changing the substrate also requires changing the ink formulation. Research is required to match the recipe formulation to the specific substrate to design and develop various active sensors systems for intelligent munitions systems, focusing on the antenna and GPS of (Medium Range Munitions) MRM's. Consideration should be given to sensor systems recipes that combine detailed battlefield intelligence with precision munitions, enabling the U.S. Army to add advanced capabilities while maintaining weight and lethality requirements.
This program directly supports AMC Mission & Vision 2015 Goals Strategic Priority #2 for the development of breakthrough technologies and new capabilities. More specifically items 2(a) (3)(b) Nanotechnology and 2(a) (3) (c) Electronics and sensors. As stated in the proposal “This manufacturing technology combines different fields of nanotechnology to print flexible circuits using novel manufacturing equipment.” Furthermore, this effort indirectly supports 2(a)(3)(d) Munitions and 3(g) Performance Based Maintenance and 3(f) Conditioned Based Maintenance by providing low cost, low power and flexible sensors and electronics to accomplish these objectives.
PHASE I: A feasibility study will be conducted to down-select the most appropriate ink formulation and substrate material(s). Process parameters for device manufacture will be developed. The deliverables for phase I shall be an ink formulation and substrate material along with process parameters. Properties of the inks fall into two classes. The first is related to what is necessary for uniform deposition of these materials via ink jet printing. They include; solvent type, dilution, viscosity, particle size and distribution and process parameters. The second is related to the electrical properties of the applied materials. Measurement is accomplished through standard methods.
PHASE II: Based on process parameters developed in Phase I, fabrication of antenna and GPS sensor devices will be initiated. Parameters will be modified as required to manufacture components. Metrics for these inks will be that the ink can be reproducibly applied to the substrate and exhibit the desired electrical properties and these properties exhibit long term stability within the duration of the phase.
PHASE III: Based on previous work in the area of MEMS reliability and the impacts of long term storage, device testing protocols will be developed and initiated. Furthermore, system level testing of the integrated devices will be conducted. Recommendations for device redesign will be made based on the results of these tests.
The development of innovative materials printing technologies can also benefit the technology, automotive, manufacturing and other industries where active sensor systems with the ability to perform condition-based, rather than scheduled, maintenance can improve productivity and reduce costs. Commercially available inks that provide reproducible and stable electrical properties are essential to adoption of this technology. Demonstration of the inks in devices is required to show they can be deposited, function as intended and have long term stability.
REFERENCES:
1. AMC Mission & Vision 2015 Goals
2. Army ManTech Manager, “ATO-M: Embedded Sensor Processes for Aviation Composite Structures,” RDECOM Army ManTech / 2008 Brochure, U.S Army RDECOM, ATTN: AMSRD-SS-T, Pg. 9, 2008. http://www.armymantech.com/highlights.html
3. Development of Active Systems for Military Utilization, J. Zunino III* and H.C. Lim** *U.S. Army RDE Command, AMSRD-AAE-MEE-M, Bldg 60 Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, james.zunino@us.army.mil**Physics Department, University Heights, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, hcl4186@njit.edu
4. J. L. Zunino III, L. Ayers, D. Skelton, “Advancement of Prototyping and Manufacturing Techniques for Active Sensor Systems,” Defense Manufacturers Conference, DMC 2008, Dec 2008 [3581].
KEYWORDS: Materials printing, flexible electronics, MEMs, MEMs manufacture, sensors, intelligent munitions
A09-034 TITLE: Image Analysis for Personnel Intent
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Electronics, Human Systems
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this investigation is to develop an imaging system for biometric intent identification applications.
DESCRIPTION: This solicitation is for the research and development resulting in an imaging system to optimally provide intent related information from both spatial and spectral biometric data. The ability to collect imaging data over a wide range of wavelengths, in addition to identifying physiological temporal changes such as expressions, gait, and pose, will create an advance in the collection of biometric information. The imaging system must collect and analyze the biometric data to extract relevant information regarding possibly suspicious and harmful intent through physical indicators. Current biometric data collection systems are configured to function for controlled applications and not for unconstrained surveillance purposes as desired herein. Various factors influence the ability to accurately acquire this data including user co-operability and environmental conditions. Merging both spectrally and spatially abundant data can overcome these obstacles.
The use of spectral data to determine intent based on psycho-physiological indicators such as skin coloration due to sub-dermal changes within the vasculature of the body, abnormal perspiration, and changes in body temperature is an area which has not been adequately researched. These physiological indicators have shown direct correlation to transient physiological stress and the ability to monitor these responses non-intrusively will present applications especially for interrogatory scenarios [1]. The system solicited should be able to collect biometric data both spatially and spectrally at a stand-off distance. The proposed device should be a relatively light, portable, tactically robust sensor system.
PHASE I: Phase I should be a study and determination of what psycho-physiological indicators are suitable and most likely to succeed in the ability to identify intent based on temporal, spatial and particularly on spectral data. Phase I should result in functional design that can be implemented in Phase II.
PHASE II: The Phase II effort will involve the production of a prototype to demonstrate functionality. The system should be a high-speed and high throughput. System will consist of algorithms that provide real-time interactive recognition for all target individuals including those who are uncooperative in unconstrained indoor and outdoor situations at a distance of at least 45 meters from the target. Real-time testing and evaluation of system should verify functionality.
PHASE III: Intent recognition is a prominent area of research with countless applications for both military and commercial use. Surveillance in conjunction with intent recognition will allow for an appropriate response when faced with a person recognized as suspicious. Phase III effort involves integrating the results into existing military and commercial applications as well as exploring additional applications. Military applications include border patrol, stand-off interrogation, access control, surveillance and target acquisition and airport security. Surveillance and access control are also applicable for commercial uses. In addition, automated systems can be developed commercially in which the system would initiate by attaining information about users intent rather than making it necessary for the user to initiate it manually (e.g. user focuses gaze on a switch, therefore initiating the switch to turn on a light).
REFERENCES:
1. R.R. Rice and D.A. Whelan, Hyper-spectral Means and Method for Detection of Stress and Emotion. Harness, Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C. PATENT 10657338, Sept. 8, 2003.
2. V. Shusterman and O. Barnea, “Spectral characteristics of skin temperature indicate peripheral stress-response,” Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, pp. 357-367, 2005.
3. S. Yanushkevich, V. Shmerko, A. Stoica, P. Wang, S. Srihari. “Synthesis and Analysis in Biometrics.” Biometric Technology Laboratory: Modeling and Simulation, University of Calgary, Canada.
4. O. Masoud and N. Papanikolopoulos, “Recognizing Human Activities,” Proc. of IEEE Conference on Advanced Video and Signal Based Surveillance, pp. 157-162, 2003.
5. S. Li, R. Chu, S. Liao and L. Zhang, “Illumination Invariant Face Recognition Using Near-Infrared Images,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Maching Intelligence Vol 29, pp. 627-639, April 2007.
6. S.Z. Li, R.F. Chu, M. Ao, L. Zhang, and R. He, “Highly Accurate and Fast Face Recognition Using Near Infrared Images,” Proc. IAPR Int’l Conf. Biometric, pp. 151-158, Jan. 2006.
7. S.Z. Li et al., “AuthenMetric F1: A Highly Accurate and Fast Face Recognition System,” Proc. Int’l Conf. Computer Vision, Oct. 2005.
8. I. Kakadiaris, G. Passalis, G. Toderici, Y. Lu, N. Karampatziakis, N. Murtuza, T. Theoharis, “Expression-invariant multispectral face recognition : You can smile now!” Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering Vol. 6202, pp. 620202.1-620204.7
9. O. Hernandez, M. S. Kleiman, "Face Recognition Using Multispectral Random Field Texture Models, Color Content, and Biometric Features," 34th Applied Imagery and Pattern Recognition Workshop, pp.204-209, 2005.
10. R. K. Rowe, A. D. Meigs, R. E. Ostrom, and K. A. Nixon, "Multispectral skin imaging for biometrics," Frontiers in Optics OSA Technical Digest Series Optical Society of America, 2004.
11. J. Dowdall, I. Pavlidis, and G. Bebis, “Face Detection in the Near-IR Spectrum,” Image and Vision Computing, vol. 21, pp. 565-578, July 2003.
KEYWORDS: spectral, surveillance, biometrics, individual’s intent, face analysis, physiological, imaging
A09-035 TITLE: Tamper-proof Protection of Critical Combat Ammunition Fuze and Guidance
Technologies
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Ammunition
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Explore, design, develop and demonstrate a cost-effective tamper-proof solution that protects critical enabling controlled technologies required by advanced combat ammunition projectiles to engage diverse Non Line of Sight (NLOS) targets in complex environments.
DESCRIPTION: Current advanced combat ammunition projectiles use a variety of advanced fuzing and guidance technologies to engage difficult NLOS targets in complex terrains and urban environments. Many of these technology-enabled capabilities (such as Height of Burst (HOB) fuze functionality) are restricted/controlled to avoid potential reverse-engineering and/or countermeasure development of these US/Allied combat multipliers by our enemies. In recent times, the indirect fire lethality materiel development (MATDEV) community has experienced a significant increase in requests for international military sales of advanced US artillery/mortar projectiles with their corresponding superior fuzing and guidance packages. These capabilities leverage key state-of-the-art technologies in both the hardware and software domains that were enabled by sustained significant US taxpayer investment, including microwave and millimeter-wave integrated circuit technology, advanced antenna designs, ultra-reliable micro-electro-mechanical (MEM) safe and arm designs, and anti-jam/anti-spoof solutions required by precision guided munitions. While it is essential that critical technologies remain under positive US control, the expansion of Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Sales represents a significant source of future income for the US ammunition industrial base that can sustain production throughput and quality if/when US government-funded production volume is reduced. The mainstay US positive technology control approach to date has been the development and enforcement of policy-based export controls. Given the volume, proliferation, and inventory of advanced US combat ammunition systems found across our multi-national allies and the continued benefit of increased FMS transactions, it is imperative that additional positive control measures such as stable, cost-effective, long-life, tamper-proof material-based solutions be explored, developed, and implemented to protect current and future advanced US fuzing and guidance technologies, including current proximity fuzing based on Frequency Modulating Continuous Wave – Directional Doppler Ratio Ranging (FMCW-DDR).
