SBIR Phase I Solicitation SBIR Select Phase I Solicitation Abstract Archives
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T1.01-9879 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Affordable Nano/Micro Launch Propulsion Stages |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Green, Compact Hybrids for Nanosatellite Launchers |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Terves Inc.
24112 Rockwell Drive, Suite C
Euclid, OH
44117-1252
(216) 404-0053
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Pennsylvania State University
University Park
State College, PA
16108-4707
(816) 841-4700
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Andrew Sherman
asherman@tervesinc.com
24112 Rockwell Dr.
Euclid,
OH
44117-1252
(216) 404-0053
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Low cost access to space is essential for continued commercial
exploitation of near-earth environments, and to support future science
missions. A serious limitation on the cost of space access is the
available propellants and propulsion system technologies for launch,
orbital insertion, maneuvering and orbital reinsertion, and reaction and
attitude control.This Phase I STTR program will validate ignition and
performance parameters for a volumetrically-optimized, low cost, green,
shippable hybrid propellant motor for low cost access to space. The
program is specifically targeted at validating performance via
fabrication and delivery of replacements for the current Nihka and
PSRM-120 stages (stage 2 and 3) based on the Black Brandt sounding
rocket vehicle testbed under the Nanolaunch 1200 program guidelines.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Potential Non-NASA Commercial Applications include commercial and
university research SmallSat and CubeSat launch and propulsion, sensing
satellites for weather and other applications, and small communications
satellites.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Potential NASA applications include: SmallSat propulsion, CubeSat
launch, upper stage Booster stage propulsion, in-space propulsion,
orbital entry/re-entry, and Mars ascent.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Fuels/Propellants
Launch Engine/Booster
Maneuvering/Stationkeeping/Attitude Control Devices
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T1.01-9931 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Affordable Nano/Micro Launch Propulsion Stages |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | High Performance Hybrid Upper Stage for NanoLaunch Vehicles |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Parabilis Space Technologies, Inc.
1145 Linda Vista Drive
San Marcos, CA
92078-3820
(855) 727-2245
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Utah State University
4100 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT
84322-4100
(435) 797-2775
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Christopher Grainger
chris@parabilis-space.com
1145 Linda Vista Drive, #111
San Marcos,
CA
92078-3820
(855) 727-2245
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Parabilis Space Technologies, Inc. (Parabilis), in collaboration with
Utah State University (USU), proposes a low cost, high performance
launch vehicle upper stage using oxygen and a novel additively
manufactured polymer fuel grain as propellants in response to
solicitation T1.01, Affordable Nano/Micro Launch Propulsion Stages. This
technology will fulfill the ever-growing mission demands of the CubeSat
and NanoSat market by enabling dedicated launch for 5-6 kg class
payloads. Comparable launch vehicle stages in this size class are not
currently commercially available. The proposed green-propellant system
will have significant advancements over alternative technologies in
cost, safety, and mission capability. During Phase I, the development
team's objectives include preliminary design of an upper stage and the
test fire of a demonstration prototype. This innovative stage is
designed such that it can integrate directly into NASA Marshall's
NanoLaunch 1200 architecture.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Since 2000, there have been several hundred CubeSats launched, adding
value to a variety of commercial, research, civil, and military
applications. In 2014, the number of CubeSat lunches has surged in a
large part due to the launch of PlanetLabs Flock 1 satellites. This
increase in demand has created a backlog for CubeSats for ride along
markets. This backlog, as well as the ever growing capability of
CubeSats has created a market for dedicated CubeSat launch vehicles.
Potential non-NASA customers include universities, small businesses, and
research institutes. A number of universities have active CubeSat
development programs that would benefit from having a dedicated launch
vehicle. The proposed innovation is also an ideal solution to responsive
space challenges.
Additional commercial applications exist for the proposed 4th stage
beyond that of a dedicated launch vehicle upper stage. The stages'
compact size allows it to be used as a secondary payload post-deployment
propulsion system on many launch vehicles. This will give CubeSats and
MicroSats significant delta-V capabilities when launched as a secondary
payload.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The availability of a dedicated CubeSat launch vehicle will provide
NASA a solution for low cost payload insertion for their in-house
CubeSats such as IceCube or FireFly. The proposed propulsion solution
will offer a significantly higher degree of mission flexibility than is
possible with rideshare delivery methods.
The specific stages proposed for development would also be ideally
suited for integration with current NASA launch vehicle efforts, such as
NASA Marshall's NanoLaunch 1200. Either as an integrated component in
this vehicle, or as part of another commercial package, the proposed
launch vehicle stage will provide NASA the capability to expand programs
for universities and research institutions such as the CubeSat Launch
Initiative.
This solicitation and proposed technology aligns with NASA's 2014
Strategic Plan Objective 3.2, providing access to space.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Spacecraft Design, Construction, Testing, & Performance (see also Engineering; Testing & Evaluation)
Space Transportation & Safety
Prototyping
Fluids
Exciters/Igniters
Fuels/Propellants
Launch Engine/Booster
Spacecraft Main Engine
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T1.01-9957 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Affordable Nano/Micro Launch Propulsion Stages |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Advanced Hybrid Stage |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Gloyer-Taylor Laboratories, LLC
112 Mitchell Boulevard
Tullahoma, TN
37388-4002
(931) 455-7333
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Alabama in Huntsville
301 Sparkman Drive
Huntsville, AL
35899-0001
(256) 824-2657
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Eric Jacob
eric.jacob@gtlcompany.com
112 Mitchell Boulevard
Tullahoma,
TN
37388-4002
(931) 455-7333
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
The proposed technology builds off GTL's advanced solid ramjet fuel.
The method uses additive manufacturing methods to produce an innovative
new type of fuel grain that regresses quickly and has a high Isp and
combustion efficiency. With this technology, the performance of a liquid
rocket engine can be had with a hybrid rocket system.
This technology allows for a simple, low cost, high performance stage
that is well suited for a nano-sat vehicle. Reducing complexity and
parts count serves to decrease cost and increase reliability.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The technology of enhanced fuel grains was developed in response to a
Navy need for high performance air-breathing ramjets. This proposal
seeks to apply the same technology to hybrid rocket engines which are
similar in nature. This technology will impact the development of low
cost launch vehicles by providing a high performance and simple
alternative to more complex and costly systems such as liquid rocket
engines.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
High performance solid fuels are important in hybrid rocket engines.
Hybrids have been selected for low cost manned sub-orbital missions due
to their relative safety. A high performance hybrid engine would be of
great use to manned missions as well as low-cost launch solutions.
Reducing the parts count and complexity will provide significant
advantages for low cost launch solutions of nanosat payloads.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Processing Methods
Fluids
Polymers
Smart/Multifunctional Materials
Structures
Fuels/Propellants
Launch Engine/Booster
Spacecraft Main Engine
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T1.01-9963 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Affordable Nano/Micro Launch Propulsion Stages |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | NLV Upper Stage Development and Flight Testing |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Garvey Spacecraft Corporation
389 Haines Avenue
Long Beach, CA
90814-1841
(562) 498-2984
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Alaska Fairbanks
903 Koyukuk Drive
Fairbanks, AK
99775-7320
(907) 474-7558
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Christopher Bostwick
cbostwick@garvspace.com
389 Haines Avenue
Long Beach,
CA
90814-1841
(661) 547-9779
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
The technical innovation proposed here is the design during Phase I of
a high performance upper stage for a two-stage "20 / 450" Nanosat
Launch Vehicle (NLV) that is configured to deliver up to 20 kg to a 450
km low Earth orbit (Figure 1).
Parallel tasks prepare for the Phase II development and sub-orbital
flight testing of a prototype vehicle that is directly traceable to the
orbital-capable NLV. Furthermore, by teaming with the University of
Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska Space Corporation to pathfind the concept of
operations at the latter's Kodiak Space Launch complex, we are taking a
key step towards establishing dedicated launch access to polar orbits
for the cubesat and nanosat communities.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Planet Labs
Google / Skybox Imaging
National Science Foundation
DOD Space Test Program
Office of Operationally Responsive Space
Air Force Space Command, Army Space and Missile Defense Command
National Reconnaissance Office
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
CubeSat Launch Initiative (CLI)
Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa)
University-class Explorer missions
Small Explorer missions
Interplanetary CubeSat Missions
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Fuels/Propellants
Launch Engine/Booster
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T3.01-9890 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Energy Harvesting Technology Development |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | High Figure-of-Merit Macro-Structured Thermoelectric Materials |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
MicroXact, Inc.
1750 Kraft Drive, Suite 1007
Blacksburg, VA
24060-6375
(540) 394-4040
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
North End Center, Suite 4200, Virginia Tech 300 Turner Stree
Blacksburg, VA
24061-0244
(540) 231-5281
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Vladimir Kochergin
vkochergin@microxact.com
1750 Kraft Drive, Suite 1007
Blacksburg,
VA
24060-6375
(540) 394-4040
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Thermoelectric devices are critical to multiple NASA missions for
power conversion with radioisotope sources. At present, commercially
available TE devices typically offer limited heat-to-electricity
conversion efficiencies, well below the fundamental thermodynamic limit,
calling for the development of higher efficiency materials. The team of
MicroXact Inc. and Virginia Tech is proposing to develop a
revolutionary high efficiency thermoelectric material fabricated on
completely new fabrication principles. The proposed material and device
will provide NASA with much needed highly efficient (ZT>1.6),
macroscopically thick (from 100s of micrometers to over a millimeter)
thermoelectric material that will permit >15% conversion efficiency
of thermoelectric generation when using high grade space-qualified
sources. The proposed material is comprised of PbTe/PbSe
three-dimensional "wells" of PbTe/PbSe quantum dot superlattices (QDS)
fabricated by a conformal coating of a structured silicon substrate with
electrochemical Atomic Layer Deposition (eALD). In Phase I of the
project the feasibility of the approach will be demonstrated by proving
ZT>1.6. In Phase II the team will fabricate the thermoelectric
generator, and will demonstrate conversion efficiencies exceeding 15%.
After Phase II, MicroXact will commercialize the technology.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed ultraefficient thermoelectric materials and devices are
expected to find applications in automotive and aviation industry (to
reduce the fuel consumption), as well as in electronic device cooling
(microprocessors, focal plane arrays, etc.), food storage/processing
(wine cellars, refrigerant-free refrigerators). Automotive applications
are expected to be the most important market for the proposed technology
due to both the large size and readiness of the market.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The largest immediate NASA application of the proposed thermoelectric
materials is the radioisotope thermoelectric generator, already being
used in a large number of NASA missions. The unmatched efficiency
combined with the light weight of the proposed material will provide the
competitive advantage to MicroXact sufficient for successful market
penetration, and will result in significant savings to NASA. Other
potential NASA applications include energy recovery from processors and
other electronics. The proposed concept, when developed and
commercialized, is expected to cause a significant impact on the cost,
safety and reliability of future NASA missions.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Conversion
Sources (Renewable, Nonrenewable)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T3.01-9926 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Energy Harvesting Technology Development |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Extreme Environment Ceramic Energy Harvesting/Sensors |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Solid State Ceramics, Inc.
136 Catawissa Avenue, Suite 30
Williamsport, PA
17701-4114
(570) 320-1777
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Pennsylvania State University
124 Land and Water Building
University Park, PA
16802-7000
(814) 865-6968
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Safakcan Tuncdemir
stuncdemir@solidstateceramics.com
136 Catawissa Avenue, Suite 30
Williamsport,
PA
17701-4114
(570) 320-1777
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
It is proposed to address the critical element in the NASA/NRC report
that identifies the need for Energy Harvesting that 'can provide local
power to improve efficiency, or even provide power to NASA's equipment
in Extreme Environments where other power sources could not operate or
would be too large or bulky or inefficient. The same devices will
provide harsh environment compatible sensor capabilities enabling
identification and prognostics functions. The solution uses high
temperature ceramic materials in novel energy coupling designs and
entirely new energy circuitry that provide very efficient high-energy
power generation applicable to NASA Extreme Environments applications,
particularly high temperature conditions such that occur during
propulsion, high solar exposure, or elevated thermal loading conditions.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Although there are many other potential commercial applications, our
near term interest is on the oil & gas industry. Solid State
Ceramics Inc, (SSC, Inc) has been working with the Oil & Gas
industries in regard to transition of its high temperature withstand
ceramic-based power technology. At this time, down well communications
are very restricted due to the very high temperatures of operation,
battery technology is generally unsafe at such temperatures, and not
used. Ceramic energy harvesters could safely and reliably harvest the
mechanical energy (there is lots), at the very elevated temperatures
encountered during exploration and monitoring, to power remote
communications. These same high temperature capable energy-harvesting
devices can remain at these locations to power other sensors installed
for monitoring normal energy extraction performance and incipient
failures.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed high temperature energy conversion ceramics will provide
structural Energy Harvesting where other technologies fail due to high
temperature or high radiation exposure conditions. These function in
situations where other environmental energy conversion may not feasible.
This can include installation in propulsive systems such as fuel tanks,
engines or secondary launch systems – both primary and boost,
during launch that are not normally exposed to solar, but have very
substantial levels of mechanical (elastic) vibration energy that can be
converted to electrical energy (with the further benefit of inducing
structural damping. Boeing has already identified that the proposed
technology could have direct application to several avionics programs
that will encounter high temperatures (such as Venus) or high radiation
(such as the Van Allen belts, Europa or Io) or on potential Heliosphere
missions such as a Solar Probe Mission.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Circuits (including ICs; for specific applications, see e.g.,
Communications, Networking & Signal Transport; Control &
Monitoring, Sensors)
Manufacturing Methods
Materials (Insulator, Semiconductor, Substrate)
Conversion
Generation
Prototyping
Smart/Multifunctional Materials
Acoustic/Vibration
Contact/Mechanical
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T3.01-9930 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Energy Harvesting Technology Development |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | High Temperature Multimode Harvester for Wireless Strain Applications |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Prime Photonics, LC
1116 South Main Street
Blacksburg, VA
24060-5548
(540) 961-2200
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Virginia Tech
635 Prices Fork Road - MC 0238
Blacksburg, VA
24061-0001
(540) 231-7183
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
David Gray
david.gray@primephotonics.com
1116 South Main Street
Blacksburg,
VA
24060-5548
(540) 808-4281
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Monitoring of structural strain is a well-established method for
assessing the fatigue life and operational loads of aerospace vessels,
aircraft, bridges, and other load-bearing structures. Information from
extensive instrumentation using 100's to 1000's of strain gages can be
fed into a condition based maintenance (CBM) algorithm to improve
structural health assessments, detect damage, and lower maintenance
costs. Current methods for measuring strain are too cumbersome, bulky,
and costly to be practical for a large scale dense network of strain
sensors. Furthermore, existing piezoelectric-based vibrational energy
harvesters are built around general purpose components designed for
operation in low-temperature application spaces. To realize pervasive
structural health monitoring across a wide range of thermal and
vibrational environments, a low cost, minimally intrusive, low
maintenance, and reliable technology is needed.
Cutting edge microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors for
measurements of strain, acceleration, pressure, acoustic emission, and
temperature are becoming increasingly available for use in CBM and
structural health monitoring (SHM). While these sensors offer a
promising future for wireless sensing networks (WSN), implementation for
CBM remains cumbersome due to the lack of versatile, cost-effective
powering solutions. Wiring external power to sensors is an unattractive
solution given the required installation overhead and associated
maintenance costs. Battery powered solutions are unreliable and battery
maintenance for a dense network of thousands of sensor nodes is not
practical.
For this STTR effort, Prime Photonics proposes to team with Virginia
Tech to develop a multimode vibrational-thermal harvester with effective
energy capture and efficient conversion.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Prime Photonics will market the Energy Harvesting Wireless Strain
Sensor (EHWSS) technology for use in support of US military mobile
platforms (e.g. ships, aircraft), as well as commercial ships and other
private sector industrial and structural monitoring applications such as
infrastructure health monitoring (e.g. buildings and bridges)
industrial equipment monitoring (e.g. mills and HVAC systems) and power
generation equipment (e.g. wind turbines, steam turbines).
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The initial NASA commercial application of the Energy Harvesting
Wireless Strain Sensor (EHWSS) technology would be in support of
advanced flight testing of low subsonic and high supersonic aircraft.
The EHWSS system would facilitate monitoring of strain levels in key
components of aircraft, particularly in areas that might prove
problematic for traditional, wired sensing technologies. Refinement of
power budgets and operation environments would allow for extension of
EHWSS systems into NASA manned or unmanned space missions for spacecraft
structural monitoring, including strain monitoring and/or damage event
detection.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Condition Monitoring (see also Sensors)
Conversion
Sources (Renewable, Nonrenewable)
Ceramics
Acoustic/Vibration
Contact/Mechanical
Sensor Nodes & Webs (see also Communications, Networking & Signal Transport)
Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE; NDT)
Diagnostics/Prognostics
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T4.01-9910 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Dynamic Servoelastic (DSE) Network Control, Modeling and Optimization |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Innovative Aerodynamic Modeling for Aeroservoelastic Analysis and Design |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
M4 Engineering, Inc.
4020 Long Beach Boulevard
Long Beach, CA
90807-2683
(562) 981-7797
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Washington
433 Brooklyn Avenue NE
Seattle, WA
98195-9472
(206) 543-4043
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Myles Baker
mbaker@m4-engineering.com
4020 Long Beach Boulevard
Long Beach,
CA
90807-2683
(562) 305-3391
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 6
End: 8
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
We propose the development of a modern panel code for calculation of
steady and unsteady aerodynamic loads needed for dynamic servoelastic
(DSE) analysis of flight vehicles. The code will be especially tailored
to be robust, reliable, and integrated with the NASA Object Oriented
Optimization (O3) system through selection of analysis methods, file
formats, and computing environment, allowing it to be efficiently
applied to numerous problems of interest to NASA and industry.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
This technology is expected to have commercial applications to
aircraft design of subsonic transports, supersonic vehicles, bombers,
fighters, UAV's, and general aviation airplanes. As such, it is
expected to have significant commercial applications in airplane
structural design, primarily with DoD, NASA, and the prime contractors.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Potential NASA applications will include the use of the developed
technology for design of any new generation aircraft or RLV system
including complex and novel configurations such as blended wing-bodies,
truss-braced wing configurations, low-boom supersonic configurations,
etc.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Aerodynamics
Analytical Methods
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry)
Spacecraft Design, Construction, Testing, & Performance (see also Engineering; Testing & Evaluation)
Autonomous Control (see also Control & Monitoring)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T4.01-9934 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Dynamic Servoelastic (DSE) Network Control, Modeling and Optimization |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Gust Load Estimation and Rejection With Application to Robust Flight Control Design for HALE Aircraft |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Systems Technology, Inc.
13766 Hawthorne Boulevard
Hawthorne, CA
90250-7083
(310) 679-2281
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Michigan
3003 S State Street, 1061 Wolverine Tower
Ann Arbor, MI
48109-1274
(734) 764-7242
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Brian Danowsky
bdanowsky@systemstech.com
13766 Hawthorne Blvd.
Hawthorne,
CA
90250-7083
(310) 679-2281
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 1
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) aircraft have garnered increased
interest in recent years as they can serve several purposes, including
many of the objectives of satellites while incurring a fraction of the
cost to deploy. Examples applications include Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, communications relay systems, and
environmental and atmospheric sensing. The requirements for HALE
aircraft dictate that they have very high lift-to-drag ratios, and are
extremely lightweight, resulting in high aspect ratios with significant
structural flexibility. This results in a dynamically nonlinear vehicle
with highly coupled rigid body and aeroelastic structural dynamics.
Atmospheric turbulence and gust loading of substantial variance can
significantly impact the performance of HALE aircraft. Due to the vast
importance of gust loading on these lightweight aircraft platforms,
Systems Technology, Inc. and the University of Michigan propose the
development of the Disturbance Observer for Gust Load Alleviation
(DOGLA) where the gust loading will be actively estimated and
subsequently rejected. DOGLA will be implemented on a nonlinear HALE
aircraft model in conjunction with a robust primary flight control
design. Both the disturbance observer and primary flight control designs
will be implemented within a novel gain-scheduling framework to address
nonlinear dynamics and varying flight conditions.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
DOGLA has application to the worldwide aircraft manufacturing industry
of both manned and unmanned aircraft, with focus on HALE aircraft.
Current DoD programs that will benefit from DOGLA include the Boeing
Phantom Eye and the DARPA Vulture, which are for long endurance advanced
ISR, driven by current US military combat conditions. In the commercial
market, HALE vehicles are garnering interest as communications relay
systems. Both Google and Facebook are pursuing HALE technology to
provide internet access to remote areas. Google and Facebook have
recently purchased Titan Aerospace and Ascenta respectively, who have
been developing solar powered HALE UAS for this purpose. Other companies
that specialize in HALE aircraft that would benefit from DOGLA include
Aurora Flight Sciences (Perseus and Theseus aircraft) and Solar Flight
(Sunseeker and SUNSTAR solar powered aircraft). DOGLA has application to
non-HALE flexible aircraft as well, and this includes airliners
developed by both Boeing and Airbus.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
DOGLA falls under the NASA Aeronautical Research Mission Directorate
(ARMD), which in 2014 announced six research thrusts. DOGLA applies to
several of these thrusts. First, DOGLA directly contributes to the
"assured autonomy for aviation transformation" thrust by allowing an
automatic system to alleviate gust loading without impacting performance
of the primary flight control system. The proposed innovation also
supports the "real-time, system-wide safety assurance" and
"ultra-efficient commercial vehicles" research thrusts. In terms of
specific ARMD programs, DOGLA applies to: 1) the Fundamental Aeronautics
Program wherein DOGLA provides an advanced technology to improve
performance of current and future air vehicles; 2) Aviation Safety
Program wherein the technology supports assurance of flight critical
systems and assurance of safe and effective aircraft control under
hazardous conditions; and 3) the Aeronautics Test Program wherein the
technology can enhance test operations of new, novel technology
demonstrators including the NASA Global Hawk HALE and the X-56A.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Air Transportation & Safety
Algorithms/Control Software & Systems (see also Autonomous Systems)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Machines/Mechanical Subsystems
Structures
Vehicles (see also Autonomous Systems)
Acoustic/Vibration
Sensor Nodes & Webs (see also Communications, Networking & Signal Transport)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T4.01-9989 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Dynamic Servoelastic (DSE) Network Control, Modeling and Optimization |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Active Twist Control for a Compliant Wing Structure |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation
90 Broadway, 11th Floor
Cambridge, MA
02142-1050
(703) 369-3633
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of California, Santa Cruz
1156 High St.
Santa Cruz, CA
95064-1077
(831) 459-1378
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Cory Kays
kays.cory@aurora.aero
90 Broadway, 11th Floor
Cambridge,
MA
02142-1050
(937) 723-9892
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Blended wing body (BWB) aircraft provide an aerodynamically superior
solution over traditional tube-and-wing designs for a number of mission
profiles. These platforms provide an all-lifting surface with a reduced
wetted area, which lead to significant aerodynamic improvements over
their conventional counterparts. However, due to their lack of a
conventional tail surface with which to trim in pitch during low-speed
operations, these aircraft suffer from a number of stability issues.
Chief among these issues is the potentially catastrophic loss of
feedback – normally a function of the tail surfaces –
when the wing stalls at high angles of attack. This problem is further
manifested through the large variation in stall behavior across the
BWB's wingspan due to significant thickness differences between the
payload-carrying centerbody and the aerodynamically efficient outer wing
portions of the vehicle. Aurora Flight Sciences, in collaboration with
Professor Mircea Teodorescu of the University of California at Santa
Cruz, proposes an actively twisted compliant wing architecture for BWB
aircraft that mitigates the stall concerns typically associated with
these platforms while providing a significant increase in aerodynamic
efficiency. The practical implication resulting from this novel approach
is a state-of-the-art compliant wing architecture that provides active
control of the twist along the span of the wing by sensing and
appropriately responding to oncoming stall risks, thereby eliminating
the need for outer wing washout and drastically improving the
aerodynamic performance of the wing during cruise. These innovative
concepts will be used to complete a preliminary design and build of the
wing structure for proof-of-concept flight testing by the end of Phase
I.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
After the active twist architecture has been thoroughly vetted through
integration into Aurora products, Aurora will aim to sell both the
compliant wing structure construction methodology and the active twist
control system architecture to outside customers as a stand-alone
product, as well as an integrated system. Aurora will act as both the
manufacturer and as a value added reseller, customizing integration and
installation methods and refining the onboard control algorithms as
appropriate for the intended use of the active control technology.
Depending on configuration selection, this system could be packaged a
wing architecture to be retrofitted on existing aircraft or the wing
technology could be incorporated early in the design process of a
ground-up aircraft development. Additionally, the technology could be a
customized system where Aurora partners closely with a customer to
tailor the actively controlled compliant structure to specific aircraft
needs, such as integration into a self-aware vehicle or for prognostic
health monitoring systems. Finally, BWB platforms have been shown to
meet the next-generation requirements of several military aircraft,
including the tanker and the bomber. The active twist technology would
be a crucial to realizing the full potential of such platforms;
therefore, efforts could be made to partner with large contractors to
integrate the active twist technology onto these next-generation
military vehicles.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Retrofitting current NASA UAV platforms with the compliant wing
technology would create revenue, both while opening compliant wing
technology development for the next advanced aircraft, whether it be a
transport-sized BWB platform or a smaller UAV system. NASA's efforts on
the development of next generation commercial transport aircraft have
shown a clear trend towards unconventional designs, including the
strut-braced SUGAR concept and the Aurora/MIT D8 double bubble design
configurations. While the BWB configurations could clearly benefit from
the actively twisted compliant wing technology, the other unconventional
platforms require enabling technologies in aeroelastic control and
dynamic load alleviation to realize their full potential; the actively
controlled compliant wing technology proposed for this effort –
whether it be the fully integrated system or simply standalone
components developed over the course of the effort – could be
leveraged for integration into these next-generation platforms.
Opportunities exist, through Aurora's heavy involvement with the
development of the D8 concept, to implement the wing architecture on
demonstrator programs for these next-generation concepts. These
demonstration opportunities would allow a maturation of the technology,
easing the transition to eventual fielding of the technology in the
commercial or military sector, and providing NASA with an invaluable
technical role in the development of this enabling technology.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Aerodynamics
Analytical Methods
Spacecraft Instrumentation & Astrionics (see also Communications; Control & Monitoring; Information Systems)
Autonomous Control (see also Control & Monitoring)
Algorithms/Control Software & Systems (see also Autonomous Systems)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Vehicles (see also Autonomous Systems)
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T4.02-9887 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Regolith Resource Robotic |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Long-Range Terrain Characterization for Productive Regolith Excavation |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Astrobotic Technology, Inc.
2515 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA
15222-4613
(412) 682-3282
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA
15213-3815
(412) 268-6556
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
William Whittaker
red@cmu.edu
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh,
PA
15213-3815
(412) 268-1338
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
The proposed research will develop long-range terrain characterization
technologies for autonomous excavation in planetary environments. This
work will develop a machine learning framework for long-range prediction
of both surface and subsurface terrain characteristics that: (1)
indicate the excavation-value of the material and (2) describe how
hazardous terrain is to a robotic excavator. Factors influencing
importance include the mineral composition of the material and the
presence and concentration of volatiles. Terrain hazards will include
loose terrain that could cause wheels to sink or slip as well as the
presence of surface and subsurface rocks that would inhibit excavation.
This work will develop technologies for long-range terrain mechanical
characterization and volatile prediction with high spatial coverage.
Ground penetrating radars and neutron spectrometers provide reasonable
accurate estimates of subsurface composition and volatile accumulation;
however, they are limited in sampling range and area. Cameras and LIDAR
will instead be used to measure reflected radiation, temperature, and
geometry at long range with a wide field of view. From these
measurements, the thermal properties and spectral reflectance curves of
the terrain will be estimated, since both are correlated to terrain
composition and traversability. These properties, along with geometry,
will be fed into a machine learning framework for prediction of terrain
characteristics. Priors will be generated based on data from orbital
satellites. Measurements of material composition, volatile accumulation,
and traversability will be generated from expert labeling, neutron
spectrometers, and wheel slip measurements, respectively. These
measurements will be used to train machine learning algorithms for
long-range prediction of terrain mechanical characteristics and resource
concentration.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Development of terrain characterization technology for excavation
robots will lead to commercialization opportunities in earthworking
equipment. In terrestrial construction, excavation machines must still
detect buried hazards and the traversability of soil. Sensing the
physical characteristics of both the surface and the subsurface at
long-range as in this research will increase the reliability, safety,
and efficiency of autonomous terrestrial excavators.
Reliable, long-range detection of loose terrain hazards will also lead
to commercialization opportunities in military, search-and-rescue,
agricultural, and consumer vehicles. In all cases, vehicles would
benefit from safeguarding in the presence of non-geometric hazards in
off-road situations. Astrobotic could package and sell the technology to
vehicle manufactures for inclusion in ground vehicle development.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Regolith excavation is a fundamental need of government and commercial
endeavors on the Moon and Mars in establishing habitats, landing zones,
observatories, roads and resource utilization facilities. The specific
proposed technologies will enhance prospecting and excavating missions
by enabling better prediction of subsurface volatiles to determine the
regions of greatest value for sample acquisition and excavation. This
has the potential to enhance near term missions like Resource Prospector
Mission and Mars 2020 and follow-ons that may include sample return or
site preparation and in-situ resource utilization for a lunar or Martian
base.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Perception/Vision
Robotics (see also Control & Monitoring; Sensors)
Image Analysis
Thermal Imaging (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Data Fusion
Resource Extraction
Visible
Infrared
Multispectral/Hyperspectral
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T4.02-9888 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Regolith Resource Robotic |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Subsurface Prospecting by Planetary Drones |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Astrobotic Technology, Inc.
2515 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA
15222-4613
(412) 682-3282
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA
15213-3815
(412) 268-6556
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Kevin Peterson
kevin.peterson@astrobotic.com
2515 Liberty Ave
Pittsburgh,
PA
15222-4613
(412) 682-3282
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
The proposed program innovates subsurface prospecting by planetary
drones to seek a solution to the difficulty of robotic prospecting,
sample acquisition, and sample characterization at multiple hazardous
locations in a single mission. Innovation focuses on a specific,
challenging scenario: sub-surface access of multiple lava tubes by
drones far enough from Earth for speed-of-light latency to preclude
direct human control. The technology will be broadly applicable to
resource prospecting in cold traps, dark craters, cryovolcanoes,
asteroids, comets, and other planets. The technology is also applicable
to Earth-relevant problems such as the detection of poisonous and
explosive gases and flammable dust in mines; and surveying urban
canyons; exploring bunkers and caves.
The proposed innovation is the development of Anytime Motion Planners
that can generate feasible guidance routines to accomplish subsurface
prospecting by planetary drones. Anytime Motion Planners are algorithms
that can quickly identify an initial feasible plan, then, given more
computation time available during plan execution, improve the plan
toward an optimal solution. In addition to Anytime Motion Planners,
optimal guidance routines will also be innovated in this work by
formulating the Generic Autonomous Guidance Optimal Control Problem
(Problem G&C) (Pavone, Acikmese, Nesnas, & Starek, 2013) as a
convex optimization problem and employing interior-point methods to
solve the resulting problem to global optimality. This work will
determine whether optimal solutions may be computed quickly enough to be
useful in practice.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Astrobotic's proposed approach to reaching other commercial markets is
to target the most likely candidates for market acceptance and
profitability in Phase I and Phase II, particularly UAV application for
defense and surveying. This technology may also be used for the
detection of poisonous and explosive gases and flammable dust in mines;
surveying urban canyons; and exploring bunkers and caves.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The immediate markets within NASA are for exploration and science
missions to surface destinations on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. The
proposed innovations in guidance improve mission capability by enhancing
landing and flying precision; enabling access to previously
inaccessible terrain; providing accurate autonomous target-relative
navigation; modeling a target onboard a spacecraft; and providing a
flight-ready, power efficient solution to TRN. Potential applications to
NASA include:
(1) Resource Prospector Mission, currently in Phase A with a target
launch in 2019, has a $250M budget reserved. Science return is dependent
on landing in an identified region with high volatile content and near
regions of permanent dark. Polar terrain on the Moon is hazardous and
lighting varies locally, so precise landing relative to terrain is
exceptionally important.