PHASE I: Explore, investigate, and identify innovative tamper-proof material-based solutions to protect current and future advanced US fuzing and guidance technologies. Provide specific real-world examples demonstrating knowledge of proposed tamper-proof material-based technologies and their corresponding potential positive and negative impacts on operation and functionality of critical fuzing and guidance technologies found in US artillery/mortar combat ammunition. These examples should include stability and long-life material interaction risks as well as compatibility with MMIC, Radio Frequency (RF), Electronics, and MEM device technologies, operations, and dependent critical-path fuze and guidance subsystem/system functionality. Where applicable, these examples should also demonstrate a clear understanding of the end-state target environment, problem set, technology transition considerations, and potential beneficial impact. Phase I deliverable is a well-documented, technical accurate report. This Phase 1 report shall include initial discussion on the following metrics; Protection of electronic components, Cost, volume and integration complexity. Protection discussion must address ability to mask physical part markings and ability to prevent electronic interconnection at critical electronic nodes, while also being assessed for ability to remove, prevent reverse engineering etc. Cost should be discussed in the context of production Artillery and Mortar Fuzes, ie typical production cost of end item is $200 per copy at 100K quantity per year and successful Tamper proof technologies must have potential to be implemented with only a 20% or $40- per unit cost growth. Volume and integration complexity shall be addressed with respect to inserting this technology into conventional Artillery and Mortar nose mounted fuzes and overall volume and external profile can not be altered in order to remain in compliance with STANAG 2916 (Mil-Std-333). Finally the above specifics are not intended to limit design solutions therefore if a design solution exists that does not meet one of the above but has significant benefit in another fashion it should be addressed in that manner but not dismissed
PHASE II: Develop at least one implementable, cost-effective, tamper-proof material-based technology to protect MMIC-based Height of Burst functionality and at least one other critical fuze/guidance technology based on the execution plan proposed in PHASE I. These technology deliverables should be developed within the context of existing manufacturing processes, techniques, and infrastructure used in the production of fuzes and guidance packages for advanced US combat ammunition systems. Research activities must consider potential life-cycle constraints from a system-of-systems, material interaction, material stability, reverse engineering, discovery of countermeasures, economic, and operational performance perspective. The merit of these tamper-proof technology deliverables will be judged based on their low risk potential for further development to positively protect multiple current and future advanced US fuzing and guidance technologies and easily be transitioned and inserted into established US combat ammunition production operations. Other judged merits include potential for reuse, efficiency, effectiveness, long-life stability, environmental impact, affordability (including intellectual property rights), and application repeatability. The final work product of this PHASE will provide the government: 1) one implementable tamper-proof material-based technology to protect MMIC-based Height of Burst functionality and at least one other critical fuze/guidance technology with corresponding documented material recipe formulation and characterization, 2) all technology testing, compatibility, and performance results, and 3) a future business implementation plan to further develop these technologies into a full family of more mature tamper-proof material-based technologies. Phase II documentation shall include
Detailed test results and detailed analysis addressing all the above mentioned items and thoroughly characterize ability to protect, cost, volume and integration complexity with regard to conventional nose mounted Artillery and Mortar fuzes per STANAG 2916 (Mil-Std-333). Detailed Cost analysis shall be delivered and demonstrate ability to add tamper proof technology with a maximum of 20% cost increase to production fuzes.
PHASE III: This effort will have a wide range of military applications in precision guided munitions. Advanced miniaturized integrated hardware and software solutions that leverage novel embedded MMIC, RF, and MEM based components are becoming increasingly more commonplace in commercial environments. Such solutions that provide private sector suppliers a product-unique advantage over their international marketplace competitors represent a similar potential opportunity to incorporate novel tamper-proof technologies. Thus, the technologies being researched within this topic will have dual-use value in commercial application. The vendor is responsible for marketing his technology deliverables for further development and maturation for potential Post-PHASE II transition opportunities including any dual-use applications to other government and industry business areas. Examples of potential commercial application areas include Homeland Security related sensors and actuator systems supporting Border Patrol, airport security, and FEMA response operations and well as building/infrastructure monitoring and control systems. Additionally potential commercial uses include protection of embedded electronics in advanced integrated commercial handheld information technology related systems.
REFERENCES:
1. TRADOC PAM 525-66, Military Operations Force Operating Capabilities, 7Mar08. http://www.tradoc.army.mil/TPUBS/pams/p525-66.pdf
2. U.S. Army Fuze Management Office (2004), New fuze technology boosts weapon effectiveness. In RDECOM Magazine, Mar04,pp 9-10. http://www.rdecom.army.mil/rdemagazine/200403/part_ardec_fuze.html
3. Wikipedia, Continuous-wave radar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous-wave_radar
4. Stolle, R. and Schiek, B. (1997). Multiple-target frequency-modulated continuous-wave ranging by evaluation of the impulse response phase. In IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, Apr97. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel1/19/12386/00571875.pdf?temp=x
5. U.S. Army RDECOM (2007), In Army MANTECH Magazine, Completed Success Stories (“Low Cost, High G, High Accuracy, MEMS IMU Coordinated Development and Manufacturing Effort for Common Guidance” and “MEMS Safety and Arming Device Manufacturing”), http://www.armymantech.com/success.html
6. STANAG 2916 Nose Fuze Contours and Matching Projectile Cavities for Artillery and Mortar Projectiles (equiv to Mil-Std-333). http://astimage.daps.dla.mil/online/
KEYWORDS: Tamper proof, protection, materials, height of burst, proximity fuze, guidance, ammunition, export control
A09-036 TITLE: Swarm/agent Technology For Small Unit Scalable Effects
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Information Systems
OBJECTIVE: Investigate and leverage emerging soft computing, agent and swarm technologies to develop a highly modular distributed algorithm and open architecture proof-of-concept implementation that includes a network centric prototype operator control station and embedded control software that is capable of adaptive swarm control and event driven behavior of multiple unmanned aerial/ground systems to detect, localize, and track ground and/or small unmanned aerial targets including dismounts, in a man portable configuration. Demonstrate a team of unmanned small aerial vehicles that can optimally search a specified 3-D Area/volume of Interest for threat targets. Demonstrate coordination behavior between the unmanned systems by executing a computationally efficient algorithm that can triangulate and converge on the geo-located target(s)to gather video imagery of target source. Demonstrate the ability to integrate target data and video data with the small unit effects network. Finally, demonstrate the ability to automatically hand-off targets to manned/unmanned platforms to provide effects on target with human oversight.
DESCRIPTION: Unmanned systems such as small unmanned aerial vehicles’s/unmanned ground vehicles’s are uniquely well suited to perform automated/persistent surveillance, target hand-off and effects delivery in support of small unit netcentric operations. Recent advances in small, low cost multi-spectral sensor technology, Software Defined Radios, adhoc/mesh networks, swarm technologies and distributed computing technologies now make it possible for small unmanned systems with more capable payloads to provide precision targeting and effects delivery in support of small unit operations in complex/urban terrain. Further, advances in manned/unmanned (MUMs) teaming has resulted in the ability to more quickly and easily coordinate between groups of heterogeneous unmanned systems. Coupling these two developing capabilities together results in a system of systems that can collectively cover a larger area and more efficiently acquire, identify, track, designate and hand-off time sensitive targeting data to the small unit effects network. These missions are most useful over areas that are difficult to access due to terrain’s topological features.
Innovative algorithms and hardware/software architectures are required to develop and demonstrate a highly collaborative, computationally efficient, and deployable swarm algorithm and open architecture implementation capable of automating the target acquisition, identification, tracking, hand-off and effects delivery mission thread using multiple unmanned systems in a manned/unmanned teaming environment. This algorithm should be scalable and designed to coordinate a team of at least three small unmanned SUAV/SUGV platforms in a mission that optimizes probability of target detection for a wide range of terrain. Additionally, once detected, the algorithm should present the operator with a variety of engagement strategies that should include the ability to collect video imagery of the target, the ability to actively track the target if it is moving, the ability to minimize observability of the unmanned systems, the ability to provide target track information to the small unit effects network, and the ability to deliver effects to the target while having an operator in the loop. Implementation architectures and algorithms must conform to current DoD standards for messaging of unmanned vehicles and must be capable of integrating with current and future force operational architectures. The modular algorithms must also demonstrate integration with a variety of current and future force ground control stations. Proposals may address the development of this capability using a mix of hardware/software component implementations, emulations and simulations and should culminate with a live hardware-in-the-loop and man-in-the-loop demonstration.
PHASE I: Develop an algorithmic and architectural design and implementation approach to execute the described targeting mission thread. Establish feasibility of the design concept and capability of optimizing target detection, geo-location and hand-off in complex terrain and in a man portable configuration via hardware/ssoftware component level design, emulation and simulation.
PHASE II: Develop and demonstrate an integrated hardware/software prototype system. The platforms must be able to self-organize and self-optimize to detect, identify, and track at least one moving air/ground target. The implemented system and algorithm must also be capable of providing geo-referenced targeting information and video imagery integrated with a surrogate small unit effects network. The modular implementation should also be capable of coordinating and executing an effects delivery mission on the moving target with a small unmanned effects platform. Demonstrations will culminate in a live hardware/software man-in-the-loop test of all developed components and platforms.
PHASE III: This work has a very high probability of commercialization. The algorithms, methodology and reusable hardware/software component technology developed in this SBIR are applicable and adaptable to law enforcement, homeland defense, site/border security, drug interdiction and special operations applications to provide low cost persistent surveillance and target interdiction. Technology also has broad applications to the future force to support next generation common controller applications for multiple tactical unmanned air and ground systems.
REFERENCES:
1. Godfrey,G.A., Cunningham,J.,Knutsen,A. "Negotiation mechanisms for coordination of unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance," In Proceedings from International Conf. on Integration of Knowledge Intensive Multi-agent Systems, April 2005. pp.324-329.
2. Beard,R., McLain,T.,Kingston,D. "Decentralized Cooperative Aerial Surveillance Using Fixed Wing Miniature UAV's", Proceeding of the IEEE, vol 94, no.7, pp.1306-1323, July 2006.
3. Jadbabaie,A.,Lin,J., Morse,A.S.,"Coordination of Groups of Mobile Autonomous Agents Using Nearest Neighbor Rules" IEEE Trans. Automatic Control, vol6, pp.988-1001, June 2003.