(2) The Mars Science Lab (total project budget of $2.5B with ~$550M
expended on operations ) and Mars 2020 (budget $1.5B ). The technology
developed by this research could enhance landing precision and enable
landing at the location of highest value, enhancing mission science
return.
(3) At least six planned NASA missions – Asteroid Redirect,
Comet Surface Sample Return, Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample
Return, Lunar Geophyisical Network, Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher
(Max C), and Venus In-Situ explorer – could be enhanced by this
technology.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry)
Navigation & Guidance
Perception/Vision
Robotics (see also Control & Monitoring; Sensors)
Attitude Determination & Control
Image Processing
Data Fusion
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Astronautics)
Inertial (see also Sensors)
Optical
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T4.02-9916 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Regolith Resource Robotic |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Unmanned Solar Electric Resource Prospector |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Busek Company, Inc.
11 Tech Circle
Natick, MA
01760-1023
(508) 655-5565
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Alabama
Box 870104
Tuscaloosa, AL
35487-0104
(205) 348-7163
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
James Szabo
jszabo@busek.com
11 Tech Circle
Natick,
MA
01760-1023
(508) 655-5565
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
The proposed innovation is a spacecraft that could be used for lunar
or asteroid prospecting missions. The mission plan would involve sending
the spacecraft to an asteroid or other target, and analyzing the
regolith for traces of water and other elements to be mined later for
in-situ resource utilization. The system features multiple innovations.
One is game-changing high delta V solar electric propulsion (SEP)
system featuring a hall thruster flowing iodine propellant. Another is a
small tethered satellite with an on-board propulsion system that can be
used as a modular working arm for the main spacecraft. The proposed
Phase I program includes mission analysis, spacecraft, bus, and
propellant module design, and identification of sensors and tools to be
used for prospecting and plume analysis. Phase I also includes
development of an iodine plasma spacecraft interactions model, which is a
necessary precursor to any deep space mission with iodine propellant.
In Phase II, the entire system including the spacecraft interactions
model will be brought to a higher technology readiness level. Both
Phase I and Phase II will include plasma plume measurements to support
model development and analysis.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed system can be adapted to non-NASA commercial
applications. One is commercial prospecting and mining of space
resources. Another application is a High impulse solar electric upper
stage for commercial launch vehicles uses for the system include using
the SOUL units as a way to attach to and repair satellites in orbit, or
capture tumbling space debris. In addition, the system would be a
valuable technology demonstrator for iodine-fueled hall thrusters. The
spacecraft interactions model is a vital step toward commercial
station-keeping and orbit maintenance applications with iodine plasma
generators of all shapes and sizes.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed innovation is a low cost system for conducting
prospecting missions at asteroids, Near Earth Objects (NEOs), planets,
and their satellites. In one scenario, NASA could use the system to
identify and analyze possible asteroid targets before sending a more
costly mission to land on or capture one for mining purposes. The system
can be altered to fit many different mission profiles. The high delta V
iodine hall thruster makes it possible to choose between a variety of
targets, including the moon, Mars, or an asteroid. The use of iodine in
the propulsion system allows the system to be much lower cost than the
typical xenon SEP system without sacrificing performance. The system
can also function as an electric upper stage for small launch vehicles,
or could be the basis for a technology demonstration in support of the
Asteroid Retrieval Mission. The system may also be used to delivery
CubeSats to high orbits, or for spacecraft servicing and recovery.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Spacecraft Design, Construction, Testing, & Performance (see also Engineering; Testing & Evaluation)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Fuels/Propellants
Spacecraft Main Engine
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T4.02-9942 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Regolith Resource Robotic |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | The World is Not Enough (WINE): Harvesting Local Resources for Eternal Exploration of Space |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Honeybee Robotics, Ltd.
Building 3, Suite 1005 63 Flushing Avenue Unit 150
Brooklyn, NY
11205-1070
(212) 966-0661
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Central Florida
4000 Central Florida Blvd
Orlando, FL
32816-3246
(407) 823-2000
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Philip Metzger
philip.metzger@ucf.edu
4000 Central Florida Blvd
Orlando,
FL
32816-3246
(407) 823-5450
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
The paradigm of exploration is changing. Smaller, smarter, and more
efficient systems are being developed that could do as well as large,
expensive, and heavy systems in the past. The 'science' fiction becomes
reality fueled by advances in computing, materials, and nano-technology.
These new technologies found their way into CubeSats – a
booming business in the 21st century. CubeSats are no longer restricted
to aerospace companies. Universities and even High Schools can develop
them.
The World is Not Enough (WINE) is a new generation of CubeSats that take
advantage of ISRU to explore space for ever. The WINE takes advantage
of existing CubeSat technology and combines it with 3D printing
technology and a water extraction system developed under NASA SBIR,
called MISWE . 3D printing enables development of cold gas thrusters as
well as tanks that fit perfectly within the available space within the
CubeSat. The MISWE allows capture and extraction of water, and takes
advantage of the heat generated by the CubeSat electronics system. The
water is stored in a cold gas thruster's tank and used for propulsion.
Thus, the system can use the water that it has just extracted for
prospecting to refuel and fly to another location. This replenishing of
propellants extends the mission by doing ISRU (living off the land) even
during the prospecting phase.
In Phase 1, we plan to test and investigate critical technologies such
as (1) sample acquisition, (2) volatiles capture, and (3) 3D-printed
cold gas thrusters that use water vapor including the organic and
particulate contaminants that are inevitable during the early stages of
asteroid mining. The engine is similar to a Solar Thermal Engine but
scaled for a CubeSat. In Phase 2, we propose to develop a testbed of the
critical systems and to demonstrate these onboard the International
Space Station (ISS).
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The system could be used by several commercial companies that are
interested in In Situ Resource Utilization for financial gain. These
include Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries targeting
asteroids. Bringing water from the asteroids could be very profitable
given that launching water from space costs ~$20,000/liter. The major
market for water could be human consumption and radiation shielding
(e.g. once Bigelow Space Hotels are established) or refueling of
existing satellites. The latter is of particular interest, since
satellites come to the end of their life not because of electronics, or
power, but because there are running out of fuel for station keeping.
NASA and industry have been developing in space refueling technology,
the first step in enabling refueling of satellites in space.
The technology could also be applied to the Moon and used by Shackleton
Energy Corp., company interested in mining water and delivering it for
refueling spacecrafts at Geostationary Orbit and Geotransfer Orbit. The
International Space University 2012 Summer School demonstrated the
commercial viability of boosting spacecraft to Geostationary Orbit via
water-based propulsion.
With the advent of small satellites (nanosats and CubeSats) one can
imagine that these satellites could be able to stop at an Asteroid,
refueling, and continue exploring.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
NASA can use this system to prospect for mining that will support Mars
exploration missions. It can also use the system for any planetary
exploration when there is a known water resource close to the surface.
It can be used to explore the Moon, Near Earth Asteroids, Main Belt
Asteroids including protoplanet Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, Mars,
Europa, Titan, etc. The water propulsion technology can be adapted by
NASA for its Extreme Access project to mine the permanently shadowed
craters on the Moon. NASA can also use the system to test water/thermal
propulsion at ISS. The results of that testing may lead to a new class
of space tugs to help accomplish missions in cis-lunar space until a
full water electrolysis capability has been established.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Methods
Conversion
Sources (Renewable, Nonrenewable)
Characterization
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Prototyping
Resource Extraction
Isolation/Protection/Shielding (Acoustic, Ballistic, Dust, Radiation, Thermal)
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T4.02-9966 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Regolith Resource Robotic |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | A Robust Architecture for Sampling Small Bodies |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Advanced Space, LLC
4415 Laguna Place, Unit 207
Boulder, CO
80303-3783
(607) 316-1273
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
The Regents of the University of Colorado
3100 Marine Street Rm 479
Boulder, CO
80303-1058
(303) 492-6221
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Jay McMahon
jay.mcmahon@colorado.edu
431 UCB
Boulder,
CO
80309-5004
(303) 492-3944
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 1
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
This proposal will develop an innovative architecture and concept of
operations that permits reliable, safe, and repeated sampling of small
bodies. The Lofted Regolith Sampling (LoRS) architecture is based on
advanced astrodynamics and autonomy that is robust to target-body
uncertainties and is adaptive during operations. The LoRS architecture
is based on several key phases that ultimately lead to a thorough
characterization of the target body and collection of multiple samples
while avoiding complex and highly unpredictable landing requirements.
The first phase of this characterization is the estimation of the body's
gravitational field and remote sensing of the NEO surface. After
sufficiently characterizing the body, the second phase of the proposed
architecture is to disturb material on the surface of the small body
such that it is lofted into orbit about the body. This disturbance can
be initiated with a variety of chemical explosions, kinetic impactors,
or other forces which will be evaluated during the proposed effort. The
third phase is to remotely characterize the lofted material to identify
key attributes such as size and composition. The fourth phase of
operations is for the orbiting spacecraft to approach a specific portion
of the debris field and collect physical samples from the NEO. Once
samples have been collected in orbit, the vehicle can further evaluate
the samples on-board, identifying key constituents etc., and return this
information to terrestrial scientists.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Beyond NASA, the LoRS architecture has the potential to assist other
governments to explore the solar system. The prospecting function of the
LoRS architecture is also expected to be of interest to commercial
companies that have publicly stated an interest in mining asteroids in
the future. This architecture is advantageous to current prospecting
architectures in terms of cost and timeline, and so is expected to be
readily adopted by these non-NASA entities.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The LoRS architecture will directly support infusion into NASA science
and exploration programs that seek to characterize and obtain materials
from asteroids and/or comets. These applications are strengthened by
the LoRS architecture due to its increased flexibility and robustness.
The LoRS architecture will also enable these types of missions in the
near-term time horizon. Associated technologies in remote
characterization and autonomy can be applicable to a large number of
NASA related robotic endeavors.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry)
Navigation & Guidance
Relative Navigation (Interception, Docking, Formation Flying; see
also Control & Monitoring; Planetary Navigation, Tracking, &
Telemetry)
Spacecraft Design, Construction, Testing, & Performance (see also Engineering; Testing & Evaluation)
Spacecraft Instrumentation & Astrionics (see also Communications; Control & Monitoring; Information Systems)
Autonomous Control (see also Control & Monitoring)
Algorithms/Control Software & Systems (see also Autonomous Systems)
Sequencing & Scheduling
Telemetry/Tracking (Cooperative/Noncooperative; see also Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry)
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Astronautics)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T5.01-9982 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Autonomous Communications Systems |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Sensing Aware Autonomous Communications System |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Space Micro, Inc.
10237 Flanders Court
San Diego, CA
92121-1526
(858) 332-0700
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Univ of Arizona
1209 E. 2nd Street, Room 303
Tucson, AZ
85721-3030
(520) 621-5254
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Elettra Venosa
evenosa@spacemicro.com
10237 Flanders Court
San Diego,
CA
92121-1526
(858) 332-0700
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Space Micro and its partner research institution, the University of
Arizona bring together innovations in channelization and network
protocol development. Together, these innovations will provide improved
hopping radios (with digital, rapidly reconfigurable implementation,
wider bandwidth and reduced overhead penalty for hopping) and improved
spectrum and link quality sensing. We will demonstrate how these
improvements provide the basis for links and networks that rapidly
adapt. During phase 1, we will prove the feasibility of our approach and
quantify the potential improvements in throughput and robustness of the
link. We anticipate that adaptively changing the center frequency,
hopping pattern, modulation and data rate will lead to doubling of the
energy efficiency of data downlink for nominal conditions by keeping the
link margin relatively constant. We anticipate much larger improvements
for conditions with severe interference due to increased communications
opportunities.
Space Micro has already developed unique and critically important
technologies that solve many of these challenges. Space Micro's advanced
software defined radio, which we call the Agile Space Radio (ASR) is
capable of adjusting its transmitter's data rate, modulation type and
center frequency on the fly. Moreover, it is capable of advanced
spectrum sensing to support its situational awareness over the entire
accessible bandwidth, currently configured to the entire STDN band. This
software-defined platform is used as a multi-band, multi-waveform
transponder. We propose to demonstrate the concepts described in this
proposal using the ASR. We propose to market the end product as an ASR
feature set, though it may be possible to also use the concepts/end
products on other SDRs.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
This technology and evolving Space Micro products will also benefit
many commercial space platforms, both LEO and GEO telecommunication
satellites, such as Intelsat, Direct TV, XM radio, Orbcomm, and Iridium
Next telecom constellation replenishment, plus standard industry busses
including Lockheed's A2100, SSL LC-1300, ATK200-700, and Boeing's
HS-702. Civil earth sensing applications such as weather/metrology
applications e.g. (NOAA GOES and Landsat) can also benefit.
The large DoD space industry, including USAF, MDA, NRO, and new Army
nanosat programs at SMDC will directly benefit. Among these programs are
AEHF upgrades, GPS follow-ons, MDA's STSS and PTSS, USAF TacSat family,
EAGLE, Plug and Play (PnP) sats, Operationally Responsive Space (ORS),
and Army SMDC nanosat family e.g. (Kestrel Eye). The entire CubeSat
initiative including NRO's Colony program would benefit.
This technology and space product will also address emerging MDA
interceptor missile radiation threats. These programs include CKV, AKV,
THAAD, AEGIS, MKV, and GMD for Blocks 2018 and beyond.
Other military applications may include strategic missiles (Trident D5
and Air Force Minuteman and MX upgrades).
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Virtually all NASA space programs have a demand for this technology
and resulting space qualified product. NASA applications range from
science missions, space station, earth sensing missions e.g. (EOS), and
deep space missions. This device will enable improved docking, proximity
operations, and landing missions. NASA programs/missions that will
benefit include new lunar landers and orbiters, Mars missions (MAVEN),
solar system exploration e.g. (Titan, Juno, Europa, comet nucleus
return, New Discovery, and Living with a Star (LWS). NASA programs which
hopefully will continue to be funded by Congress include the next
generation heavy launch vehicle called SLS, the Orion Multipurpose Crew
Exploration Vehicle, Commercial Crew Development Vehicle (CCDev2) and
Commercial Orbiter Transportation Service (COTS) will benefit. Space
products evolving from this SBIR , and marketed by Space Micro, would
have been enabling for NASA programs such as RBSP, GRAIL, LADEE, IRIS,
Dawn, SDO, Aquarius, Kepler, Ocean Vector Winds, and space
interferometry (SIR). New future missions which hopefully will be funded
include BARREL, CLARREO, GEMS, solar orbiter, Osiris-Rex asteroid
sample return mission, Solar Probe Plus, and ILN.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Methods
Navigation & Guidance
Autonomous Control (see also Control & Monitoring)
Architecture/Framework/Protocols
Transmitters/Receivers
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T5.01-9993 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Autonomous Communications Systems |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Wideband Autonomous Cognitive Radios for Networked Satellites Communications |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Bluecom Systems And Consulting, LLC
801 University Southeast, Suite 100
Albuquerque, NM
87106-4345
(505) 615-1807
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
The Regents of the University of New Mexico
1700 Lomas Blvd NE Ste 2200, MSC-01 1247
Albuquerque, NM
87131-0001
(505) 277-1264
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Christos Christodoulou
christos@unm.edu
ECE Department, University of New Mexico
Albuquerque,
NM
87131-0001
(505) 277-6580
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
There is growing recognition that success in a variety of space
mission types can be greatly enhanced by making current communication
transceivers and networks evolve towards networked communication systems
that are intelligent, self-aware and thus can support greater levels of
autonomy. This will be especially relevant as networked clusters of
smaller-size satellites, made of CubeSats or microsatellites, are more
and more used in place of a single monolithic satellite. The proposed
wideband autonomous cognitive radios (WACRs) provide an ideal approach
to achieving such autonomous and network-aware communications. The
BlueCom team proposes to design and develop WACRs during the Phase I of
this project by integrating a real-time reconfigurable radio front-end
and a field programmable gate array implemented cognitive engine on to a
software-defined radio (SDR) platform.
WACRs will have the ability to sense state of the RF spectrum and
network and self-optimize its performance in response to the sensed
state. The cognitive engine is made of machine-learning aided algorithms
to achieve this goal. The SDR platform coupled with a real-time
reconfigurable RF front-end will allow the WACR to reconfigure its
communication mode as directed by the cognitive engine. This will enable
a WACR to overcome communications challenges encountered in space
applications including interference, deep fading, waveform agility,
delay and very low SNR by dynamically changing its mode of operation.
This type of self-aware, autonomous and intelligent communication is
what will be required to exploit the full benefits of networked clusters
of satellites (e.g. CubeSats) in various mission types including earth
monitoring and unmanned autonomous lunar/ planetary exploration.
Phase I deliverables will include a detailed design of a WACR system
architecture and a cognitive engine as well as development of cognitive
algorithms and a real-time reconfigurable RF front-end/antennas.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Potential non-NASA applications of proposed wideband autonomous
cognitive radios (WACRs) include military, homeland security and
commercial applications. First, the proposed WACRs are in-line with the
vision put-forth in the 2012 PCAST report for allowing coexistence of
many different systems in larger spectrum bands without exclusive
spectrum licensing. WACRs are an ideal technology to implement such
spectrum coexistence. Thus, proposed WACRs can lead to a future
universal radio device/system that may meet all communications needs of a
user revolutionizing the consumer telecommunications.
Moreover, cognitive radio technology can be utilized in many military
applications such as broadband radar systems, directed energy diagnostic
tools and covert communication. For example, the proposed filtenna
technology can be integrated into the front-end of a radar to provide
frequency agility and side-lobe suppression thereby increasing
cross-range resolution. The filtenna technology can also be integrated
into frequency selective screen sheets to provide frequency agile
electromagnetic screens. Such screens can be placed around sensitive
electronics and components to protect them from wideband RF threats.
The WACRs can be also be used in unmanned aerial vehicles as well as for
achieving reliable emergency/disaster/first-responder communications.
The spectrum-, network- and self-aware operation of WACRs provide a
robust solution for emergency and first-responder communications.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Proposed wideband autonomous cognitive radios (WACRs) are an ideal
technology to exploit full benefits of networked clusters of satellites
(such as CubeSats). Clusters of satellites networked via proposed WACRs
offer opportunities for both improving performance of current space
communications links as well as exploring new communications paradigms.
They can enable various cognitive cooperative communications techniques
leading to new approaches to achieving mission success in certain
situations. For example, cooperative relaying in a networked cluster of
satellites can provide a data path for observing the night side of Mars.
WACRs can also be ideal for achieving delay tolerant networking(DTN)in
earth monitoring or unmanned lunar/planetary exploration missions: A
networked cluster of satellites can provide either a time-sequenced
observations of a single location or simultaneous ones at multiple
locations. Cognitive cooperative communications enabled by WACRs can be
used to link this data to a ground station reliably with minimum delay.
Other applications include, a) facilitating higher bandwidth and fewer
dropouts in imagery that is sent over "short" distances such as LEO
spacecraft-to-ground, b) agility to avoid interference with other
systems and to adapt waveforms, c) optimizing bandwidth within power
limitations particularly at very long ranges such as interplanetary
operations and d) reduction of interference behavior in reception-only
modes such as radio astronomy.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Intelligence
Antennas
Architecture/Framework/Protocols
Network Integration
Transmitters/Receivers
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T6.01-9894 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Gas Sensing Technology Advancements for Spacesuits |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Nanoengineered Hybrid Gas Sensors for Spacesuit Monitoring |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
N5 Sensors, Inc.
18008 Cottage Garden Drive, 302
Germantown, MD
20874-5820
(301) 257-6756
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA
22030-4422
(703) 993-1596
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Ratan Debnath
rdebnath@n5sensors.com
9610 Medical Center Dr
Rockville,
MD
20850-6372
(301) 975-2103
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Extravehicular Mobility Units (EVU) are the necessary to perform
elaborate, dynamic tasks in the biologically harsh conditions of space
from International Space Station (ISS) external repairs to human
exploration of planetary bodies. The EVUs have stringent requirements on
physical and chemical nature of the equipment/components/processes, to
ensure safety and health of the individual require proper functioning of
its life-support systems. Monitoring the Portable Life Support System
(PLSS) of the EVU in real time is to ensure the safety of the astronaut
and success of the mission.N5 Sensors will demonstrate an ultra-small
form factor, highly reliable, rugged, low-power sensor architecture that
is ideally suited for monitoring trace chemicals in spacecraft
environment. This will be accomplished by our patent-pending innovation
in photo-enabled sensing utilizing a hybrid chemiresistor architecture,
which combines the selective adsorption properties of multicomponent
(metal-oxide and metal) photocatalytic nanoclusters together with the
sensitive transduction capability of sub-micron semiconductor gallium
nitride (GaN) photoconductors. For the phase I project we will
demonstrate oxygen, carbon dioxide, and ammonia sensor elements on a
single chip. Innovative GaN photoconductor design will enable
high-sensitivity, low power consumption, and self-calibration for the
sensor current drift. The multicomponent nanocluster layer design
enables room-temperature sensing with high selectivity, resulting in
significant power saving and enhanced reliability. The fabrication of
the sensors will be done using traditional photolithography and plasma
etching. The nanocluster functionalization layer will be deposited using
sputtering methods. The sensor testing will be carried out to determine
sensing range, sensitivity, selective, and response/recovery times.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Measuring individual exposure in real-time can revolutionize air
quality monitoring in communities everywhere. Such information would
allow citizens to take preventive measures to reduce their exposures to
air toxics, which would tremendously impact their health and quality of
life. Mobile devices such as smart-phones and tablets represent a
powerful infrastructure which could be leveraged to develop personal air
monitors. However, traditional sensor technologies (such as
electrochemical and photo-ionization detectors), commonly used for
industrial safety monitoring, are big, power-hungry, and has limited
sensitivity and life-time. Monitoring of NOx, SOx, H2S, O3, for
individual pollutant monitoring. Monitoring the BTEX family around
fracking sites and other affects industrial progess would provide hard
data about the environmental effect industry has on the environment.
Portable gas detection instruments have been used since the early days
of mining (canaries, Davy's lamp). Today, almost all major industrial
operations use gas detectors for safety of the personnel and
infrastructure. The North American market for multi-gas portable
industrial detectors are over $ 230 M (2016 - CAGR 7.2%, over 264,291
units sold, with average price~ $1K), with Oil and Gas, and
Petrochemical and Chemicals industries being the most dominant users.
World-wide hand-held detector market is over ~ $2 B.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
In addition to EVUs monitoring the proposed single-chip multianalyte
sensors are ideally suited for in-flight monitoring of the trace
chemical constituents, which is essential for crew health, safety, and
systems operation. These sensors are low-power, rugged, and
radiation-hard, making them ideally suited for integrated spacecraft
monitoring networks. Due to their robustness these sensors can be also
used for measuring trace gases such as CO, CO2, O2, NH3, CH4, and H2O
for planetary environmental monitoring.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Essential Life Resources (Oxygen, Water, Nutrients)
Chemical/Environmental (see also Biological Health/Life Support)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T6.01-9940 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Gas Sensing Technology Advancements for Spacesuits |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Spacesuit Multigas Monitor |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Southwest Sciences, Inc.
1570 Pacheco Street, Suite E-11
Santa Fe, NM
87505-3993
(505) 984-1322
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Southwest Research Institute
1050 Walnut Street, Suite 300
Boulder, CO
80302-5142
(303) 546-9670
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Steven Massick
smassick@swsciences.com
1570 Pacheco Street, Suite E-11
Santa Fe,
NM
87505-3993
(505) 984-1322
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Southwest Sciences Inc. (SWS), in collaboration with the Southwest
Research Institute (SwRI), will develop a reliable, ultra compact, low
power diode laser multigas sensor to measure carbon dioxide (CO2),
ammonia (NH3), oxygen (O2) and water vapor (H2O) concentrations in the
presence of saturated and condensable water concentrations appropriate
for NASA's portable life support system (PLSS). A high sensitivity
optical absorption technique known as wavelength modulation spectroscopy
will be used in the sensor.
The system will be light weight (<1 kg), low power (1 W), and fast
(minimum 1 Hz measurement rate). The specifications of the proposed
multigas sensor will provide reliable gas concentration measurements to
ensure extended operation of the PLSS during extravehicular activities
(EVA). The combined Phase I and Phase II project will provide NASA with a
prototype sensor that will provide the same gas concentration data with
equivalent or better accuracy as the current GS-300 and GS-322 sensors
with the addition of an ammonia measurement not currently available in
the PLSS.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Southwest Sciences and its licensing partners are developing numerous
WMS instruments for use in both the private and government sectors. Both
the compact cell design and the FPGA based electronics (hardware and
algorithms) will greatly aid in manufacturability of future instruments.
Government agencies interested in gas measurements include NASA, D.O.E,
USDA, DOD and NSF. The private sector applications of the technology
developed in this STTR project include gas sensing for environmental
research, leak detection, process gas contaminant detection, breath gas
analysis and packaging head space measurements.
Our plan is to build these instruments on a custom manufacturing and
sales basis.
Our vision is to continue as a highly successful broad technology
development company, commercializing promising technologies through
licensing, small-scale in-house manufacturing, creating joint-ventures
with partners, or creating spin-off companies as separate entities,
depending on the type of technology and the intended market. Southwest
Sciences has successfully commercialized eight products: five products
via licensing to manufacturing companies, two products that are sold
directly to the public, and one product sold under a sole-source
supplier agreement to a major U.S.-based multi-national corporation.
Five of these eight products were developed with the aid of SBIR funds.
Southwest Sciences currently has four active, income generating
licenses.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Carbon dioxide concentration measurements are used by the PLSS to
trigger regeneration of the two adsorbent beds of the rapid cycle amine
system (RCA) that remove CO2 and water from the spacesuit atmosphere.
Several extravehicular activities (EVA) aboard the space station have
been terminated prematurely due to faulty CO2 sensors. Without accurate
CO2 concentration data the PLSS reverts to a conservative timed mode for
RCA catalyst regeneration based on a high metabolic rate and the
astronaut is typically advised to monitor their physical condition for
symptoms high CO2 concentration. The technology developed for the PLSS
can be extended to monitor cabin air quality.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Essential Life Resources (Oxygen, Water, Nutrients)
Health Monitoring & Sensing (see also Sensors)
Protective Clothing/Space Suits/Breathing Apparatus
Chemical/Environmental (see also Biological Health/Life Support)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T6.01-9981 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Gas Sensing Technology Advancements for Spacesuits |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Compact Raman Air Sensor |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Mesa Photonics, LLC
1550 Pacheco Street
Santa Fe, NM
87505-3914
(505) 216-5015
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Central Florida
12201 Research Parkway, Suite 501
Orlando, FL
32826-3246
(407) 823-3778
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Marwood Ediger
wediger@mesaphotonics.com
1550 Pacheco Street
Santa Fe,
NM
87505-3914
(505) 216-5015
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 6
End: 7
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Mesa Photonics, in collaboration with the College of Optics and
Photonics (CREOL) at the University of Central Florida, proposes to
develop a spacesuit gas sensor based upon its Enhanced Raman Gas Sensor
(ERGS) technology. The goal a moisture tolerant, drop-in replacement for
the current CO2 sensor. Preliminary work achieved detection
sensitivities for CO2, CH4, O2, and N2 of 1000, 300, 1000 and 1500 ppm,
respectively. ERGS reports gas partial pressures directly and can
operate tolerate pure oxygen. The response to all gases is linear from 0
to 100%. No consumable supplies are required and ERGS is
self-calibrating.
The ERGS technique is compact and robust and has low electrical power
requirements. Its detection performance and physical characteristics
make it well suited as a flight-capable system spacesuit gas sensor.
ERGS detects gases by recording the Raman spectrum of a gas mixture
flowing through a short length (~50 cm) of hollow-core photonic crystal
fiber (HC-PCF). Sensitivity is more than 800 times better than
conventional Raman spectroscopy since the gas and light confinement
increases the Raman interaction length.
This proposed STTR project is designed to bring ERGS technology from its
current TRL 6 to TRL 8 or 9 at the end of Phase II. Phase I work by
Mesa Photonics includes improving ERGS optical design, verifying gas
measurement accuracy over a wide range of mixture compositions and total
pressures, and testing response to condensing moisture. The CREOL team
will design custom HC-PCF that is better matched to ERGS wavelength
requirements and, possibly, have a larger diameter hollow core. In Phase
II, Mesa will build, test, and deliver a prototype gas that will
include custom fiber produced at CREOL based on the hollow-core designs
from Phase I. The Phase II prototype will have a similar footprint to
the existing Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) gas sensor.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
ERGS was initially developed for soil gas sensing in applications like
carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) sites. Since ERGS can
sensitively measure CO2, O2, N2 and CH4 simultaneously in real-time, it
can provide the gas partial pressure data necessary to discern naturally
occurring CO2 versus any leakage in the containment system. The ability
to account for all key environmental gases, unattended, with a small
footprint and low power requirements and without the need for supplies
or consumables make it an ideal solution for networks of sensors around
CCS sites. Advancement to the technology achieved in the proposed
project will have direct implications to the application of ERGS for CCS
and other terrestrial gas sensing applications.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The primary end-use of the technology developed in this project is to
replace currently under-performing gas sensor technology in NASA's
Portable Life Support System. The ERGS-based sensor developed in this
project is anticipated to meet mission requirements for current the
Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) and the upcoming Advanced EMU. The
ERGS sensor offers the advantage of simultaneous measurement of key
breathing air constituents (CO2, O2 and N2) and advancements during the
proposed project may enable measurement of ammonia and water vapor. The
proposed ERGS platform will deliver accurate, precise measurements in a
compact and robust package.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Essential Life Resources (Oxygen, Water, Nutrients)
Health Monitoring & Sensing (see also Sensors)
Protective Clothing/Space Suits/Breathing Apparatus
Fiber (see also Communications, Networking & Signal Transport; Photonics)
Detectors (see also Sensors)
Lasers (Measuring/Sensing)
Biological (see also Biological Health/Life Support)
Optical/Photonic (see also Photonics)
Pressure/Vacuum
Visible
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T6.01-9992 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Gas Sensing Technology Advancements for Spacesuits |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Advanced Gas Sensing Technology for Space Suits |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc.
2520 West 237th Street
Torrance, CA
90505-5217
(424) 263-6300
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of North Texas
1155 Union Circle #305250
Denton, TX
76203-5017
(940) 565-3940
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Jesus Delgado Alonso
jesusda@intopsys.com
2520 West 237th Street
Torrance,
CA
90505-5217
(424) 263-6321
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Advanced space suits require lightweight, low-power, durable sensors
for monitoring critical life support materials. No current compact
sensors have the tolerance for liquid water that is specifically
required for portable life support systems (PLSS). Intelligent Optical
Systems (IOS) will develop a luminescence-based optical sensor probe to
monitor carbon dioxide, oxygen, and humidity, and selected trace
contaminants. Our monitor will incorporate robust CO2, O2, and H2O
partial pressure sensors interrogated by a compact, low-power
optoelectronic unit. The sensors will not only tolerate liquid water but
will actually operate while wet, and can be remotely connected to
electronic circuitry by an optical fiber cable immune to electromagnetic
interference. For space systems, these miniature sensor elements with
remote optoelectronics give unmatched design flexibility for
measurements in highly constrained volume systems such as PLSS. Our
flow-through monitor design includes an optical sensor we have already
developed for PLSS humidity monitoring, and an optical oxygen sensor,
both of them based on a common IOS technology. In prior projects IOS has
demonstrated a CO2 sensor capable of operating while wet that also met
PLSS environmental and analytical requirements, but did not meet life
requirements. A new generation of CO2 sensors will be developed to
advance this sensor technology and fully meet all NASA requirements,
including sensor life. The totally novel approach will overcome the
limitations of state-of-the-art luminescent sensors for CO2. Additional
sensors will be developed to monitor trace contaminants often found in
the ventilation loop as result of material off-gassing or crew member
metabolism. IOS has established collaboration with UTC Aerospace Systems
to produce prototypes for space qualification, and will conduct
extensive testing under simulated space conditions, ensuring a smooth
path to technology infusion.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Compact high-performance gas sensors have a number of aeronautical
applications. IOS has already negotiated with Lockheed Martin
Aeronautics to integrate the sensor probe to be developed in the
proposed project into flight crew air supply systems. Because of its
status as both an aircraft system integrator and a leading supplier of
avionic and aeronautics subsystems, Lockheed Martin is in an excellent
position to bring IOS sensor technology to the aeronautics market.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Advanced Extra-Vehicular Activity systems are necessary for the
successful support of the International Space Station beyond 2020, for
future human space exploration missions, for in-space microgravity EVA,
and for planetary surface exploration. In collaboration with NASA
personnel, IOS has identified several needs and potential applications
of multiparameter probe sensors, particularly for space suits. These
include the International Space Station (ISS) Extra-vehicular Mobility
Unit (EMU), the Orion-derived Launch Entry Abort (LEA), and future
Advanced EMU development. The ISS EMU requirement is the highest
priority, because problems have been reported in the CO2 sensor in use
under conditions of liquid water condensation, and because solving
problems reported in the CO2 scrubber system require a humidity sensor
capable of withstanding water condensation. NASA guidance and the
participation of UTC Aerospace Systems will ensure that the prototypes
resulting from this project are compatible with the ISS EMU PLSS system.