4. Williams,A., Glavski,S., "Formations of formations:Hierarchy and Stability", Proc American Control Conf., Boston 2004.
KEYWORDS: intelligent agents, swarms, intelligent controls, network effects, cooperative control, multi-agent control.
A09-037 TITLE: Smart Dense Detector Arrays
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Sensors, Electronics
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: The objective is to create a family of Microelectronic Integrated Circuits (IC) called “Smart Dense Detector Arrays” by integration of advanced low power parallel processors with the large format detector arrays and associated memory into a volume no bigger than four times the volume of the focal plane array package without the other IC’s.
DESCRIPTION: This solicitation is for multiple IC’s to be integrated into a small volume where the IC’s include one or more low power processing chips having numerous parallel processors per chip and sufficient Input/Output (I/O) channels per chip to be directly connected to a multi-tap detector array, memory, and still have connections for the outside world. The package will facilitate building extremely small, rugged, low loss, compact, low power, low Radio Frequency emission, extreme throughput, and extreme resolution, for low cost cameras for essential military applications. Size of the package is a critical parameter for the multiple intended military applications. For this solicitation the processor array should operate on 3 watts or less while performing upwards to 25 Giga – Floating Point Operations (GFLOPS). The Focal Plane Array (FPA) should be 12 megapixels or more, have a dynamic range of 12 bits or more per low noise pixel. The acquisition rates should be upward to 30 frames per second or greater. The processor must have sufficient processing power to be capable of performing non-uniformity corrections and data analysis of the image data at the incoming data rates, while controlling FPA operation based on criteria sent from off-package, such as framing the data, changing integration time, etc. The processor must simultaneously be capable of large Finite Impulse Response filtering and other Digital Signal Processing (DSP) algorithms at rates in excess of 25 GLOPS to analyze the data for key features, compress the data set, etc. Sufficient memory, roughly 5 to 10 times that required to acquire the data from a single frame, will be required in the package for intermediate values, answers, control parameters, etc., to handle both inter-frame and intra-frame processing. The resulting “Smart Dense Detector Arrays” must be fully programmable by the user. The FPA control criteria and logic, the DSP algorithms, and image analysis algorithms, must be fully programmable by the user. The massive incoming image data is expected to be reduced within the processor to essential information that would be sent by the embedded program to external digital circuitry at much lower data rates than that coming from the FPA.
PHASE I: Design the multiple IC package and characterize the design for size, power, circuitry, risk factors, throughput, etc. Create the specifications document for the user community to program the package and to electronically integrate the multi-die integrated circuit package into external circuits.
PHASE II: Build and test a fully functional programmable multiple IC package based on the Phase 1 design and demonstrate the module in operation within a breadboard camera application. By the end of Phase 2, the module and documentation should be at Technology Readiness Level 6. A fully functional demonstration TRL 4 camera with the module embedded should be delivered to the government for testing.
PHASE III: The product of this solicitation will be a key component in rifle scopes, sniper scopes, and many surveillance and target acquisition equipment, as well as in advanced video equipment in the civilian commercial and military world where megapixels of acquired imagery must be reduced to essential information before being stored or transmitted. Application for domestic and military security operations for the device abound, e.g., Border Patrol, airport security, Search and Rescue, building surveillance, space and aircraft flown surveillance system and the movie industry.
REFERENCES:
1. Michael Pecht, Integrated Circuit, Hybrid, and Multichip Module Package Design Guidelines: A Focus on Reliability, Wiley-IEEE, 1994. ISBN 0471594466, 9780471594468
2. World’s Largest-Capacity Multi-Chip Package for Mobile Applications, Samsung Electronics CO. In Technology, February 23, 2005 found at www.physorg.com/news3159.html
3. U.S. Patent 7323789, Multiple chip package and IC chips, January 29, 2008.
4. U.S. Patent 2007/0096265, Multiple Die Integrated Circuit Package, May 3 2007
5. Publication WO/2007/095604, Multiple Die Integrated Circuit Package, dated August 23, 2007
6. U.S. Patent 7,352,058 B2, Methods For A Multiple Die Integrated Circuit Package, May 3, 2007, Assigned To SanDisk Corporation
7. National Semiconductor, Appendix E: Understanding Integrated Circuit Package Power Capabilities, April 2000 found at www.national.com/ms/UN/UNDERSTANDING_INTEGRATED_CIRCUIT_PACKAGE_POWER_CA.pdf
8. U.S. patent 573940, Multiple chip package with thinned semiconductor chips.
9. Applications of packages of similar nature see: Hong Hua, & Sheng Liu, Dual-sensor foveated imaging system, Applied Optics, Vol 47, Issue 3, pp317-327.
10. For examples of large focal plane arrays see Fairchild Imaging, 1801 McCarthy Blvd, Milpitas, CA at web site www.fairchildimaging.com/products/
11. Teledyne Scientific I Imaging , LLC 1049 Camino Dos Rios, Thousand Oaks, CA has a 12 megapixel array – sensor RSC V12M and a 59 megapixel array – sensor TIS V59M, see web site www.teledyne-si.com/
KEYWORDS: Large Format Cameras, Parallel Processors, Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Focal Plane Arrays, Sensors, Microelectronics, multi-chip modules, multi-die integrated circuit package
A09-038 TITLE: Innovative Wide Area Forward/Side Looking On-the-Move Laser Based Explosives
Detection System
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Sensors, Electronics, Weapons
OBJECTIVE: Develop a wide area/forward looking laser based explosive scanning and detection technology with capability to positively identify explosive type as well as provide real time imaging of the size and dimension of a concealed or exposed explosive threats. Potential deployments include explosive scanning systems at entry control points or on Talon-like robots searching for explosives while on the move.
DESCRIPTION: Several standoff explosive detection technologies including LIBS, Raman Spectroscopy, Terahertz, and Laser Photo-Acoustic have emerged to provide highly positive explosive detection and classification reliability at large standoff distances (10m or more) from a fixed interrogation spot using molecular based "fingerprinting" of the explosive type. Such technologies have also evolved to allow high speed repetition rates making them potentially suitable for evolving from spot detection to scanning area detectors. Explosive detection at a single fixed spot is potentially practical when the location of explosive residue is assumed to be likely, such as on a car door handle or at a specific EOD interrogation spot. However, fixed spot interrogation does not facilitate deployment on moving platforms or allow an efficient assessment of the true size/magnitude of a potential explosive threat within a wide surveillance area.
The vision of this topic is to explore a synergism of emerging laser scanning and imaging technologies capable of precision control, high reliable standoff explosive detection technologies enabled by laser excitation, and software control/display technologies to provide real-time imaging of explosive threats while on the move. The potential exists to excite the surveillance area with precision laser control, sequence explosive detections, and display an aggregate group of detections over a scanned area in such a way that a user can appreciate the size and dimension of the potential explosive threat. Effective wide area scanning holds the promise to significantly improve false target rejection and countermeasure resistance by employing more meaningful assessment of the explosive threat over the total surveillance area and while potentially screening out small area detections which may not represent a true threat. The topic strives to develop and expand the applications for wide area laser based explosive detection imaging initially to slow-speed moving platforms such as a Talon robot, but ultimately the technology may progress to practical hand-held scanners and systems capable of scanning people at entry control points.
Additional topic challenges can be described to include: 1) The ability to quickly assess and potentially tag the central position of any detected explosive threat would facilitates passing explosive threat information to systems which might disable or destroy the threat. 2) Ability for the system to allow user input to adjust and focus the search pattern as well as forward looking search area. A typical scenario might involve the user refining the scan resolution and focusing the search area to improve overall reliability of the threat assessment as the system moves in closer to an identified spot of interest 3) Incorporation of additional laser ranging information or scene LIDAR feature that assists the user''''''''s ability to locate or assess the explosive threat 4) Provide high reliability of positive explosive detection with low false alarm rate over as broad a range of explosive material types (e.g. TNT, Tritinol, C4, dynamite, ammonium nitrate, potassium chlorate, or others identified as common in IED construction). 5) Employ non-photo ionizing radiation levels 6) System size goal suitable for deployment on small Talon-like robotic platforms.
Initial solutions to this topic should attempt to produce a forward looking, wide area scanning laser head and associated user interface with future goal to integrate with a TALON-like robot platform. In this deployment concept, the robot may proceed to an area of interest at slow speed and scan while approaching the area. Wide area/forward looking scanning in this case could be defined as a laser radiated area up to 10 feet from the area of interest, with 10 foot wide side to side swath and 3 foot height, approaching the target at speeds of up to 2 mph. The system should be capable of making initial location estimates of the explosive threat and then be capable of generating progressively higher resolution dimensional estimates of the explosive threat as the robot moves closer. A graphical user interface and display should assist the user in identifying initial detections and allow slow speed or fixed examinations if required to improve the threat assessment.
As the system solution evolves the ultimate goal would be to deploy the system on vehicles/platforms designed for in-road/off-road IED searching, these generally operated at speeds between 5 to 15 mph. In these future deployments the forward-looking scanning should provide for an approximate maximum standoff of 25 feet, with 10 foot side to side swath, and 5 foot overall height of coverage.
PHASE I: Conduct feasibility assessment of a state-of-the-art explosive detection capability which can detect real time images while on the move. Provide key design parameters including the laser scanner design and control approach, standoff detection technology, and control/display software. Provide potential design and performance tradeoffs involving speed of operation, resolution of explosive threat assessment over the scan area, reliability of explosive detection for a given standoff distance, and ability to capture relevant images for both bulk exposed or concealed explosives as well as trace explosive vapors. The initial feasibility study should be capable of statically detecting 2 sticks of TNT at a range of 5 feet and progressing to slow speed, on-the-move detection.
PHASE II: Develop a prototype identified in Phase I, conducting proof-of-principle tests to demonstrate the ability to conduct on-the-move explosive threat assessments for both bulk exposed or concealed explosives of different types. Extend the capability to identify different types of explosives such as Tritinol, C4, dynamite, ammonium nitrate, potassium chlorate, or others identified as common in IED construction. Demonstration success can be defined as obtaining real time images at various speeds up to 10 feet from the source with 5 foot minimum forward looking side-to-side swath.
PHASE III: For military applications, this technology can be applied to include 1) low-risk integration on Talon Robot for EOD missions, 2) systems deployed on vehicles or remote control platforms for in-road IED detection at practical speeds of 5 to 15 mph, 3) off-road application for urban GWOT applications.
Commercial applications may include 1) robot or robotic omni-directional explosives scanner for Law Enforcement and SWAT Teams, and 2) highly desired high speed reliable explosive surveillance area scanners to check people, luggage, cars, or other items in airports, malls, or any area suspected of mischief.
Future military and commercial applications of the developed technology could revolutionize on-person explosive threat assessments using hand-held devices or area scanning systems deployed in any public area or critical entry control point.
REFERENCES:
1. Raman scattering spectroscopy for explosives identification, 6572, Proc. SPIE, 2007.
2. SC272 - Biological and Chemical Sensing for Homeland Security, Stephen Lane, NSF Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology, and Thomas Huser NSF Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology, and Department of Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis http://cbst.ucdavis.edu/education/short-courses
3. L. Haley, G. Thekkadath - Laser detection of explosive residues. US Patent 5,760,898, 1998.
4. C. López-Moreno, S. Palanco, J.J. Laserna, F. DeLucia, Jr., A.W. Miziolek, J. Rose, R.A. Walters, A. Whitehouse. Test of a stand-off laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy sensor for the detection of explosive residues on solid surfaces, J. of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 21, 55-60 (2006).
5. L. Nagli, M. Gaft. Raman scattering spectroscopy for explosives identification. Proceedings of SPIE Conference “Laser Source Technology for Defense and Security III”, Vol. 6552, Orlando, US (2007).
6. THz Standoff Detection and Imaging of Explosives and Weapons, John F. Federici, Dale Gary, Robert Barat, David Zimdars, Department of Physics, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, Department of Chemical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, Picometrix, Inc, 2925 Boardwalk, Ann Arbor, MI 48113, Proc. SPIE 5781, 75 (2005).
7. Remote Femtosecond Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) in a Standoff Detection Regime C.G. Brown*a, R. Bernatha.
8. Existing and Potential Standoff Explosives Detection Techniques, Committee on the Review of Existing and Potential Standoff Explosives Detection Techniques, National Research Council, National Academies Press, Washington (2004). http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10998.html
KEYWORDS: Explosive, laser, scanner, detection, imaging, Raman Spectroscopy, LIBS, Terahertz, Photo-Acoustic, TALON, robot
A09-039 TITLE: Innovative Coatings for Lightweight Alloys
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Soldier
Objective: Develop novel wear prevention coatings for lightweight alloys used in weapons applications and air platforms.
Description: Light weight alloys of magnesium, aluminum and titanium are difficult to coat using traditional Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD and Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) techniques. Titanium alloys are widely used for Army vehicles, the Lightweight Howitzer, and bearing housings and flanges in aerospace propulsion systems due to low density, good mechanical strength, and high thermal conductivity. Cast aluminum alloys and, increasingly, magnesium alloys are also being used for their low weight and low cost. However, these alloys can experience an excessive galling wear when matched to harder steel surfaces, such as alloy 4340, under high fatigue loads, temperature cycling and dusty environments. Of particular interest to the US Army is galling wear elimination technologies, which can economically modify the surface of these light alloys into a hard, lubricious ceramic or functionally graded composite material. Such a coating or wear-resistant system could replace steel bearings and bushings which could simplify designs and reduce mechanism weight. Developed processes must not affect the bulk mechanical characteristics of the components and should be resistant to wear at temperatures between -45 to 500 F. A combination of the coating adhesion tests, corrosion tests, and fatigue tests of the coated specimens or parts is required for coating qualifications. Attention should be paid to thermal expansions to eliminate loose fittings in machine guns and bushings. Project coordination with weapon and platform manufacturers and the US Army is recommended. To be successful the following should be demonstrated: identify key process steps, ensure repeatable results via metallurgy (coating thickness, hardness, adhesion and composition), ensure producibility and wear-resistance using coupon wear testing in accordance with ASTM Standards (such as G77 and/or similar).
Phase I: Identify and develop novel wear prevention coatings for lightweight alloys made with titanium, magnesium and/or aluminum. Deliverables: Coatings process, prepare test coupons with coating applied and without a coating (substrates: steel 4140, Ti-6-4, Mg HM21A-T8), perform wear testing (ASTM G77). Metrics: Comparison of ASTM G77 results of coupon testing with coating and without coating applied, to determine if there has been an enhancement in wear-resistance. Perform metallography and capture data such as coating thickness, hardness, adhesion and composition. This data will be used to compile an understanding of process repeatability. Milestones: 1. Select & Define Coating Process and key process parameters; 2. Prepare Test Coupons; 3. Perform Wear Testing; 4. Perform Metallography; 5. Phase I Report
Phase II: Demonstrate an ability to coat light-weight alloys made with titanium, magnesium and/or aluminum. Develop and validate the performance enhancement of the surface modification of bearing surfaces, housings, and flanges made of lightweight alloys. Establish performance parameters through experiments and prototype fabrication.
Required Phase II deliverables will include:
1. Finalized process design and parameters.
2. Provide practical implementation of the coating process on actual bearing prototypes.
3. Produce prototype hardware based on Phase I work.
4. Conduct life cycle and environmental testing. This should include exposure to moisture and dust environments.
5. Demonstrate the prototype in accordance with the success criteria developed in Phase I. These include: performance in ASTM G77, metallography and comparison of the coated surfaces to uncoated surfaces.
6. Assess the financial savings of using these surface modification technologies in terms of weight reduction (ie. require less fuel), reduction of hazardous waste and materials during processing, etc.
Phase III: *Military application: The resulting technology will be applied to military machine guns made with cast titanium front block, where the wear of titanium alloys is a limiting factor. Cast aluminum parts used in HMMWVs and M198 towed howitzers can also benefit from wear-resistant coatings.
*Commercial application: The new process will help widen the use of lightweight alloys in both commercial aerospace and automotive industry, where fretting wear is a limiting factor.
*Biomedical applications: This technology can provide bone-like coatings on titanium joint replacements reduce the likelihood of rejection by the body and, perhaps, extend the life of current joint replacments.
References:
1. Waterhouse, R. B. “Fretting wear.” Friction Lubrication and Wear Technology, ASM Handbook, Vol. 18, p. 242, 1992.
2. “Material/PVD & CVD Coating Compatibility Table.” Available at www.richterprecision.com/PVD_CVD_coatings.htm
3. Jelis, E., Suwattananont, N., et. al. “Boronizing of Ti-6-4 Eli by powder pack method for biomedical applications.” Proc. IEEE 31st NE Vol., Iss 2 – 3, April 2005, pp 193-194.
KEYWORDS: coatings, anti-fret, anti-galling, boronizing, ceramic, process
A09-040 TITLE: Scalable and Temporal Data Analytics for Mobile ad hoc Networks
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Battlespace
OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate novel scalable algorithms and approaches to allow for knowledge gathering and understanding of dynamic, mobile, ad hoc networks. New methodologies will factor in areas of statistical analysis and data mining pulling data from real world sensors and nodes, network simulation and emulation research, and knowledge bases formed from experimental data.
DESCRIPTION: This topic supports the Information Systems Technology DoD key technology area. As the Army continues to evolve to a completely digital battlespace environment, particularly as found in the Future Combat Systems effort, the ability to gather and form useful information in this dynamic environment is becoming problematic. The number of Internet Protocol (IP) devices in the battlespace is large and growing, yet non-deterministic over time with an unknown upper-bound cardinality. That is, nodes may come and go rapidly and scale to unknown heights. These are factors that significantly reduce an Army commanders’ ability to use the network as a mission tool as useful knowledge becomes harder to garner from the incoming data streams. R&D is needed that goes beyond post-mortem static data analysis of limited experimental data sets. New approaches for mobile ad hoc networking research will have to factor in elements from network simulations and emulation exercises as these approaches may be used in conjunction with live events to test and optimize mission planning. To truly understand these networks and how to use them for maximum Army advantage, statistical analysis and data mining approaches will need to be developed and expanded to include temporal effects. Analysis after the fact will not work in this context. For example, predictive tools that would reposition network nodes to prevent a critical node (e.g. a network node trying to handle too much traffic flow) from forming in the network would be a key goal. Proper techniques and approaches (e.g. visualization) to present this data to mission planners will need to be addressed. Further, processing speed will be of the essence as non-static analytics will require at or near real-time processing speeds in proximity to the battlespace. Further pushing this need for parallelism will be the need to eventually couple analytics to network planning and optimization research; presumably integrated within a unified search framework. Hence, any approaches and algorithms investigated will need to be scalable and adaptable to approaches that will be deployable to the theater, such as multi-core processors or data-parallel multi-threaded devices such as general purpose Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).
PHASE I: Identify and define approaches, algorithms, and techniques for statistical analysis and data mining applicable to mobile ad hoc networks. Develop a design that extends the state-of-the-art to focus on scalable and temporal approaches targeting deployable parallel assets. Identify key parameters and network protocol stack layers that can best be addressed by scalable and temporal data analytics (e.g. physical or application layer parameters). Visualization applicability and potential should be addressed.
PHASE II: Develop, demonstrate, and validate a scalable data analytics system that scales from the small (squad-based) to large (theater-wide) in digital-based mobile ad hoc networks using the key parameters identified. Any algorithms will be authored in software libraries will be developed using high-level languages and approaches (both compiled and scripted) that will provide at or real-time processing and visualization of network battlespace events. This phase will include and demonstrate robust network design, analysis, or planning features (e.g. identification of critical potential fail points).
PHASE III: Portable, digital, wireless networked computing devices are becoming more pervasive in all sectors of society, from academia to military to commercial. The all digital Future Combat Systems (FCS) has scalability and clustering at numerous layers that will need visualization support to be fully understood by field commanders and military planners. This system will be useful in commercial applications as network planners will have to deal with issues of electromagnetic field propagation, signal strength and lose, and overall infrastructure planning. These are all key parameters likely to be identified in Phases I and II. Network service parameters can be understood and adjusted based in part on the visualization support this SBIR will provide. The use of multi-core processors or GPUs will make this technology attractive due to the potential high speed and throughput of the algorithms being executed.
REFERENCES:
1. “Scalable and Interactive Visual Analysis of Financial Wire Transactions for Fraud Detection,” Ralf Karrenberg, Visual Analytics Seminar, Saarland University, June 2008.