The proposed technology will also have application as a monitor for air
quality in the pressurized cabins of crewed spacecraft, will
significantly improve miniaturization, and has potential for distributed
sensing.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Health Monitoring & Sensing (see also Sensors)
Chemical/Environmental (see also Biological Health/Life Support)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T6.02-9936 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Space Weather |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | A Coupled System for Predicting SPE Fluxes |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Predictive Science, Inc.
9990 Mesa Rim Road, Suite 170
San Diego, CA
92121-3933
(858) 450-6494
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University New Hampshire
8 College Road
Durham, NH
03824-2600
(603) 862-3451
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Jon Linker
linkerj@predsci.com
9990 Mesa Rim Road, Ste 170
San Diego,
CA
92121-3933
(858) 450-6489
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Solar Particle Events (SPEs) represent a major hazard for
extravehicular maneuvers by astronauts in Earth orbit, and for eventual
manned interplanetary space travel. They can also harm aircraft
avionics, communication and navigation. We propose to develop a system
to aid forecasters in the prediction of such events, and in the
identification/lengthening of "all clear" time periods when there is a
low probability of such events occurring. The system leverages three
recently developed technologies: physics-based models of the solar
corona and inner heliosphere, robust CME modeling techniques, and
empirical/physics-based assessments of energetic particle fluxes using
the Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module (EMMREM, University of
New Hampshire). When completed, the proposed SPE Threat Assessment Tool,
or STAT, will represent a significant step forward in our ability to
assess the possible impact of SPE events.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
SPEs are of concern not only to NASA, but to many government and
commercial entities dependent on satellites and aircraft. For example,
NOAA SWPC provides space weather information to a range of customers,
for many of whom the forecasting of SPEs is a top priority. The Air
Force is also interested in mitigation strategies for SPEs. The
fledgling private manned launch services industry may wish to develop
their own forecasting capabilities, as opposed to solely relying on
government services. Once we have successfully developed STAT for NASA
applications, we can address the needs of these customers as well.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The CCMC, located at NASA GSFC, is presently testing different space
weather models to assess their applicability for eventual operational
settings. STAT would represent the coupling of two preeminent modeling
capabilities at CCMC (CORHEL and EMMREM) to produce physics-based model
predictions of SEP fluxes. STAT would also be of significant interest to
NASA SRAG, which is charged with the difficult responsibility of
ensuring that the radiation exposure received by astronauts remains
below established safety limits. This requires identifying periods with a
high probability of no SPEs, as well as recognizing the imminent threat
of an SPE. STAT can aid SRAG in this endeavor by estimating particle
fluxes and dose rates for possible eruptions when a threatening active
region is identified.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Methods
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Data Modeling (see also Testing & Evaluation)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T6.02-9946 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Space Weather |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Improved Forecasts of Solar Particle Events using Eruptive Event Generators based on Gibson-Low and Titov-Demoulin Magnetic Configurations |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Michigan Aerospace Corporation
1777 Highland Drive, Suite B
Ann Arbor, MI
48108-2285
(734) 975-8777
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
The Regents of the University of Michigan
2455 Hayward St.
Ann Arbor, MI
48109-2143
(734) 647-4705
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Matthew Lewis
mlewis@michaero.com
1777 Highland Drive, Suite B
Ann Arbor,
MI
48108-2285
(734) 975-8777
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 6
End: 7
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Radiation hazards constitute a serious risk to human and robotic space
operations beyond Low-Earth orbit. Primary contributors to space
radiation include Solar Particle Events (SPEs) associated with Coronal
Mass Ejections (CMEs).
Because the mechanisms that produce coronal mass ejections (CME) are
exceedingly complex, no reliable deterministic methods for predicting
eruptions are yet available, and the most successful approaches are
phenomenological and probabilistic in nature. But predicting the
eruption is only part of the problem.
In order to forecast the time, location, flux, and the energy spectrum
of a Solar Particle Event (in order to better model its effect on
specific hardware and instruments, for example) we must also understand
the intervening plasma environment, including the steady-state magnetic
configuration, as well as the dynamic, eruption driven configurations
that provide for the time dependent transport and diffusive acceleration
of solar energetic particles.
Progress has been made in the understanding of the solar atmosphere due
to the increased availability of observational data and the development
of analytical and numerical models of the solar wind. One aspect of this
development is the construction of complex three-dimensional (3D)
models, which can be validated with observations and further refined to
improve the comparison.
In order to improve SPE forecasts Michigan Aerospace Corporation (MAC)
and the University of Michigan's department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and
Space Science (AOSS) intend to cooperate on this STTR project, which
seeks, over Phase 1 and Phase 2, to 1) Use data-driven statistical
models to forecast the likelihood of solar eruptions; 2) Couple these
predictions with eruption generation models in the context of the Space
Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF) to forecast the likely time, location,
flux, and energy spectrum of Solar Energetic Particles.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
This technology will use data-driven statistical models to forecast
the likelihood of solar eruptions and couple these predictions with
eruption generation models in the context of the Space Weather Modeling
Framework (SWMF) to forecast the likely time, location, flux, and energy
spectrum of Solar Energetic Particles.
In principle, because the SWMF is publicly available, the forecasting
technology described in this proposal could be developed by a into a
commercial space weather forecasting product by a private company,
available on a subscription (or other) basis to interested parties.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
This technology will use data-driven statistical models to forecast
the likelihood of solar eruptions and couple these predictions with
eruption generation models in the context of the Space Weather Modeling
Framework (SWMF) to forecast the likely time, location, flux, and energy
spectrum of Solar Energetic Particles.
In principle, this technology could be developed by NASA into a
commercial space weather forecasting product, available on a
subscription (or other) basis to interested parties.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Methods
Space Transportation & Safety
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Development Environments
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T6.02-9986 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Space Weather |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Improved Forecasting of Solar Particle Events and their Effects on Space Electronics |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
CFD Research Corporation
701 McMillian Way Northwest, Suite D
Huntsville, AL
35806-2923
(256) 726-4800
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
The University of Alabama in Huntsville
301 Sparkman Drive NW
Huntsville, AL
35899-1911
(256) 824-2657
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Ashok Raman
ashok.raman@cfdrc.com
701 McMillian Way NW, Suite D
Huntsville,
AL
35806-2923
(256) 726-4800
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
High-energy space radiation from Galactic Cosmic Rays and Solar
Particle Events (SPEs) pose significant risks to equipment and astronaut
health in NASA missions. In particular, energetic particles from SPEs
associated with flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) constitute a
highly dynamic and penetrating radiation environment that may adversely
affect not only beyond-Low-Earth-Orbit missions, but also aircraft
avionics, communications, and airline crew/passenger health. It is
crucial to develop a capability to forecast SPEs and their effects on
systems to guide planning of mission-related tasks and to adopt risk
mitigation strategies for personnel and equipment.
In this project, CFD Research Corporation (CFDRC) and the University of
Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) propose to develop a comprehensive modeling
capability - SPE Forecast (SPE4) - comprising state-of-the-art modules
that individually address important aspects of the overall problem,
integrated within a novel Python-language-based framework. SPE4 will
include: (a) the MAG4 code for probability forecasts of flares/CMEs, and
resulting SPEs, based on SDO/HMI magnetograms, interfaced to (b) the
PATH code for transport of emitted particles through the heliosphere,
interfaced to (c) Geant4-based transport calculations for particles
through geomagnetic field modulation and atmospheric interactions (in
low-Earth orbits), to finally yield spectra of SPE-induced energetic
protons and heavy ions (and secondary particles) as a function of time
and location. In Phase I, we will develop an SPE4 framework prototype,
demonstrate automated execution and information flow between different
codes, and validate against data for a known event. In Phase II, we will
collaborate with Vanderbilt University to interface the resulting
particle spectra with downstream codes to calculate single-event effects
in electronics. The SPE4 framework, interfaces, and procedures will be
optimized for rapid "event to effects" predictions.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Dynamic variations in the high-energy, highly-penetrating solar
particle environment can adversely affect aircraft (especially near the
Poles), cause navigational and GPS equipment interference, disrupt
spacecraft electronic systems, and cause disruption/equipment failure in
communication systems. For DoD agencies and commercial entities with
space-based or high-altitude assets, an efficient and accurate
predictive capability for the radiation environment at desired locations
or along preset trajectories, and resulting effects caused in systems
(electronics, materials), will be a significant aid to mission planners
for scheduling tasks and to adopt risk mitigation strategies for
equipment.
Changes in the Earth's ionosphere due to SPEs can modify the
transmission path and even block transmission of High Frequency (1-30
MHz) radio signals. These frequencies are used by amateur (ham) radio
operators, commercial airlines, and government agencies such as the
Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Defense.
Terrestrial applications such as electric power transmission systems can
be affected by SPE-induced changes to the geomagnetic field leading to
blackouts. Induced stray currents leading to corrosion in above-ground
oil pipelines (near the Poles) is another concern. In all these cases, a
predictive capability for SPE-induced radiation spikes can help
equipment managers intelligently manage operations and prevent
catastrophic failures.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed effort is aligned with the goals of NASA's Living With a
Star (LWS) program that is focused on developing a predictive
understanding of solar activity and its effects on Earth and space-based
assets. The newly developed and validated "event-to-effects" modeling
capability will be synergistic to the strategic capability models
available to the scientific community (e.g., via the Community
Coordinated Modeling Center – CCMC - at Goddard/GSFC). In fact,
the MAG4 solar activity forecasting code within the overall SPE4
package is already (individually) available from CCMC. With the
subsequent emphasis on linking with codes to calculate effects in
electronics, optimizing SPE4 interfaces and calculation procedures, and
continued validation, this project will also focus on transition towards
operational use.
This effort also addresses objectives outlined in NASA's Human Research
Roadmap and OCT Technology Roadmap TA06 – Human Health, Life
Support, and Habitation Systems, specifically, the sub-technology area
of Radiation, including Space Weather Prediction and Protection Systems.
The SPE4 software will specifically address the limitations facing
mission operational planning in terms of forecasting the occurrence,
magnitude, and all-clear periods of SPEs. The SPE4 framework will also
support interfaces to other downstream codes for radiation effects
calculations (e.g., to analyze and design effective shielding
materials).
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Isolation/Protection/Radiation Shielding (see also Mechanical Systems)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Verification/Validation Tools
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T8.01-9857 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Technologies for Planetary Compositional Analysis and Mapping |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | ShortWave Infrared Focal plane Technology for Close-range Active Mineralogy Mapping (SWIFT-CAMM) |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Wavefront, LLC
7 Johnston Circle
Basking Ridge, NJ
07920-3741
(609) 558-4806
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Utah State University
Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322-1415
Logan, UT
84322-1415
(435) 881-1800
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Jie Yao
JieYao@WavefrontLLC.us
7 Johnston Circle
Basking Ridge,
NJ
07920-3741
(609) 558-4806
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
We propose to develop a Photon-Counting Integrated Circuit (PCIC)
mega-pixel focal plane array (FPA) imager with highest sensitivity,
lowest noise and hence highest signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) among all
imagers covering the shortwave infrared band, and to incorporate the
prototype PCIC imager into a prototype imaging spectroscopy CAMM
instrument for real-time operation on a planetary surface to guide rover
targeting, sample selection (for missions involving sample return), and
science optimization of data returned to earth, thus improving science
return from instruments used to study the elemental, chemical, and
mineralogical composition of planetary materials.
During Phase I, we will develop and prototype a limited-size array of
PCIC detector pixels as well as design and model the imaging
spectrometer CAMM instrument. In Phase II, we will develop and
prototype a mega-pixel PCIC focal plane array (FPA) imager as well as
the imaging spectrometer CAMM instrument incorporating the PCIC imager.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Besides aerospace and defense applications, the proposed sensor
technology also finds commercial applications in security, law
enforcement, border patrol, scientific instruments, laser detection,
laser eye protection, biomedical imaging, prosthetic vision aid,
ecosystem monitoring and protection, manufacturing quality control and
consumer electronics cameras. We will concentrate on our commercial
medical device products at present.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed Photon-Counting Integrated Circuit (PCIC) mega-pixel
focal plane array (FPA) imager will provide highest sensitivity, lowest
noise and hence highest signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) among all imagers
covering the shortwave infrared band for a wide range of instruments and
missions.
The proposed imaging spectroscopy CAMM instrument will improve real-time
operation on a planetary surface to guide rover targeting, sample
selection (for missions involving sample return), and science
optimization of data returned to earth, thus improving science return
from instruments used to study the elemental, chemical, and
mineralogical composition of planetary materials.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Microfabrication (and smaller; see also Electronics; Mechanical Systems; Photonics)
Detectors (see also Sensors)
Optical/Photonic (see also Photonics)
Infrared
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T8.01-9947 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Technologies for Planetary Compositional Analysis and Mapping |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Compact Laser for In-Situ Compositional Analysis |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Q-Peak, Inc.
135 South Road
Bedford, MA
01730-2307
(781) 275-9535
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Hawaii
2440 Campus Road, Box 368
Honolulu, HI
96822-2234
(808) 956-7880
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Bhabana Pati
pati@qpeak.com
135 South Road
Bedford,
MA
01730-2307
(781) 275-9535
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
In response to NASA's solicitation for light-weight and power
efficient instruments that enable in situ compositional analysis, Q-Peak
in partnership with the University of Hawaii proposes to develop a
compact, robust, and efficient instrument to combine all laser based
spectroscopies capable of performing imaging, Raman, Laser Induced
Breakdown, Laser Induced Fluorescence and LIDAR The main advantage in
using this suite of instruments is the collection of information from
imaging to elemental composition of rock samples by simply directing a
laser beam on remote targets of interest.
Based on the success of the current Mars Science Laboratory rover
instrument ChemCam, the first ever laser-based spectrographic system to
be selected as an instrument on a NASA spacecraft, the Hawaii Institute
of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) has developed and tested a
prototype instrument. This new instrument is capable of at least 10,000
times greater sensitivity than the ChemCam instrument, allowing faster
measurements up to 8 m away with a focused laser beam. This integrated,
compact remote instrument is called the Compact integrated instrument
for Remote Spectroscopy Analysis (CiiRSA). Replacing the existing laser
with the Q-Peak proposed laser will reduce CiiRSA's weight by 30 % and
volume by 20 %.
In Phase I, Q-Peak will design, develop and build a laser that will
produce 1-2 mJ of energy in < 2 ns pulse duration at 1047 nm and our
partner HIGP will characterize the CiiRSA instrument at the anticipated
energy and wavelength of the full system (5 mJ at 523 nm) to understand
the ranging and performance of the final system.