2. “Data Mining Techniques for Effective and Scalable Traffic Analysis,” Baldi, Baralis, and Risso. Proceedings of the 9th IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management, 2005.
3. “A Scalable Location Management Scheme in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks,” Xue, Li, and Nahrstedt. Proceedings of the 26th Annual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks, 2001.
KEYWORDS: mobile ad hoc networks, data analytics, data mining, statistical analysis, visualization, net-centric warfare
A09-041 TITLE: Scalable Programming models for Battle Command Applications on emerging multi-core
architectures
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems
OBJECTIVE: The objective is to develop a programming model that is scalable and supports disparate battle command software applications running concurrently on a cluster of multi-core computing nodes. These battle command applications have been developed in a variety of computer languages including Python, C++, Java, Fortran, etc. Battle command applications are discrete event simulations which need high fidelity for some of the event simulations, hence the programming model must demonstrate scalability and ease of use for battle command applications.
DESCRIPTION: The fidelity of simulations of complex battlefield environments can be improved by coupling multiple existing complementary applications, each providing unique functionality. These applications are often designed independently and are unable to share information natively, resorting to limited to serial input/output operations for data sharing. One application may be run with a set of data in preparation for execution of a second application, which consumes the results of the first. The resulting serial process lacks scalability and does not make effective use of emerging multi-core computing resources.
A more desirable approach is to have the applications required for the simulation working in a distributed environment running concurrently and sharing data on an as-needed basis. Because the applications have no a priori knowledge of other applications’ interfaces, a programming model would be necessary to facilitate communications.
The programming model needs to account for the parallel nature of multi-core computing resources; therefore, approaches along the lines of a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) are not appropriate as they are synchronous.
The desired solution involves the description of a programming model. While a specific implementation of a programming model will be used to demonstrate the approach, the solution will be ported to a variety of platforms.
The potential for commercialization of this technology is substantial. Multi-core architectures with 10’s of cores are going to be used by business, not only for research, but also for data mining and transaction processing. Commodity computing is driving down the cost of hardware resulting in more affordable systems. As the rate of adoption rises, industry will be hungry for effective utilization of these new resources while leveraging past investments in system software developed for non-parallel environments.
PHASE I: Design a programming model to enable many disparate battle command type applications to communicate in the absence of a priori knowledge of interfaces. The approach will consider application to many multi-core CPUs.
Documentation for Phase I shall include a detailed description of the design.
PHASE II: Develop and demonstrate an approach to enable at least two disparate battle command type applications to communicate in the absence of a priori knowledge of interfaces. The approach will be implemented and investigated on at least two multi-core CPUs using a non-proprietary programming language, such as C, C++, Python, Java, etc. This will serve as a proof-of-concept for the proposed programming model and provide details on implementation difficulties for expanded research.
Communication between applications on the multi-core CPUs should clearly demonstrate capability of proposed applications on multi-core computing resources. Provide documentation of the proposed framework and associated open source software modules developed for Phase II.
PHASE III: Develop a complete solution enabling intercommunication among many battle command type applications running in parallel on multiple cores. Perform scalability and efficiency testing and optimization. Refine the approach and extend compatibility with a wide range of command and control applications. Continue to improve scalability.
COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: Adoption of multi-core architectures by industry will continue to increase as commodity computing drives down the cost of computing. New multi-core systems will require efficient communication among disparate applications as industry, defense, and academic customers blend existing applications to fully realize the benefits of its investment.
REFERENCES:
1. The MPI Standard
http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/mpi/standard.html
2. B. Stack and S. Jenks. A Middleware Architecture to Facilitate Distributed Programming. http://spds.ece.uci.edu/~bstack/Vegas.doc
3. H. Kasim, V. March, R. Zhang, and S. See. Survey on Parallel Programming Model.
http://apstc.sun.com.sg/activities/events/past/download/SurveyOnPPM.pdf
KEYWORDS: Advanced computing, multi-core systems, battle command applications, programming models, software application communication, communication framework
A09-042 TITLE: Approaches and Techniques for Specialized Character Recognition (CR) and Hand
Writing Recognition (HWR) of Named-Entity Categories in Arabic Script and Romanized
Document Images
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Human Systems
OBJECTIVE: To develop and demonstrate innovative algorithms and processes operating on digital images of foreign language documents. These techniques and methods shall identify features and patterns in a manner designed to extract and classify content. Specifically, the digital image feature patterns and classes should allow for association with named entities and named-entity categories. Output of the system will be text in the foreign language of the image to which can be applied post-processors for names which have trained on parallel CR output and ground truthed name data. In this way, the electronic capability will respond to Army requirements for the handling of named entities in degraded document images containing complex structure layouts of graphics and mixed Arabic script and Romanized glyph content.
DESCRIPTION: Named Entity Extraction (NEE) is a specialized area of natural language processing that focuses on discovering, identifying and developing patterns associated with the occurrence of unique identifiers of specific real world entities. Entities can be classified under categories, such as persons, organizations, and locations. Returning soldiers from OIF and OEF indicate that these types of entity information are of strategic and tactical importance to their missions. Problems arise, however, when names are embedded in foreign language document image data. This is especially true of degraded Arabic document images and images containing mixed Arabic and Romanized scripts. In NEE from document images, the quality and age of the printed document poses serious challenges to processing. NEE experiments on artificially created character recognition (CR) output show that NEE system performance degrades at a rate twice that of the level of injected noise or degradation. To make matters worse, Army foreign language material which requires translation--usually performed with machine translation (MT) systems--consists in large part of just such imaged documents. These MT systems are unlikely to properly render the names in the original material if the NEE systems themselves—trained to identify names in monolingual text--are challenged by the noisy CR output. Algorithms, processes, techniques and products to perform name-specialized CR and hand writing recognition (HWR) on imaged documents are especially necessary in current and future GWOT conflicts in which the processing of vast quantities of printed documents and derived information about the enemy is critical for intelligence and current operations.
PHASE I: Identify, develop, and experimentally test actionable approaches including algorithms, techniques and unique processes for NEE from degraded and complex document image data to include, but not limited to approaches for a) detection and localization, b) segmentation, classification and tracking, c) identifying zones with high likelihood/probability of name occurrence, c) text extraction and enhancements algorithms specialized in Arabic CR and HWR extractions for person, organization, and location names, e) specialized algorithms for recognizing and handling of mixed Arabic script and Romanized glyph degraded documents for zoning, identifying zones with high probability of name occurrence and the names themselves, and CR/HWR for person, organization and location names.
PHASE II: The name-specialized document zoning and CR/HWR processes explored in Phase I will be developed as a software prototype system. This system will be demonstrated using relevant data and simulating a realistic military operational environment. Standard metrics, i.e., character and segmentation accuracy, precision, recall and f-measure, will be defined in consultations between government and contractor. Selected metrics will evaluate system efficiency and effectiveness against a baseline of current practice and will be applied to assess both the prototype and the generative processes.
Phase III Dual Use Applications: Military application: Intelligence analysis can be expected to benefit from name-specialized document handling which permits follow-on processes such as relation detection and social network analysis at the strategic level and mapping and matching at the tactical level. Commercial application: Emergency preparedness and first responders can be expected to benefit from the enhanced relevance of the information provided by name-specialized document handling processes.
REFERENCES:
1. Bishop, C. (2007) Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning.
2. Russ, J.C. (2006) The Image Processing Handbook, 5th Edition.
3. Bezdek, J.C. (2005) Fuzzy Models & Algorithms for Pattern Recognition & Image Processing.
4. Doermann, D & S Jaeger (2006) Arabic & Chinese Handwriting Recognition.
5. Kise, K & D Doermann (2007) Camera-based Document Analysis & Recognition.
6. Feldman, R & J. Sanger (2006) The Text Mining Handbook: Advanced Approaches in Analyzing Unstructured Data.
7. Berry, M.W. & M. Castellanos (2007) Survey of Text Mining II: Clustering, Classification and Retrieval.
8. Barnbrook, G., Danielsson, P. & M Mahlberg (2005) Meaningful Texts: The Extraction of Semantic Information from Monolingual and Multilingual Corporation.
KEYWORDS: character recognition, handwriting recognition, document image processing, content extraction, name recognition, pattern recognition and classification
A09-043 TITLE: Gas Phase Sulfur Sensor for JP-8 Fueled Auxiliary Power Generation System
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Ground/Sea Vehicles, Sensors
OBJECTIVE: Develop a gas phase sulfur sensor for JP-8 reformer and solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) based auxiliary power generation (APU) system. The sensor should work at temperature range of 300 to 600 ºC and detect sulfur species in the hydrogen rich reformate at below one parts per million in volume (ppmV) levels for optimal and safe operation of a JP-8 fueled SOFC based APU system.
DESCRIPTION: Development of advance energy conversion technology is highly desirable to meet the increased power demand by today’s Army. Since Army's fuel (JP-8) has the highest energy density and is being widely used in theater, development of technological capability to effectively and efficiently convert JP-8 to electricity will reduce the Army’s overall logistic burden. Solid oxide fuel cell fueled with hydrogen rich reformate from reforming of JP-8 fuel to generate electricity in theater offers a solution to meet the power needs. The state of the art SOFC will be fully functioning with a reformate that contains sulfur at level of a few ppmV or less. Recently it has been demonstrated that semiconductor metal oxide based sensors for hydrogen sulfide with high sensitivity, fast response and recovery time at below 200 ºC [1-3], and the sensing characteristics of some perovskite oxide based materials can be modified for hydrogen sulfide detection at a higher temperature up to 340 ºC [4]. There are still many possibilities to be explored for the investigation of various novel materials for high temperature hydrogen sulfide detection and for the development of the sensors that will meet technical requirements such as high sensitivity, fast response and reliable detection of the signal, short recovery time and reproducible reactivity, chemical and thermal stability in the reformate atmosphere and temperature … The purpose of this topic is to develop a functioning gas phase sulfur sensor with minimal weight and size burden to the overall JP-8 Reforming and SOFC based Auxiliary Power Generation System.
PHASE I: Demonstrate that suitable materials can be used to construct sulfur sensor for H2S and COS operating at 300 to 600 ºC. The sensor should be able to respond to hydrogen sulfide at minimum 1 ppmV or below with sufficient signal strength within 30 second in an atmosphere consisting of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, light weight hydrocarbon molecules, and water vapor. The sensor also needs to be quickly responsive to baseline condition once the sulfur species is not present in the reformate stream. The responses to sulfur species and to baseline should be reproducible for multiple runs. Present and discuss the design of the hydrogen sulfide sensor that will be fully integrated with a JP-8 reforming system in hardware and electronic control, with desired fail-evident feature. The size and weight of the sensor system should be relatively insignificant compared to the overall Auxiliary Power Generation System’s weight and size.
PHASE II: Design, construct, and evaluate a prototype of the complete sulfur sensor system. At the minimum, the sensor system should be demonstrated to have the same life time as the desulfurizer in the JP-8 reforming system for maintenance purpose. Deliver one complete sulfur sensor system to the Army.
PHASE III: Effort to integrate the gas phase sulfur sensor with a JP-8 reformer system (maybe one of the Army sponsored JP-8 reformers) is required to develop a liquid hydrocarbon fuel based solid oxide fuel cell power generation system. Successful development of this technology with higher fuel efficiency and less environmental footprint will have impact on a wide range of military power applications and will enhance the Army’s fighting capability and survivability in battlefield with reduced logistic burden. The technology is also applicable to commercial power and energy arena such as emergency power supplies, distributed power generation, and residential/recreational applications, etc.
REFERENCES:
1. Gong, J.W.; Chen, Q.F.; Lian, M.R.; Liu, N.C.; Stevenson, R.G.; Adami, F. Sens. Actuators B Chem. 2006, 114, 32-39.
2. Esfandyarpour, B.; Mohajerzadeh, S.; Khodadadi, A.A.; Robertson, M.D. IEEE Sens. J. 2004, 4, 449-454.
3. Chowdhuri, A.; Gupta, V.; Sreenivas, K.; Kumar, R.; Mozumdar, S.; Patanjali, P.K. Appl. Phys. Lett. 2004, 84, 1180-1182.
4. Niu, X.S. ; Du, W.M. ; Du, W.P. Sens. Actuators B Chem. 2004, 99, 399-404.
KEYWORDS: Sensor, hydrogen sulfide, JP-8, fuel reformation, solid oxide fuel cell
A09-044 TITLE: Novel flexible sensor array integrated with a Flexible Display
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Sensors, Electronics
OBJECTIVE: Proposals are sought to develop novel flexible electronic sensor arrays with an integrated flexible display. The SBIR program is to focus on the demonstration of flexible electronics for sensors. The functionality of interest includes sensor arrays on a flexible substrate. The sensor array may include optical, x-ray, acoustic or chemical sensors. The sensor array shall interface to a flexible display for direct imaging to enable large area sensor arrays for improved field of view with enhanced capability.
DESCRIPTION: The Army has been developing flexible displays with improved performance to include ultra-low power, sunlight readability, and novel bi-stable imaging. Bi-stable imaging enables a sensor to direct map to a display and the image to remain on the display with zero-power. This unique display characteristic integrated with sensor array will enable novel sensor demonstrators. The Army is developing flexible displays through the Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University. The bi-stable flexible displays are based on the electrophoretic (electronic-paper) technology. The FDC displays include 3.8 inch diagonal displays with a 320x240 resolution. This SBIR topic will not fund flexible display development. The proposed effort shall address the development of novel sensor array technology on flexible substrates and the integration of the array to a bi-stable flexible display. The sensor technology of interest shall include; optical imaging, x-ray imaging, acoustic array imaging. Other sensor technologies will be of interest. The sensor array need not be fabricated directly on the flexible display. The sensor demonstrators and flexible displays can be fabricated separately and integrated together. These novel sensor systems will offer unique capabilities current not available with conventional technology. The application can include medical imaging, structural imaging, assessment of high-value assests, and demonstrations towards very large area sensor arrays for ultra-large apertures as well ultra-light weight flexible electronics for UAVs and micro-UAVs.
PHASE I: During Phase I, the program shall design the sensor array technology and necessary interface capability for the flexible display. The sensor is to be designed for fabrication on a flexible substrate to include; plastic (such as PEN) or stainless steel. The sensor array may include optical, x-ray, acoustic or chemical sensors. The initial design phase shall include the demonstration of single device performance adequate for the sensors. These demonstrations shall be used to design the array layout. The overall array specifications shall be no smaller than 1.1" diagonal with a 64x64 resolution up to 4" diagonal with a resolution of 320x240 pixels. The Phase I deliverable shall be a final report to include; the individual device performance data, the system level design and archeticture as well as the anticipated performance of the device. The Phase I effort shall not include the design or the development of a new flexible technology.
PHASE II: During Phase II, the program shall complete the final design the sensor array technology on a flexible substrate and intergated with a flexible display. The Phase II program shall first develop and fabricate the sensor array on a fleixble substrate (to include plastic or stainless steel) and demonstrate functionality. Following the successful demonstration of the sensor array, the system shall be integrated with a flexible display for direct imaging. This interface will likely include necessary interface chips and related electronics. These electronics are not necessarily fabricated using flexible electronics. The final design shall include the trade-offs with using COTs chips for these interface designs. The Phase II deliverables shall include a final report detailing the overall system design and performance. In addition, the contractor shall deliver (2) sensor arrays integrated with flexible displays.
PHASE III: The final product from the SBIR will be used to evaluate the novel applications for the World's First fully intergate flexible electronic and imaging device. The sensor platform shall transitions to the Army's Flexible Display Center for future applications to be developed from the flexible electronics pilot-line current established at Arizona State University. In the long term, the FDC will have the capability of fabricating flexible displays and electronics at 370x470mm scales for these emerging integrate sensor platform applications. The technology will have an opportunity to transition to the more than 21 industry partners that participate in the FDC.
REFERENCES:
1. "Amorphous silicon thin film transistor circuit integration for organic LED displays on glass and plastic", Nathan A, et.al IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS 39 (9): 1477 (2004).
2. "Self-organized organic thin-film transistors on plastic", Choi HY, Kim SH, Jang J ADVANCED MATERIALS 16 (8): 732 (2004).
3. “Excimer laser crystallization and doping of silicon films on plastic substrates”, P.M. Smith, P.G. Carey, T.W. Sigmon Appl. Phys. Lett., 70, pp. 342-344, (1997).
4. “Pentacene organic thin-film transistors - Molecular ordering and mobility”, D.J. Gundlach, Y.Y. Lin, T.N. Jackson, S.F. Nelson, D.G. Schlom IEEE Elect. Dev. Lett. 18, pp. 87-89, (1997).
5. “Organic Thin-Film Transistor-Driven Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystal Displays on Flexible Polymeric Substrates”, C. D. Sheraw, et.al Appl. Phys. Lett, 80, pp. 1088-1090, (2002).
6. “Effect of process parameters on the structural characteristics of laterally grown, laser-annealed polycrystalline silicon films” Voutsas AT, Limanov A, Im JS JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 94 (12): 7445-7452 DEC 15 2003.
7. “Flexible Displays for Military Use”, E.W. Forsythe, D.C. Morton, G.L. Wood, SPIE Aerosense Proceedings, Proc. SPIE-Int. Soc. Opt. Eng, 4712, 262-273 (2002).
KEYWORDS: Flexible Electronics, flexible displays, sensor arrays
A09-045 TITLE: Development of GaN Substrates for High Power and Multi-Functional Devices
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Electronics
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors
OBJECTIVE: Higher quality GaN substrates will lead to better high power devices used in hybrid electric vehicles, more output power in RF radar systems, and will enable multi-function devices such as those used in acousto-optic devices all of which are of great interest to the Army. The objective of this research is to improve upon those GaN substrates currently being grown so that devices made using them are better than those currently being manufactured. Examples are power diodes and transistors. In theory devices made from GaN should out perform those made from SiC, but those fabricated from current GaN substrates do not because the quality of reasonably sized GaN substrates is not good enough.
DESCRIPTION: GaN power devices have the potential to out perform those made from SiC and be made more cheaply, RF HEMTs (high electron mobility transistor) can be made more reliable, and multi-function devices could be enabled by improved GaN substrates. Great strides have been made recently towards increasing the size of these substrates and reducing the number of crystalline defects, but more improvement is still necessary. How these improvements in the quality of the GaN substrates leads to an improvement in the devices made from them must also be demonstrated, and in so doing create a market for these substrates. Currently, the substrates that are of high enough quality to demonstrate the improved device characteristics are too small - < 1 inch in diameter - to be economically viable. Although there have been great improvements recently in the large area crystals, they still contain too many crystalline defects and are not yet uniform enough for good quality devices to be fabricated uniformly across the wafer. The goal of this research is to be able to produce GaN substrates that are large enough to be economically viable, contain few enough crystalline defects such as dislocations and domain boundaries so that devices fabricated on them will have better operating characteristics and be more reliable than those currently being made, and be uniform enough across the wafer so that reasonable yields can be obtained.
PHASE I: Do simulations of a current high power, multi-functional, or RF device that is made using a GaN substrate and one that is made using an alternate substrate. Determine what the parameters of the GaN must be for the device fabricated on the GaN substrate to be as good as the one fabricated on the alternate substrate. Describe what must be done with your GaN substrates so that 50% of the devices over a 2" diameter substrate will meet or exceed the values you have calculated, and provide a meaningful path by which you will obtain the substrates that will meet this goal. One such example is a Schottky diode for the 600 V market. The simulations should show what the parameters for the GaN material must be so that devices made using the GaN substrate will have breakdown voltages that exceed 600 V and have a switching loss at 20 kHz that is at least as small as that obtained from a comparable SiC device. These simulations and report will be delivered to ARL.
PHASE II: Using your simulations as a guide, develop GaN substrates at least 2" in diameter from which the device you chose in Phase I can be fabricated with the properties that meet or exceed those that you described, and do so with a yield of at least 50%. These substrates and devices will be delivered to ARL for testing and verification.