In Phase II, Q-Peak is proposing an ultra-compact laser with 10 cm3 in
volume that will produce > 5 mJ, < 2 ns duration pulses at 523 nm
at repetition rates from single-shot to 100 Hz. The entire laser system
will be integrated into a suite of instruments that our partner at HIGP
has developed to reduce the overall SWaP of the CiiRSA system.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Commercial applications are in portable LIBS systems to replace the
current bulky, inefficient, and less reliable lamp-pumped lasers now
employed. LIBS, besides having numerous scientific applications in
materials characterization, can also be used in industrial applications
for process control through monitoring of exhaust streams, analysis of
pharmaceuticals, profiling of metals, composition determinations of
minerals in mining and detection of contamination in the environment.
There are numerous applications for green lasers besides LIBS that
require minimized SWaP. Green Illuminators with sufficiently high beam
quality to enable long atmospheric transmission suffer from excess size
and weight. The proposed laser would produce the required beam quality
with a SWaP advantage of near factor 2.
Green lasers can be use in the Non-Lethal Laser Dazzler field. Dazzlers,
are most effective in green due to the eye's high sensitivity in the
green spectral region but also require the most careful spatial beam
profile control to insure that both spatially and temporally, the laser
energy never reaches or exceeds the damage threshold of the eye.
Q-Peak's advantage would be in having developed an extremely small,
compact, simple, and rugged technology for generation of single mode
laser pulse. This laser device will be much better suited for fieldable
systems than present products both on SWaP, mode profile, and
affordability considerations.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
NASA applications are in systems requiring compact, efficient,
reliable, moderate-energy, nanosecond-pulsed lasers. For planetary
exploration, these applications are in LIBS/Raman/LIF systems used for
planetary surface characterization and in lidar systems for atmospheric
measurements of aerosol concentrations and distributions, as well as
precision ranging for planetary surface mapping from satellites and
other spacecraft. The laser we propose to develop is compact,
efficient, rugged and reliable, making it ideal for planetary missions.
Given the high sensitivity of launch requirements to SWaP considerations
and to reliability, we feel that the proposed laser source is uniquely
positioned for standoff LIBS based missions. Other NASA mission
profiles or applications that would benefit from generically small,
light- weight, low power laser sources would be equally well served.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Instruments (Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, Energy; see also Sensors)
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry)
Navigation & Guidance
Autonomous Control (see also Control & Monitoring)
Essential Life Resources (Oxygen, Water, Nutrients)
3D Imaging
Image Analysis
Lasers (Ladar/Lidar)
Lasers (Measuring/Sensing)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T8.01-9959 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Technologies for Planetary Compositional Analysis and Mapping |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Instrumentation For Multiple Radiation Detection Based On Novel Mercurous Halides For Nuclear Planetology |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Brimrose Technology Corporation
P.O. Box 616, 19 Loveton Circle
Sparks, MD
21152-9201
(410) 472-2600
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Fisk University
1000 Seventeenth Avenue N
Nashville, TN
37208-3051
(615) 329-8516
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Henry Chen
hchen@brimrose.com
P.O. Box 616, 19 Loveton Circle
Sparks,
MD
21152-9201
(410) 472-2600
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
We propose a spectrometer that employs a single room temperature
semiconductor detector that can perform both gamma and neutron
spectroscopy. The proposed detector is based on the novel mercurous
halide materials, Hg2X2 (X=I, Cl, Br). The mercurous halides are new
wide band-gap semiconductor detector materials that can provide
radiation detection with low cost, high performance and long term
stability. Despite years of research, no explored room temperature
semiconductor detection candidates can satisfy all three features
simultaneously. At Brimrose, we have successfully developed the growth
procedures for high quality Hg2X2 crystals for long wavelength infrared
(LWIR) imaging systems. Recently, we have been able to engineer our
growth process toward gamma radiation detection and have demonstrated
initial encouraging detector response from Hg2I2 to both gamma and alpha
particle incident radiations. The focus will be on the material
engineering aspect of the detector material itself (i.e., crystal growth
and post growth processing), as well as on the detector fabrication and
system design. The proposed mercurous halides-based nuclear
instrument can be used onboard NASA's orbiters and landers for space
planetology. Specifically, it can be used to determine surface and
sub-surface composition of planetary bodies via both gamma spectroscopy
and neutron spectroscopy.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The need for advanced room temperature semiconductor materials has
always been of significant interest not only from Federal Agencies such
as DOD, DHS, DOE, but also from the private sector. Non-NASA uses for a
spectrometer with gamma/neutron detection are numerous and include (1)
Homeland security applications (2) Space based applications for military
agencies, (3) The medical community (SPECT, PET, Spectral-CT),(4)
Various industrial markets (chemical, automotive, pharmaceutical and
petrochemical), and (5) The research community. Commercial applications
include elemental analysis, explosive detection, medical diagnostics,
x-ray imaging, seismic activity detection, and radiation monitoring.
The detection and identification of radionuclides from atmospheric
nuclear tests has obvious military applications such as detection of
nuclear non-proliferation, treaty verification, and nuclear materials
control.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The primary commercial application for the proposed spectrometer
capable of performing both gamma and neutron spectroscopy is for NASA's
planetary exploratory missions. Specifically, the proposed spectrometer
based on mercurous halides can be used onboard NASA's orbiters and
landers to determine surface and sub-surface composition of planetary
bodies via both gamma spectroscopy and neutron spectroscopy.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Instruments (Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, Energy; see also Sensors)
Detectors (see also Sensors)
Materials & Structures (including Optoelectronics)
Optical/Photonic (see also Photonics)
X-rays/Gamma Rays
Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE; NDT)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T8.01-9967 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Technologies for Planetary Compositional Analysis and Mapping |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Design and Fabrication of Strain-Balanced nBn Dual-Band LWIR/LWIR Focal Plane Arrays Based on InAsSb/InAsType-II Superlattices |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
NOUR, LLC
1500 Sheridan Road, Unit 8A
Wilmette, IL
60091-1880
(847) 491-7251
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Northwestern University
2220 CAMPUS DR RM 4051
Evanston, IL
60208-0893
(847) 491-7251
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Ryan McClintock
rmcclin@gmail.com
1500 Sheridan RD UNIT 8A
Wilmette,
IL
60091-0893
(847) 467-4093
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
The infrared spectral range is of particular interest for remote
planetary sensing of gaseous molecules, such as H2O, CO2, CH4, N2O, CO,
NH3, and many other compounds. Infrared thermography can also be used to
accurate measure minute variations in surface temperatures. High
performance infrared focal plane arrays (FPAs) allow rapid acquisition
of a 2D surface maps--indispensable in planetary sciences. By using two
different cut-off detectors integrated into a single FPA to
simultaneously image a planet we can avoid atmospheric effect and much
more accurately map minute variations in the surface temperature, or
gain a clearer picture of the atmospheric composition.
In recent years, Type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices have experienced
significant development—we have played a pioneering role in the
rapid development of that technology. However, the full potential of
Type-II superlattice has not been fully explored and alternate
superlattice architectures hold great promise; one of the most promising
is gallium free InAsSb/InAs Type-II superlattices. In this project, we
propose to study strain-balanced nBn InAs1-xSbx/InAs Type-II
superlattice-based photodetectors and mini-arrays for LWIR/LWIR
dual-band detection. Using this new superlattice structure, it is
expected to achieve longer minority carrier lifetime. Longer minority
carrier lifetime results in lower dark current, lower noise, higher
operation temperature, and higher quantum efficiency. Applying this
superlattice design to dual-band LWIR/LWIR FPAs, it is expected to
achieve higher quantum efficiency, lower dark current, higher specific
detectivity (D*) and reduced Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference
(NETD). This work will form the basis of the Phase II work in which
we will use this new superlattice structure to develop and deliver
LWIR/LWIR dual-band FPAs for planetary sciences.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
IR imaging sensors also find their use in commercial applications such
as satellite imaging, weather modelling, geophysics, geology, remote
environmental (pollution) IR monitering, law enforcement, search and
rescue, firefighting, and emergency response. For its part, the
Optoelectronics Industry Development Association estimates that the
current infrared imaging market for military and law enforcement
applications is about US$3 billion. The development of higher
performance LWIR imagers and two color LWIR/LWIR imagers based on
Type-II superlattices has the potential to eliminate the n eed for
expensive mercury-cadmium-telluride materials and thus the potential to
significantly reduce the operational cost of these sensors and thus
potentially open up new lower cost commercial applications.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
LWIR is of special interest to NASA for planetary observation
missions. The LWIR wavelength region is also an ideal wavelength to look
at other planets, or look back at the earth from space, and accurately
map minute variations in the surface and/or atmospheric temperatures.
Furthermore, by using simultaneous measurements from two different LWIR
wavelengths (i.e. a two-color camera) it is possible to better isolate
the surface temperature from that of the atmosphere or vice versa.
Using the infrared emission of the planetary body or active illumination
via a laser source it is also possible to carefully look at the
atmospheric absorption and perform chemical spectroscopy. Many
molecules such as H2O, CO2, CH4, N2O, CO, NH3 have absorption lines in
the infrared and the ability to compositionally map the concentrations
of these and many other molecules.
The large-format two color cameras we will be developing and delivering
in Phase II of this program will be able to provide high resolution
mapping of planetary bodies.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Materials (Insulator, Semiconductor, Substrate)
Thermal Imaging (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Detectors (see also Sensors)
Materials & Structures (including Optoelectronics)
Interferometric (see also Analysis)
Optical/Photonic (see also Photonics)
Thermal
Infrared
Long
Multispectral/Hyperspectral
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T8.01-9968 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Technologies for Planetary Compositional Analysis and Mapping |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Multifunctional Environmental Digital Scanning Electron Microprobe (MEDSEM) |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
ChromoLogic, LLC
1225 South Shamrock Avenue
Monrovia, CA
91016-4244
(626) 382-9974
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Caltech
1200 East California Boulevard
Pasadena, CA
91125-0001
(626) 395-3339
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Tom George
tgeorge@chromoLogic.com
1225 Shamrock Ave
Monrovia,
CA
91016-4244
(626) 381-9974
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 6
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Chromologic (CL) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
propose to develop and demonstrate a Multifunctional Environmental
Digital Scanning Electron Microprobe (MEDSEM) instrument that transmits
high-energy beams of electrons sequentially from a two-dimensional array
of miniaturized electron probes into a planetary atmosphere, and these
electrons will strike solid or liquid planetary surfaces to
simultaneously generate a wealth of spatially-mapped compositional
information. MEDSEM will simultaneously measure X-ray Fluorescence
(XRF), Backscattered Electron Spectra, Optical Spectra and Mass Spectra.
Caltech will transfer to CL the microfabrication technology for
vacuum-encapsulating, electron-transmissive SiN membranes, the key
enabling component without which MEDSEM would not be possible. Caltech
will also transfer the results of electron-optic simulations performed
for optimizing the MEDSEM instrument configuration.
The 12-month Phase I effort will be aimed at demonstrating the
proof-of-principle for MEDSEM via an experimental setup made up of
mostly commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) parts: miniature electron
sources, an x-ray detector and a double-chambered test setup.
High-energy electrons will be generated in the first, evacuated
chamber, and these electrons will pass through the Caltech-fabricated
SiN membrane into the second chamber (maintained at Martian ambient
pressure), to strike planetary analog samples thereby generating
characteristic XRF. The XRF spectra will be captured by a COTS x-ray
detector which is present in the second chamber.
Contingent on a successful, follow-on, Phase II effort, the
proof-of-principle experiment will be expanded to demonstrate the
remaining simultaneous measurement modalities, namely the acquisition of
Backscattered Electron Spectra, Optical Spectra and Mass Spectra.
Microfabrication of the fully-integrated, field-emitter array of
miniaturized electron probes will be pursued during Phase II.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
In the field of materials science and engineering outside of NASA,
there is a great need for capable, field-portable instruments that are
rugged and reliable. As with NASA missions, size, weight and power
consumption are of concern for humans transporting these instruments
into remote locations for geological studies, environmental monitoring
and oil exploration. An added concern is the overall cost of the
instrument, especially for widespread acceptance and use. A successful
MEDSEM instrument would open up numerous applications in the
educational arena. At both the K-12 and college level, MEDSEM could be
used for science demonstrations as well as for hands-on experimentation
and research in chemistry, solid-state physics, geology and materials
science laboratories. Although MEDSEM cannot match the spatial
resolution of terrestrial laboratory instruments such as scanning
electron microscopes (mm vs nm), still it could serve as a rapid
screening device with the ability to answer basic composition-related
questions. MEDSEM's primary advantage, of course, is its ability to
simultaneously make multiple, different measurements on the samples
being studied in ordinary room air. It is anticipated that MEDSEM will
continue to evolve as an instrument, incorporating the latest
advancements in micro- and nanotechnology.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
MEDSEM satisfies NASA's stated need for new and innovative scientific
measurements for in situ planetary exploration. To date, although
miniaturizing scanning electron microscopes has been a "holy grail" for
developers of planetary instruments, an in situ electron microprobe
instrument has never flown. Once successfully demonstrated, MEDSEM would
be a strong candidate for planetary instrument payloads for NASA's
future landed missions, as described by the National Research Council
Committee on the Planetary Science Decadal Survey for future NASA
missions from 2013 – 2022. According to the Decadal Survey,
primary planetary targets for landed missions include the moon, Mars,
Venus and Europa.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Instruments (Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, Energy; see also Sensors)
Analytical Methods
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T8.01-9970 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Technologies for Planetary Compositional Analysis and Mapping |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Tunable THz Source for Environmental Monitoring of Planetary Bodies |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
NOUR, LLC
1500 Sheridan Road, Unit 8A
Wilmette, IL
60091-1880
(847) 491-7251
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Northwestern University
2220 CAMPUS DR RM 4051
Evanston, IL
60208-0893
(847) 491-7251
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Steven Slivken
s_slivken@hotmail.com
1500 Sheridan RD UNIT 8A
Wilmette,
ID
60091-1880
(847) 467-4093
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
This proposal describes development of a new type of quantum-cascade
laser for use as a local oscillator at frequencies above 2 THz. The THz
source described is a single chip solution that operates at room
temperature. In addition, a mechanism for wide tuning (2-4.7 THz) is
described that requires no moving parts.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
There are many other target applications for this technology,
including: drug detection/ pharmaceutical use, security screening, and
medical imaging. The narrow linewidth characteristic can provide a
higher resolution alternative to time-domain spectroscopy (TDS)
techniques currently in use. The potential also exists for targeting
specific resonances within target molecules or conformations, in
combination with infrared or fluorescence spectroscopy, to help isolate
very small concentrations in complex mixtures.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Compact and reliable local oscillators at frequencies above 2 THz are
highly sought after for environmental monitoring of planetary bodies.
This is one of the primary components in the microwave limb sounder on
the Aura satellite. There a multitude of environmentally relevant
chemicals (e.g. OH H2S, HF, HBr) that can be monitored at frequencies
>2 THz. This capability would be extremely useful to study the
atmospheres of neighboring planets in our solar system. These
frequencies are also sought after for monitoring molecular and atomic
emission lines in the interstellar medium. In both cases, our compact
THz source would provide a significant size, weight, and power (SWaP)
savings over current gas laser-based solutions.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Materials & Structures (including Optoelectronics)
Infrared
Terahertz (Sub-millimeter)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T9.01-9896 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Navigation and Hazard Avoidance Sensor Technologies |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Ultra-Miniature High-power Pulsed Microchip Lasers |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Voxtel, Inc.
15985 Northwest Schendel Avenue, Suite 200
Beaverton, OR
97006-6703
(971) 223-5646
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Oregon State University
153 Gilbert Hall
Corvallis, OR
97331-4003
(541) 737-2081
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Anmol Nijjar
anmol@voxtel-inc.com
15985 NW Schendel Avenue
Beaverton,
OR
97006-6703
(971) 223-5646
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Interest is rapidly growing in eye-safe solid-state lasers for range
finding, LIDAR, infrared countermeasures, medicine, dentistry, and
others. To address the need for compact, high efficiency lasers
operating in this important spectral band, an ultra-compact turnkey,
narrow-band, high-mode-quality, high-pulse-energy, and
high-pulse-repetition-frequency (PRF), diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS)
pulsed laser system will be developed that, due to superior near
infrared (NIR) absorption characteristics, high phonon energies, and
good thermal characteristics, can be used in an optically thin
configuration, which, when properly designed, including using a
directly-mounted thermally conductive index matched window, allows for
very high average power in the 1500 – 1600-nm spectral band.