PHASE III: Develop a plan for selling your GaN substrates by being able to show that customers who use them will be able to make a better device as demonstrated in Phase II and be able to do so with a reasonable yield at a reasonable cost. Show how much better and/or more reliable the devices will be using your substrates and provide justifications for any increased costs that would be incurred if your customer used your substrate. Identify the market for the improved device you have demonstrated using your GaN substrates and provide a plan on how you intend to access that market. Also, suggest what other devices could be manufactured using your substrates that would have properties that were superior to those currently being achieved, and develop a plan for how you would demonstrate this. The goal is to be able to sell these substrates at a reasonable cost to companies manufacturing these devices because they believe they can make a better device or a similar device at a lower cost, and to also indentify other devices that could be improved and sold at a reasonable cost using your GaN substrates.
REFERENCES:
1. B.J. Baliga, "Power Semiconductor Devices," Boston: PWS Publishing Co. 1996.
2. J.L. Hudgins, G.S. Simin, E. Santi, M.A. Khan, "An Assessment of Wide Bandgap Semiconductors for Power Devices," IEEE Trans. on Power Electronics, 18, 907 (2003).
3. B.S. Shelton, T.G. Zhu, D.J.H. Lambert, R.D. Dupuis, "Simulation of the Electrical Characteristics of High-Voltage Mesa and Planar GaN Schottky and PIN Rectifiers, IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices, 48, 1498 (2001).
4. G.T. Dang and A.P. Zhang, "High Voltage GaN Schottky Rectifiers, "IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices, 692 (2000).
5. http//www.veloxsemi.com/pdfs/Velox_semi_overview.pdf
6. A. Ballato, "Piezoelectricity, Old Effect, New thrusts," IEEE Trans. Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, 42, 916 (1995).
KEYWORDS: Power Devices, Multi-functional Devices, Diodes, Increased Complexity, Transistors, Gallium Nitride, Silicon Carbide
A09-046 TITLE: Ultra Resolution Camera for C4ISR Applications
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Sensors, Electronics
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors
OBJECTIVE: Proposals are sought to develop a novel multiple-FPA visible/infrared electro-optic sensor. The SBIR program is to focus on the design, development and demonstration of a wide area persistent surveillance capability not currently available. While the ability to combine multiple focal plane arrays to form a single image from an individual sensor has been demonstrated over the last few years, a multiple-FPA sensor system able to cover a larger area on the ground with 0.3 meter resolution (instead of the 1 meter resolution that is being used today) has not been designed or developed. In addition, current persistent wide area ISR systems are very expensive, heavy, and require a lot of electrical power. This SBIR program seeks a low cost, light weight, low power, electronically stabilized sensor system that can be flown from small aircraft (manned and/or UAV) and operated at a greatly reduced operational cost.
DESCRIPTION: Army and DOD have been developing high resolution cameras for wide area persistent surveillance applications. This topic entails the design, fabrication and demonstration of a combined visible/infrared sensor system with a minimum of 2.3 Giga pixels per frame and capable of operating at 2 frames per second or faster. In addition, the sensor system should have the user-selectable option of operating as a three color (RGB) camera with electronic stabilization capability so the requirement for a stabilized platform can be removed/relaxed. The sensor should use parallel electronic interfaces as a means of transferring data. The assembly, alignment and calibration of this type of sensor will require access to and the use of calibrated precision optical alignment and calibration systems. A FPA sensor system capable of simultaneously measuring visible and infrared will simplify overall sensor system design and development for persistent wide area surveillance applications. The end result will be a highly sensitive, discriminating sensor system that is more reliable, lighter, and less costly than currently available. The proposed sensor system will require innovative research and development. Individual FPA chips and optics can be COTS if available, although this is not a requirement.
PHASE I: During Phase I, the program shall design a new and innovative multiple-FPA sensor technology that will improve current wide area surveillance capabilities. Survey of research and development (R&D) efforts currently underway to develop single visible/infrared focal plane array chips and a determination of the feasibility of using existing chips in a multiple-FPA sensor system will occur in Phase I. In addition, a survey of current circuit card development capabilities to determine the best R&D processes currently available for fabrication of multiple-FPA sensor cards will be conducted. Once a specific FPA chip and fabrication process has been identified, a small scalable multiple-FPA sensor system will be designed and the feasibility of the proposed concept and technologies will be demonstrated. Phase I deliverable shall be a final report to include; the individual sensor performance data, the system level design and architecture as well as the anticipated performance of the sensor. The Phase I effort shall not include the design or the development of a new FPA chip technology.
PHASE II: During Phase II, the program shall complete the final design of the sensor array technology. The Phase II program shall first demonstration, in a breadboard configuration, a multiple-FPA card sensor system with a minimum 2.3 Giga pixel capability. Card fabrication process verification will be conducted that will require the development of an electro optics alignment station to provide optical input to individual FPA cards during assembly and debugging. Calibration measurements during the assembly and alignment process will allow the removal of any misalignment of individual FPA chips due to the circuit card fabrication process. Following the successful demonstration of the sensor system, the required number of completed FPA cards with individual optics will be integrated into a full-up working sensor system meeting the above stated specifications. The Phase II deliverables shall include a final report detailing the overall system design and performance. In addition, the contractor shall deliver one (1) low cost commercial aerial photography sensor system that meets a large majority of today’s commercial aerial photography requirements.
PHASE III: the final product from the SBIR will be tested on a small manned aircraft up to 10,000 feet. Engineering and prototype development, test and evaluation, and hardware qualification demonstration in a system-level test-bed which shows application to an insertion potential into one or more unmanned aerial vehicles will be completed.
Possible commercial applications of the ultra resolution camera include, but are not limited to, improved border and maritime management/patrol, critical infrastructure protection, transportation security, search & rescue, crime prevention, land & sea traffic monitoring, pipeline/powerline monitoring, private infrastructure surveillance/security, and aerial photography, and satellite augmentation systems.
REFERENCES:
1. Airborne tracking resolution requirements for urban vehicles. Aaron L. Robinson, Brian Miller, Phil Richardson, and Chun Ra Proc. SPIE 6941, 69410R (2008).
2. Flight test capabilities for real-time multiple target detection and tracking for airborne surveillance and maritime domain awareness. Brian A. Gorin and Allen Waxman. Proc. SPIE 6945, 69450Z (2008).
KEYWORDS: Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, high-resolution camera, persistent, pervasive
A09-047 TITLE: Eye-safe fiber-coupled laser pumps for high power laser applications
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Sensors, Weapons
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Missiles and Space
OBJECTIVE: Develop high-power, high-brightness 1530-1535-nm fiber-coupled laser diode modules with substantially improved efficiency, suitable as pump sources for high-power, eye-safe Er-doped fiber lasers, while minimizing the risk to human eyes. Technology must be developed with the potential for manufacturability, low operating cost, efficiency and ease of use.
DESCRIPTION: Defense against fast-moving airborne threats such as rockets, artillery and mortars is an important challenge for the Army, as is destruction of explosives at a safe distance. High-power lasers have the potential to meet these challenges, provided that key technologies are developed. These include improving the efficiency and power levels of solid-state lasers, and the development of versions that operate at wavelengths relatively safe to human eyes.
Er-doped solid-state lasers (SSL) with direct (resonant) laser excitation around 1530 nm [1-4] have proven to be highly efficient “eye-safe” sources. As a logical continuation of the work [2-4], an Yb-free resonantly cladding-pumped, highly scalable, Er fiber amplifier was recently demonstrated [5]. In contrast to pumping with a 9xx-nm wavelength diode laser, pumping of a fiber laser with a ~1530 nm source provides much higher laser efficiency and better thermal management of the fiber due to a much smaller quantum defect (of the order of 5%). In [5], the booster amplifier was cladding co-pumped by six InGaAsP/InP laser diode modules fiber-coupled into 105/125 micron, 0.15 NA pigtails. The power of each pump module was in the range of 5-6 W. High power scalability potential was demonstrated, but pumping sources with much higher brightness would be required to achieve multi-hundred kilowatt power output.
Although laser bar coupling technology is efficient for laser diodes with wavelengths shorter than one micron, the thermal load generated by such a device causes thermal management problems. This limits the use of diode bars or arrays for InP-based lasers, which are needed for operation at relatively eyesafe wavelength, due to their sensitivity to temperature. To address this problem, fiber-coupled modules based on single emitters are being developed for coupling into a laser fiber via fused couplers. Single-emitter architecture guarantees better thermal management due to the “distributed” nature of heat generation, and provides more practical operation at low current and high voltage [6] (as opposed to laser bar-based schemes operated at high current / low voltage). Despite all of the advantages, the fiber coupled, high-power, 1530-1535-nm laser diode modules are currently underdeveloped. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of these diodes is currently considerably lower than that for shorter-wavelength laser diodes, and their beam divergence is higher, with the result that fiber coupling efficiency is also lower.
At present, it is necessary to analyze all available choices for improving the efficiency of fiber-coupled high brightness pump modules emitting at 1530 nm wavelength. These solutions will be immediately employed as pump sources for high-power Er-doped fiber lasers. Later, the same design approaches will be extended to pump sources with even longer wavelengths aimed at resonant pumping of Tm- and Ho-doped fiber lasers.
The development of fiber-coupled pump sources for the 1.5-1.9 micron wavelength range requires progress in three directions: laser diode design (including further improvement of current approaches and radical changes to improve efficiency with high potential for scalability,) development of more efficient fiber coupling schemes, and advancement in thermal management to better deal with the temperature sensitivity of diode devices emitting in this wavelength range.
PHASE I: Eye-safe 1530-1535-nm pump module with 105 micron core / 0.15 NA fiber output. Target power 30 W out-of-fiber with PCE at rated current not less than 25%. Maximum PCE (at lower than maximum power output) not less than 30%. It is expected that significant improvements in diode laser efficiency and in fiber coupling efficiency will be required to meet these goals and to provide the potential for the further improvements specified in Phase II. The technologies developed to achieve these goals must have the potential for: (1) efficient thermal management; (2) manufacturability; (3) reliability. In addition to modeling and simulation to develop a design for the necessary improvements, proof-of-concept device development is expected. A best-effort device with performance goals listed above shall be provided to the Army Research Laboratory for evaluation.
PHASE II: Design and assemble a fiber coupled module emitting a wavelength of 1530 nm with 45 W out-of-fiber (105 micron core / 0.15 NA) power with PCE at rated current >40%. In addition to these improvements in efficiency and power scaling, the phase II efforts should also focus on wavelength stabilization, and on manufacturability, producibility, cost reduction and yield. The deliverables are five modules with specifications listed above with total power over 220 W, to be tested for diode-pumping of a fiber laser or amplifier at the Army Research Laboratory.
PHASE III: Production line of super-high-brightness 1.5-1.9 micron fiber coupled modules with superior PCE, enabling high efficiency, high power fiber lasers operating in this relatively eyesafe wavelength range. Non-military uses include direct processing of plastics, cutting of organic materials, surgery, and various therapeutic and aesthetic procedures.
REFERENCES:
1. Y. Young, S. Setzler, K. Snell, P. Budni, T. Pollak, E. Chiklis, “Efficient 1645 nm Er:YAG Laser,” Optics Letters, 29, p 1075, (2004).
2. D. Garbuzov, I. Kudryashov, M. Dubinskii, “Resonantly Diode Laser Pumped 1.6-um Er:YAG Laser”, Appl. Phys. Lett, 86, 1315 (2005).
3. D. Garbuzov, M. Dubinskii, “InP-based Long Wavelength Sources for Solid State Diode Pumping,” in Technical Digest of Solid State and Diode Lasers Technology Review, SSDLTR 2004, Direct Energy Professional Society, p-19.
4. D. Garbuzov, I. Kudryashov, M. Dubinskii, “110 W (0.9 J) pulsed power from resonantly diode-laser-pumped 1.6-um Er:YAG laser”, Appl. Phys. Lett, 87, 218 (2005).
5. M. Dubinskii, J. Zhang, I. Kudryashov, “Single-frequency, Yb-free, resonantly cladding-pumped large mode area Er fiber amplifier for power scaling”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 031111 (2008).
6. M. A. Maiorov, I. E. Trofimov, C. Schnitzler, S. Hambücker, “High-brightness laser diode modules for Yb and Er fiber lasers”, Laser Source Technology for Defense and Security IV, ed. by M. Dubinskii, G. L. Wood, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 6952, 69520A, (2008).
KEYWORDS: Fiber-coupled laser diodes, fiber laser, Er3+-doped materials, diode pumping, long-wavelength laser diodes.
A09-048 TITLE: Controlled Bandwidth Transmission Systems for Ultra-Wideband Radars
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Sensors, Electronics
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors
OBJECTIVE: The development and demonstration of a low-power, ultra-wideband transmitter whose spectral content can be tailored to fit within certain limits, or to avoid specific frequency bands. The transmitter should thus be able to avoid generating harmful interference to radio frequency systems that operate in the range of its bandwidth.
DESCRIPTION: Ultra-wideband (UWB) radars operate across a wide range of frequencies usually designated for other uses. This presents regulatory and operational problems in producing a fieldable radar system. ARL is developing high-resolution radar support for ground vehicles to provide all weather day/night vision of the region in front of the vehicle. The current ARL proof-of-concept radar system employs a transmitter and transmit antenna located at each end of a receive aperture. The design is extensible to allow for growth in the number of channels used and improvements in integrated circuit performance to eventually meet the expected unmanned ground vehicle combat pace. The problem is the impulse transmitters used in the system generate energy across a wide swath of the spectrum (300 – 3000 MHz). While the output power is low (5 mW average), the system provides the potential to interfere with a number of other systems that use these frequencies, so test and evaluation is currently restricted to DoD facilities west of the Mississippi. Viable operating parameters are 400 MHz to 2.4 GHz with a number of programmable areas in which little or no energy is produced to avoid interference issues. What is needed is a transmitter that could generate a waveform with this large instantaneous bandwidth in a pulse no longer than 50nS and an algorithm that would allow the target return signal to be compressed into an impulse.
PHASE I: Phase I of the program should investigate innovative modulation techniques and hardware that would allow generation of a restricted bandwidth signal (where the measure of quality is the ratio of the out-of-band energy to the in-band energy) that can produce signal levels up to -20 dBm/MHz. An initial goal would be a system that could operate from 500 – 1250 MHz.
PHASE II: It is desired to eventually have a pair of reasonably small, affordable transmitters rather than a pair of $50,000 laboratory instruments attached to the radar. The current transmitters are approximately 5”x3”x3” and cost less than $2500. The transmitter should be capable of producing its output in response to a digital trigger pulse with low jitter. A pair of prototype transmitters based on the Phase I study will be produced for testing along with the algorithm necessary to turn the received waveform back into an equivalent short-pulse time-domain signal.
PHASE III: In the third phase the project will transition from applied science to manufacturing schemes that allow for wide scale commercialization and reduced prices. The desire is to initially support the ground-based, vehicle-borne versions of the radar systems being developed for obstacle avoidance during autonomous navigation of future combat vehicles and robots. There is also a need to support the use of such systems for detecting surface and near-surface objects for explosive ordnance disposal. Such systems need to be able to operate in the presence of other radio frequency sources such as communications links and jammers without causing or being susceptible to interference. This phase will also focus on applications that possess the largest commercial payoff potential, such as though-the-wall sensing radar, intrusion detection, etc. without causing interference to other radio frequency systems.
REFERENCES:
1. Lam Nguyen, Mehrdad Soumekh, “System trade analysis for an ultra-wideband forward imaging radar", Proceedings of SPIE, Unmanned Systems Technology VIII, 6203, May 2006.
2. Marc Ressler, Lam Nguyen, Francois Koenig, David Wong, and Gregory Smith, “The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Synchronous Impulse Reconstruction (SIRE) Forward-Looking Radar,” Proceedings of SPIE, Unmanned Systems Technology IX, Vol. 6561, April 2007.
3. Lam Nguyen, David Wong, Marc Ressler, Francois Koenig, Brian Stanton, Gregory Smith, Jeffrey Sichina, Karl Kappra, "Obstacle Avoidance and Concealed Target Detection Using the Army Research Lab Ultra-Wideband Synchronous Impulse Reconstruction (UWB SIRE) Forward Imaging Radar,” Proceedings of SPIE, Detection and Remediation Technologies for Mines and Minelike Targets XII, Vol. 6553, April 2007.
KEYWORDS: Ultra-wideband, radar, spectrum, impulse, interference
A09-049 TITLE: High-G Simulator for In-Flight Test Article
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Information Systems, Electronics, Weapons
OBJECTIVE: Develop a new novel technology to stop a 60 lb projectile traveling up to 1,300 ft/s in a well-controlled, repeatable manner resulting in a high-g acceleration test event.
DESCRIPTION: The government seeks to develop a technology that can simulate the interior ballistic environment of a cannon launch as well as other high acceleration events. A cost effective simulation technology is crucial for the development of new weapon systems in which complex electronics are subjected to very high shock loads. The XM982 (Excalibur) program has depended heavily on such a system throughout its development effort. However, the technology used in that program depends on expendable materials (which are no longer available) and is limited in its ability to achieve any particular acceleration curve. A new technology is sought to replace the old technology. Given a projectile traveling at 1,300 ft/s, the new technology should be capable of producing a target decceleration curve that varies between 5 and 50 k-g and durations between 1 and 5 ms. Additionally, the technology should not depend on the use of expendable materials. The projectile will not include energetic materials and it must not be damaged while it is being slowed and stopped. The projectile’s motion must be constrained to be axial only. The Army desires to implement this technology for 3”, 4” and 7” projectiles.
PHASE I: The phase I efforts focus on designing a concept to controllably and repeatedly decelerate a 7” diameter, 60 lb test article. The projectile’s initial velocity is 900 ft/s and it must be stopped with a decceleration pulse that varies from 5 k-g to 50 k-g and a duration that varies from 1 ms to 5 ms. The methodology that produces the desired pulse could make use of new and/or novel technologies and must not be reliant upon expendable materials. Phase I should be utilized to develop a computational analysis to establish the feasibility and limitations of the designed device. The use of modeling and simulation technologies is encouraged as part of the computational analysis. The phase I deliverable is a feasibility study for a 7” projectile. Although the phase I deliverable targets a 7” projectile, the methodology should have the flexibility to be expanded to 3” and 4” projectiles as well.
PHASE II: Phase II efforts will be focused on producing a prototype device for a demonstration of the methodology developed in phase I. The 7” ARL airgun will be made available to the contractor for testing and a final demonstration of the prototype. Throughout development of the prototype, the contractor should consider modifications that may be necessary to implement the system with a 3” and 4” diameter projectile traveling up to 1,300 ft/s. The deliverable for the phase II effort is a prototype of the methodology to stop a 7” diameter, 60 lb projectile traveling at 900 ft/s with a pulse that peaks at 15 k-g and lasts 4 ms.
PHASE III: Once the basic methodology has been demonstrated, the phase III efforts will focus on refinements. Modification to the technology will be incorporated to reduce the cost of each shot and increase the tunability and acceleration level available in the test environment in a laboratory setting that is devoid of energetic materials. As part of the Phase III efforts, a turn-key system for producing acceleration and duration prediction for each shot should be developed. The apparatus could be utilized by defense contractors to provide low-cost in-house validation of device performance in the gun-launch environment. Manufacturers from a variety of industries could have an interest in an in-house, programmable, high acceleration test environment. Some of the industries that could benefit from such a device include the space industry (simulation of explosive bolts), automotive industry (simulation of vehicle crashes of individual components) or the electronics industry (highly controlled simulation of dropped electronic devices). The phase III deliverable includes an optimized system that includes both hardware for producing the desired pulse as well as an algorithm for predicting the pulse that will be generated.
REFERENCES: From DTIC:
1. Acquiring Data for the Development of a Finite Element Model of an Airgun Launch Environment. AD Number: ADA422483 Corporate Author: ARMY RESEARCH LAB ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND MD WEAPONS AND MATERIALS RESEARCH DIRECTORATE Personal Author: Szymanski, Edward A Report Date: March 01, 2004 Media: 34 Page(s) Distribution Code: 01 - APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE26 - NOT AVAILABLE IN MICROFICHE Report Classification: Unclassified Source Code: 437456 From the collection: Technical Reports.
2. Air Gun Launch Simulation Modeling and Finite Element Model Sensitivity Analysis. AD Number: ADA441366 Corporate Author: ARMY RESEARCH LAB ADELPHI MD Personal Author: Chowdhury, Mostafiz R Tabiei, Ala Report Date: January 01, 2006 Media: 63 Page(s) Distribution Code: 01 - APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE Report Classification: Unclassified Source Code: 424778 From the collection: Technical Reports.