The laser is based on a new material system. The new innovative laser
will be shown to best satisfy NASA remote sensing, mapping, and
navigation and hazard avoidance applications by offering 0.2 mJ
– 2 mJ (1550 nm) at pulse rates from 10 Hz to 100 KHz.
In Phase I, existing analytical laser models will be updated, integrated
with optical models, and a candidate laser design will be developed.
The new laser material will then be configured in end-pumped passive-
and actively-Q-switched laser designs, and the laser output as a
function of pump power, pump energy, and pump repetition rate will be
characterized.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Commercial applications include automobile collision avoidance
systems, laser rangefinders, LIBS sources, scanned LADAR, gesture
recognition systems, altimetry, LIDAR, and others.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Missions to solar systems bodies must meet increasingly ambitious
objectives requiring highly reliable soft landing, precision landing,
and hazard avoidance capabilities. Robotic missions to the Moon and Mars
demand landing at predesignated sites of high scientific value near
hazardous terrain features, such as escarpments, craters, slopes, and
rocks, require ultra-compact or micro-chip lasers.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
3D Imaging
Detectors (see also Sensors)
Ranging/Tracking
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T9.01-9898 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Navigation and Hazard Avoidance Sensor Technologies |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Highly Sensitive Flash LADAR Camera |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Voxtel, Inc.
15985 Northwest Schendel Avenue, Suite 200
Beaverton, OR
97006-6703
(971) 223-5646
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Dayton
300 College Park
Dayton, OH
45469-0001
(937) 344-3921
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Drake Miller
drake@voxtel-inc.com
15985 NW Schendel Avenue
Beaverton,
OR
97006-6703
(971) 223-5646
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
A highly sensitive 640 x 480-element flash LADAR camera will be
developed that is capable of 100-Hz rates with better than 5-cm range
precision. The design is based on proven readout integrated circuit
(ROIC) designs, shown to have very low noise, high frame rates, and
superior range resolution, and proven high gain, low noise avalanche
photodiode (APD) array technology, sensitive in the 1.0- to 1.6-micron
wavelength range. These technologies are integrated into a robust,
compact camera with real-time processing and data transmission.
In Phase I, an existing 128 x 128-element InGaAs linear-mode (Lm) APD 3D
flash LADAR camera will be demonstrated. The FPA allows for readout of
multiple laser pulse echo amplitude and time-of-arrival data pairs, in
windowed regions, at up to 20K frames per second. The demonstration will
include either or both of Voxtel's APD technologies: Deschutes APD
technologies, characterized by a mean gain of M = 20 and excess noise
parameterized by k = 0.2; or Siletz family of APDs (M = 75; k = 0.02).
The data measured on the InGaAs Lm-APDs, along with receiver operating
characteristic (ROC) analysis developed from measured data, will be used
to develop a new 640 x 480-element ROIC that implements the
NASA-communicated mission requirements. By completion of Phase I, the
LADAR ROIC pixel circuits will be designed and simulated, and the
performance of the new design will be documented.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Commercial applications include automotive collision avoidance,
gesture recognition, LIDAR, altimetry, neonatal imaging, time-resolved
spectroscopy, fluorescent decay measurements, single-photon detectors,
auto- and cross-correlation.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Missions to solar system bodies must meet increasingly ambitious
objectives requiring highly reliable soft landing, precision landing,
and hazard avoidance capabilities. Robotic missions to the Moon and Mars
demand landing at predesignated sites of high scientific value near
hazardous terrain features, such as escarpments, craters, slopes, and
rocks. Missions aimed at paving the path for colonization of the Moon
and human landing on Mars need to execute onboard hazard detection and
precision maneuvering to ensure safe landing near previously deployed
assets. Other NASA applications include freespace optical
communications, laser radar (LADAR), LIDAR, and time-resolved imaging.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
3D Imaging
Detectors (see also Sensors)
Ranging/Tracking
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T9.01-9933 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Navigation and Hazard Avoidance Sensor Technologies |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Ultra Large Core High Energy Fiber Amplifier |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Polaronyx, Inc.
2526 Qume Drive, Suites 17 and 18
San Jose, CA
95131-1870
(408) 573-0930
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
PO Box 808
Livermore, CA
94551-0808
(925) 422-1100
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Jian Liu
jianliu@polaronyx.com
2526 Qume Drive, Suites 17 and 18
San Jose,
CA
95131-1870
(408) 573-0930
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Laser transmitters operating at a pulse repetition rate of 20 Hz to 50
Hz and with pulse energy from 30 - 50 mJ have been considered to be an
enabling technology for CO2 measurement and optical communications.
PolarOnyx proposes a novel approach targeting to make reliable high
energy ultra large core fiber amplifier at 1.57 micron and employing our
proprietary technologies in specialty fibers, spectral shaping and
pulse shaping techniques. At the end of Phase 1, and simulation study
will be carried out and feasibility experiment will be demonstrated in
laying out the pathway towards over 30 mJ high energy. A prototype will
be demonstrated at the end of Phase II.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Other commercial applications include
- Material processing. This includes (1) all types of metal processing
such as welding, cutting, annealing, and drilling; (2)semiconductor and
microelectronics manufacturing such as lithography, inspection, control,
defect analysis and repair, and via drilling; (3) marking of all
materials including plastic, metals, and silicon; (4) other materials
processing such as rapid prototyping, desk top manufacturing,
micromachining, photofinishing, embossed holograms, and grating
manufacturing.
- Medical and biomedical instrumentation. The high power laser can be
applied to ophthalmology, refractive surgery, photocoagulation, general
surgery, therapeutic, imaging, and cosmetic applications. Biomedical
instruments include those involved in cells or proteins, cytometry, and
DNA sequencing; laser Raman spectroscopy, spectrofluorimetry, and
ablation; and laser based microscopes.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed high energy fiber amplifier approach is applied to CO2
measurement. It can also be used in other applications, such as space,
aircraft, and satellite applications of LADAR systems and
communications. PolarOnyx will develop a series of products to meet
various requirements for NASA deployments.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Navigation & Guidance
Fiber (see also Communications, Networking & Signal Transport; Photonics)
Lasers (Communication)
Lasers (Guidance & Tracking)
Lasers (Ladar/Lidar)
Optical
Optical/Photonic (see also Photonics)
Infrared
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T9.01-9983 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Navigation and Hazard Avoidance Sensor Technologies |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Configurable, Multi-Beam, Doppler Ladar Based Precision Landing Sensor |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Fibertek, Inc.
13605 Dulles Technology Drive
Herndon, VA
20171-4603
(703) 471-7671
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Utah State University
1415 Old Main Hill - Room64
Logan, UT
84322-1415
(435) 797-1189
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Shantanu Gupta
sgupta@fibertek.com
13605 Dulles Technology Drive
Herndon,
VA
20171-4603
(703) 471-7671
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Fibertek proposes a configurable, multi-beam, 1.5 um Doppler Lidar
sensor, enabled by high-speed non-mechanical beam steering (NMBS). NMBS
uses state-of-the-art, high-speed liquid-crystal based components, to
provide wide-angle (up to +/- 45 degree), large-aperture, optical beam
steering, at speeds of up to 10 kHz. Furthermore, this is integrated
into a very compact optical transmit/receive terminal, designed for
coherent lidar operation. The proposed Doppler Lidar sensor is estimated
to be 4X lower SWaP, and have 3X-5X improved range performance over the
current design for entry, descent, landing (EDL) sensors under
development at NASA.
In addition, the configurable, high-speed, beam-scan pattern provides
enhanced functionality for velocity/range/attitude estimate, and even
for terrain mapping. The Doppler Lidar landing sensor model will be
developed by our Research Institution partner, leveraging their related
work on 3D-imaging ladar.
The proposed effort targets a space-qualifiable roadmap, as we will
leverage ongoing inter-disciplinary engineering development and
qualification at Fibertek, for high-reliability, high-power, fiber laser
transmitter and transmit/receive optical terminal for deep-space
mission.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
(1) Agile, compact optical terminal for laser communication for
hosted-payloads, small-satellite, and CubeSat platform, that are of
interest to AF and NRO missions.
(2) Enables space optical networking, and autonomous communication links
for satellite constellation mission.
(3) Enables optical time-transfer for accurate navigation, with
potential for optically aided GPS
(4) Precision steering for mosaic-tiled 3D Imaging Ladar application,
for ISR missions.
(5) Laser beam-steering, tracking and stabilization for directed-energy
laser application.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
(1) Compact Doppler Lidar as a precision Entry, Descent and Landing
sensor, for planetary/ lunar/asteroid missions.
(2) Configurable, rapid-scan, multi-beam capability enabled by NMBS
technology, provides for enhanced EDL sensor functionality, e.g. for
terrain-mapping, hazard avoidance, and hazard relative navigation.
(3) Relative navigation sensor for spacecraft constellation flying,
enabled by lidar ranging sensors with NMBS technology
(4) Laser beam pointing, stabilization, and scanning of any Lidar/Ladar
based sensor, including for mosaic-tiled 3D-imaging ladar.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry)
Navigation & Guidance
Algorithms/Control Software & Systems (see also Autonomous Systems)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Fiber (see also Communications, Networking & Signal Transport; Photonics)
Lasers (Guidance & Tracking)
Lasers (Ladar/Lidar)
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Astronautics)
Optical
Ranging/Tracking
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T11.01-9878 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Information Technologies for Intelligent and Adaptive Space Robotics |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Advanced Tools for Effective Automated Test Generation |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Aries Design Automation, LLC
2705 West Byron Street
Chicago, IL
60618-3745
(773) 856-6633
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Oregon State University
116 Covell Hall, Office of Research and Economic Development
Corvallis, IL
97331-2409
(541) 737-6525
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Miroslav Velev
miroslav.velev@aries-da.com
2705 West Byron Street
Chicago,
IL
60618-3745
(773) 856-6633
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Testing is a critical activity in any software project. It is
particularly important for intelligent and adaptive (autonomous) space
robotics software, since the nature of autonomy is such that many
behaviors in deployment will never be seen before, without extensive
testing. The primary approach to testing such systems at present is
manual testing, which is expensive, time-consuming and, most
importantly, often ineffective. The best alternative to manual testing
is automated generation of test cases. Current automated test generation
tools are mostly academic prototypes. Many simply produce unit tests
over all methods of a Java program, and have a single algorithm for
testing. The most successful automated test generation efforts for
real-world large systems have been custom work of experts with deep
understanding of the application. At present, such experts using
automated test generation end up writing the system in the language of
the software under test, with little tool support. Such systems are
brittle and cost prohibitive. Much labor is duplicated due to lack of
tools. We will develop a full-featured language and tool chain for
automated test generation development, based on the open source Template
Scripting Testing Language (TSTL). We will produce a commercial
prototype version based on TSTL that supports efficient C and C++
automated test generation and code verification. We will provide
developers with prototypes of sophisticated test generation algorithms
and fully documented example test systems on which to base their own
efforts. The products of Phase I will be a revised TSTL language
standard, a prototype tool for producing test systems for C and C++
code, prototype implementations of highly effective automated test
algorithms, and documented examples of testing systems using TSTL.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Complex software systems require effective testing, especially as the
everyday world increasingly relies on ubiquitous embedded software, and
with the emergence of autonomous systems (like self-driving cars) as
near-future possibilities. In addition to cyberphysical systems that
have an impact on safety, many software systems have potential security
problems with a high economic cost. Effective automated test generation
is one of the most effective ways for companies faced with potentially
disastrous software bugs to mitigate the risk of software failure. The
tools developed in this project can provide a cost-effective way to
apply more sophisticated testing techniques and improve software
reliability without having to hire automated software testing experts.
The languages chosen (C and C++) are widely used in embedded software
systems, and are also the languages in which much security software is
written (e.g., the recent Heartbleed and Goto Fail security flaws were C
code errors), so effective testing tools for C/C++ are a driving
commercial need. All companies that develop complex software in C/C++
will be potential customers.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Testing of complex software systems is a major activity in almost all
NASA missions, particularly those involving unmanned autonomous robotic
systems. These tools can be applied to improve the effectiveness and
re-usability of NASA software testing systems, while reducing labor
costs (or enabling more effort in test development with the same labor).
The language chosen for implementation is C, the primary language of
development of real-time embedded robotics systems at NASA. Use of
automated test generation is a long-standing goal of NASA software
development efforts, with major research initiatives at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center that we expect to be
potential early adopters. The design of our system is informed by
experience with building test automation tools for major NASA missions,
so the applicability of the tools is likely to be high.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Methods
Autonomous Control (see also Control & Monitoring)
Circuits (including ICs; for specific applications, see e.g.,
Communications, Networking & Signal Transport; Control &
Monitoring, Sensors)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Data Modeling (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Development Environments
Programming Languages
Verification/Validation Tools
Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T11.01-9889 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Information Technologies for Intelligent and Adaptive Space Robotics |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Perception and Navigation for Exploration of Shadowed Domains |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Astrobotic Technology, Inc.
2515 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA
15222-4613
(412) 682-3282
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA
15213-3815
(412) 268-6556
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
William Whittaker
red@cmu.edu
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh,
PA
15213-3815
(412) 268-1338
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
On-the-ground confirmation of lunar ice will transform space
exploration, as ice can provide fuel to support far-reaching exploration
and enable commercial endeavors. Evidence from satellite observations
strongly supports the presence of polar ice, but driving and excavation
are required to confirm presence, measure distribution, and extract
resources. In-situ resource extraction at the lunar poles is the
precursor for permanent operations on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The most promising sites for lunar ice lie in the rugged terrain of the
permanently shadowed regions at the poles. These destinations demand
robust perception and navigation technologies that provide high position
accuracy regardless of lighting conditions.
Existing rover technologies are incapable of the types of perception and
navigation required by the challenges of a dark environment that
restrict the rover's ability to perceive its surroundings and overcome
inherent positional uncertainty. Even the rover's own shadow can present
a significant obstacle while operating in the glancing sunlight of
polar regions.
The proposed work will develop novel methods for sensing, mapping, and
localization in and around the permanently dark regions of planetary
bodies. The research will enable the exploration of previously
inaccessible dark environments including pits, cold traps, and
subterranean voids such as lava tubes and caves on the Moon and Mars.
NASA's decadal science survey prioritizes exploration of ancient ices,
highlighting a mission to study lunar volatiles in the permanent shadows
on the lunar poles. The proposed work innovates perception and
navigation technologies to make such polar missions possible.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The developed methods for perception and navigation in darkness will
enhance perception in many terrestrial domains including, subterranean,
night operations, enclosed spaces, and surveillance. The proposed
technology applies broadly to terrestrial applications particularly
those that are GPS-denied. Potential applications include driverless
cars, search and rescue, mining, infrastructure inspection, military
UGVs and UAVs, and agriculture. The developed technology will enhance
the models created in these environments and provide higher resolution,
more detailed, and more physically accurate models than are produced
with existing methods.
In addition, Astrobotic is continually engaged with the government and
industrial entities interested in lunar exploration and development.
This immersion in the relevant marketplace will enable Astrobotic to
identify and market to non-NASA entities who would be interested in
licensing use of the technologies developed during the proposed work in
their own lunar systems.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed technologies enhance prospecting and excavating missions
through enabling navigation in the dark. This has the potential to
enhance near term missions like Resource Prospector Mission and
follow-on missions for sample return or in-situ resource utilization.
The developed technologies also unlock new mission destinations. Newly
discovered pits on the Moon and Mars may provide entrance to lava tubes
that could give us a deeper understanding of a planet's geologic,
climatic, and even biologic history. They may also one day provide
shelter to humans. Operation in caves requires dark perception and
navigation.
The proposed technologies enable activities that normally happen in
sunlight to occur easily in darkness, including autonomous landing,
rendezvous, docking, and proximity operations, and perhaps robotic
satellite maintenance and mapping of comets or asteroids.
Maturation and mission integration is benefited by Astrobotic's plans
for a series of lunar expeditions to deliver commercial payloads.
Technology for these missions is being developed in partnership with
NASA as part of the Lunar CATALYST program and is funded by customer
payments and investment. Demonstration on an early Astrobotic lunar
mission will generate data to accurately evaluate and innovate
technologies, a key step that enables others to confidently adopt the
technology for their own systems.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Perception/Vision
3D Imaging
Image Analysis
Image Capture (Stills/Motion)
Image Processing
Thermal Imaging (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Data Fusion
Lasers (Ladar/Lidar)
Positioning (Attitude Determination, Location X-Y-Z)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T11.01-9943 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Information Technologies for Intelligent and Adaptive Space Robotics |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Adaptive Resource Estimation and Visualization for Planning Robotic Missions |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
TRACLabs, Inc.
100 North East Loop 410, Suite 520
San Antonio, TX
78216-1234
(281) 461-7886
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Carnegie Mellon University - Silicon Valley
NASA Research Park, Bldg 23
Moffett Field, CA
94305-2823
(650) 335-2823
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Debra Schreckenghost
schreck@traclabs.com
16969 N. Texas Ave, Suite 300
Webster,
TX
77598-4085
(281) 461-7886
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
NASA's future human exploration missions will include remotely
operated rovers performing surface exploration and science, as well as
free-flyers to reduce the need for human Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA).
As astronauts move deeper into space, it will be necessary for them to
manage these robotic assets with less support from ground controllers. A
flexible approach is needed to build and revise plans for
semi-autonomous robots. A key requirement for such planning operations
is the ability to accurately predict how much resource (e.g., time,
power) is needed to perform planned tasks. TRACLabs and CMU propose to
develop software to model resources for use in building and revising
plans for semi-autonomous robots. The resource models will be used to
estimate the duration of planned tasks based on historical plan
performance. They will be updated periodically during a mission to
improve model accuracy at a site. This software also will be used to
provide actual resource data for annotating a map of the site when
building. The resource modeling software will be designed for evaluation
with the IRG Exploration Ground Data System planning software. Improved
resource modeling produces more accurate predictions of the resources
needed for planned tasks. More accurate resource estimates improves the
likelihood that plans can be executed "as planned". When plans don't go
as expected, these resource models can be used to determine how to
modify robot plans within available resources. This should reduce the
human workload needed to revise robot plans during plan execution and,
when revisions are needed, to determine which subset of activities can
actually be completed with remaining resources. Such resource modeling
technology is enabling for remote operation and supervision of planetary
robots with variable levels of autonomy (NASA Roadmap TA4).
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Unmanned Vehicles, including UAVs, UGVs, and USVs are growing in their
importance to DOD. Correspondingly, the need to ensure that soldiers
can work effectively with these vehicles is also growing. As the number
of vehicles grows the need to plan for the coordination of multiple
robots will also grow. The proposed resource modeling software can be
integrated with existing planning and procedure technology to deliver
flexible multi-robot plans. There is renewed interest in remote
operations and robot inspection and maintenance for the oil and natural
gas drilling, extraction, and processing. Whether controlling robots
that monitor and maintain off-shore rigs during an evacuation, or
controlling Remotely Operated Vehicles underwater, or controlling robots
that perform disaster response tasks in large refinery, the need for
robotics in the oil and gas industry is growing. The proposed software
for resource modeling is enabling to build plans for such robot
operations.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed project will develop resource models for use when
building robot plans that enable variable levels of robot autonomy (NASA
Roadmap TA4). The technology for resource modeling has direct
application in NASA missions such as the Resource Prospector Mission
(RPM). An ongoing operational trade during plan execution for the RPM is
whether to take a closer look for water in an area or to move on to
prospect another area. The proposed resource models have potential to
help the science team make better decisions about prospecting by
providing more accurate estimates of how long it will take to perform
the tasks within a robot plan. Other tests where resource modeling might
improve robot and science mission planning include BASALT, AstroBee,
and the Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP).
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Man-Machine Interaction
Robotics (see also Control & Monitoring; Sensors)
Algorithms/Control Software & Systems (see also Autonomous Systems)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T11.02-9858 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Computational Simulation and Engineering |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Multi-Disciplinary Analysis and Optimization of Integrated Spacecraft System Models |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
M4 Engineering, Inc.
4020 Long Beach Boulevard
Long Beach, CA
90807-2683
(562) 981-7797
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Missouri University of Science and Technology
202 Centennial Hall, 300 West 12th St
Rolla, MO
65409-1330
(573) 341-4134
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Tyler Winter
twinter@m4-engineering.com
4020 Long Beach Boulevard
Long Beach,
CA
90807-2683
(562) 981-7797
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
M4 Engineering and Missouri S&T propose to investigate the
viability of creating a multidisciplinary analysis and optimization
architecture for analyzing spacecraft system models. The current
approach will utilize commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software to
alleviate acquisition hurdles for NASA (and public) technical
monitors/reviewers. Next, a preliminary set of analysis modules will be
developed including a CAD-based Geometry component capable of
generating parametric geometry. Once the analysis modules are
completed, integration within the OpenMDAO framework will commence. The
MDAO tool will be developed to address the issues of being generic and
scalable to larger spacecraft systems. Validation of the modules and
the prototype tool will be carried out by constructing model problems to
test various capabilities as well as a complete spacecraft system
demonstration application with optimization of integrated
multidisciplinary performance models.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
M4 Engineering has active relationships with several prime contractors
who are likely users of this technology. These include Boeing Phantom
Works, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. These provide excellent
commercialization opportunities for the technology. The development of
an integrated multi-disciplinary analysis and optimization tool
leveraging commonly used commercial software is expected to find wide
application to many aerospace and non-aerospace products. Examples
include aerospace/defense, turbomachinery, automotive and alternative
energy applications.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Potential NASA applications will include the use of the developed
software with any complex integrated space system. Additionally, due to
the modular nature of the tool and the use of widely available
commercial software many different applications could be studied across
most, if not all, of the NASA centers.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Spacecraft Design, Construction, Testing, & Performance (see also Engineering; Testing & Evaluation)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T11.02-9925 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Computational Simulation and Engineering |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Fusion of Modeling and Simulation Credibility in Multidisciplinary Design |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Michigan Engineering Services, LLC
2890 Carpenter Road, Suite 1900
Ann Arbor, MI
48108-1100
(734) 358-0792
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Michigan
3003 S. State Street
Ann Arbor, MI
48109-2145
(734) 763-7343
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Geng Zhang
gengz@miengsrv.com
2890 Carpenter Road, Suite 1900
Ann Arbor,
MI
48108-1100
(734) 477-5710
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Entry vehicle design and aircraft design are just two examples of
systems that are of interest to NASA, requiring interactions and
exchange of information among multiple performance disciplines. Since
any computational optimization process relies on simulation models for
identifying the impact of design changes in meeting performance
expectations and improving metrics of goodness, it is essential that the
uncertainty quantification of these models is captured by the
optimization. Fuzzy Logic (FL) provides a systematic approach for
introducing linguistic articulation of mental perception into a
mathematical framework. In the proposed project the FL approach will be
used for introducing in an automated multidisciplinary optimization
process the human judgment and the expert opinion associated with the
credibility of the modeling and simulations (as stated in the
NASA-STD-7009) which are utilized for making decisions. The proposing
firm has developed a Decision Support Toolkit (DS Toolkit) which can be
used for multidisciplinary design and for balancing many multiple
competing performance objectives. The multidisciplinary analysis is
done automatically due to specialized algorithms and capabilities which
are embedded in the DS Toolkit; both discrete and continuous design
variables can be defined. The proposed research will develop the
ability to consider the credibility of the models and of the simulations
which are used for evaluating the performance requirements and the
performance metrics during the analysis. A Fuzzy Logic System (FLS)
capability will be developed for this purpose. The membership functions
in the FLS will be reflecting the credibility scores assigned by
subject matter experts to each one of the eight credibility factors of a
simulation. The rule bank in the FLS will capture the expert opinion
of the decision makers on how the credibility of the simulations will
influences the decisions which are made by the optimization process.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The new developments will be promoted to the shipbuilding, automotive,
aircraft, space, and the military ground vehicle sectors. The common
factors among these industries are:
(i) all use multi-physics simulation models for assessing the
performance of their products during design
(ii) models of variable fidelity are used in the decision making process
(iii) credibility of simulation results can only be considered by the
decision makers and not by any automated multidisciplinary optimization
process
(iv) they all have needs for optimizing their designs while balancing
performance in many conflicting disciplines
(v) they all have needs for designing products based on economic
viability and making the complex design optimization process easy to use
Thus there is a significant commercial potential for the technology
which will be developed by the proposed research.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed research will offer a new approach for multidisciplinary
optimization that does not exist in any form in any of the current
commercial or open source codes. It will offer a new capability to NASA
Programs for conducting optimizations while accounting for uncertainty
quantification associated with the credibility of models and
simulations. Subject matter experts will be able to identify the
credibility of each simulation which is used in the optimization by
grading each one of the eight credibility factors prescribed in
NASA-STD-7009. Decision makers will be able to provide their input in
linguistic format on how to interpret the credibility scores when making
design decisions. At that point it will also be possible to consider
how critical each decision is to the success of a mission. Therefore,
the end product will be of great value to all NASA Programs and to the
aerospace community.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Aerodynamics
Analytical Methods
Entry, Descent, & Landing (see also Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry)
Spacecraft Design, Construction, Testing, & Performance (see also Engineering; Testing & Evaluation)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Ceramics
Metallics
Structures
Vehicles (see also Autonomous Systems)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T11.02-9988 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Computational Simulation and Engineering |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Virtual World Editor |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Tietronix Software, Inc.
1331 Gemini Avenue, Suite 300
Houston, TX
77058-2794
(281) 461-9300
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Houston-Clear Lake
2700 Bay Area Blvd.
Houston, TX
77058-1098
(281) 283-3568
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Marco Zambetti
marco.zambetti@tietronix.com
1331 Gemini Avenue, Suite 300
Houston,
TX
77058-2794
(281) 404-7238
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
NASA has identified a need for a tool that will give a non-expert the
ability to quickly create animation of a mission scenario. This type of
depiction can be important during a mission's development phase.
Animation can show things that are not possible to see in the physical
world and can help explain difficult concepts. Animation allows
visualization of the mission without having to understand all the
physics required. The communication of any mission scenarios through
the medium of video - be it live action or animation - requires a
particular set of skills: most notably, a sense of timing and layout.
The sense of timing in animation can be compared to that of music;
length, rhythm and order are the crucial elements for an effective
delivery of an idea or emotion. Professional animators acquire this
knowledge through formal training, education and years of experience.
Although it would be impossible to impart this knowledge
instantaneously, with current technology it can be encapsulated within a
set of "digital elements" that can be manipulated and arranged to form a
coherent stream of images (video) with order and meaning. Our proposed
innovation is to develop a set of tools that can be used by a non-expert
to build a virtual mission scenario that can be used for analysis,
presentations and outreach. We will create a method for developing a
collection of elements (objects, actions) with initial focus, space
mission specific. The toolset will have elements that have the animation
expertise incorporated. This will reduce the need for the user to have
animation experience.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
DoD - building mission scenarios for training and planning, troop
deployment to a location, securing a building, etc. Oil industry
applications could be drilling operations: sending the pipe into the
earth, adding additional pipe, capturing a core sample, etc. Any
industry with a need to allow the user to visualize an operation, a
sequence of activities to fulfill a goal.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Outreach: Animated videos can be built by subject matter experts to
illustrate a mission, for example a planetary research mission, to be
used as part of an educational packages. These packages can be
distributed to educational institutions or to the general public.
Presentations: Engineers, mission planners and public affairs personnel
can create animated videos to be used for press releases, or during
government committees presentation, such as appropriation or science
committees.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Mission Training
Outreach
Training Concepts & Architectures
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Display
Image Capture (Stills/Motion)
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T11.02-9998 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Computational Simulation and Engineering |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Multi Domain Modeling for Space Systems |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
MetaMorph, Inc.
49 Music Square West Suite 210
Nashville, TN
37203-6643
(615) 585-2967
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Vanderbilt University
2301 Vanderbilt Place
Nashville, TN
37240-7749
(615) 322-2400
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Justin Knight
jknight@metamorphsoftware.com
49 Music Square W 210
Nashville,
TN
37203-6643
(615) 973-9915
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 6
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
A comprehensive model-based approach will be enabled for space systems
design via the work started on Phase I of this project. The OpenMETA
toolkit is a cyber-physical modeling tool for the design and virtual
integration of complex systems, developed under the DARPA AVM Program.
OpenMETA will be leveraged and extended to support NASA/JPL goals for
multi-physics, multi-domain modeling, analysis, optimization, and
uncertainty quantification of spacecraft and space systems. Specific
extensions include supporting preferred CAD tool (Siemens NX), FEA
Meshing (FEMAP), and IMUQ uncertainty quantification. In addition, the
use of external, configuration-managed databases will be supported to
track design parameter evolution. The tool's utility will be evaluated
and demonstrated via a set of use cases and end-to-end experiments.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Aerospace: Rapid analysis of mission requirements and mapping to
feasible aircraft architectures can help to reduce system costs for
commercial aircraft. The tools support rapid design progression from
concept to prototype, allowing optimization of subsystems and systems at
a much earlier phase in the design cycle. Full model-based analysis and
sensitivity analysis prior to build will improve prototype quality and
reduce development iterations. Uncertainty quantification methods will
be applied to a wider range of systems, improving overall safety of
life-critical systems.
Automotive: Modeling of product line architectures and optimizing system
design to marketplace requirements will be a valuable addition to
automaker's toolbox. Reduced cost of sensitivity analysis will allow
the technique to be applied across the board, helping to avoid
manufacturing quality issues. Full uncertainty analysis to reduce
black-swan errors and costly recalls.
Electronics: Metamorph is already working modular mobile phones and
configurable/modular phone components. Optimization and system modeling
will help to rapidly tune systems against the highly constrained
power/mass/performance requirements for commercial portable devices and
assess deployment across mobile infrastructures and the impact of
3G→4G→5G changes
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
There are a number of potential NASA applications for the optimization
framework:
Rover Design and Optimization. Modeling of NASA extra-planetary explorer
subsystems. Rapid evaluation of system architectures and parameters.
Rapid assessment of system for requirement feasibility.
Satellite Systems Design. Evolution of a systems concept, based on
requirements to a fully detailed system design. Analysis and
optimization of all performance aspects of the design prior to
construction, reducing overall system design time and cost.
Uncertainty quantification: UQ is needed for any critical system that
NASA operates. Extending UQ in a cost effective manner to all designs
will improve confidence for mission critical systems.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Spacecraft Design, Construction, Testing, & Performance (see also Engineering; Testing & Evaluation)
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Prototyping
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Verification/Validation Tools
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T12.01-9877 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Advanced Structural Health Monitoring |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Fiber Optic Acoustic Emission System for Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Pressure Vessels |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Veraphotonics, Inc.
43967 rosemere dr
fremont, CA
94539-5967
(408) 802-7489
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
University of Miami
1251 Memorial Drive, McArthur Engineering Building, Rm. 325
Coral Gables, FL
33146-0630
(305) 284-3461
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
An-Dien nguyen
a.d.nguyen@veraphotonics.com
43967 rosemere dr
fremont,
CA
94539-5967
(408) 802-7489
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Pressurized systems and pressure vessels used in NASA ground-based and
flight-based applications including fuel tanks, composite overwrapped
pressure vessels (COPVs), and composite tankage commonly suffer from
several types of degradation including fatigue, cracking, lack of
bonding, and leakage. Veraphotonics proposes to develop a pressure
vessel leak and damage detection system. In a large vessel, in-line
inspection using health-monitoring sensors would provide structural
integrity assessment, reduce maintenance, and eliminate potential points
of failure. Acoustic Emission (AE) method is the most prevalent method
that provides continuous monitoring for leak and damage detection as
well as estimates the location of leak or damage in pressure vessels. In
this SBIR Phase I project, the feasibility of a novel laser-based
interrogation technique AE method for the detection of leak and damages
in liquid-filled vessel instrumented with FBG sensors will be performed
in laboratory and field vessels including COPVs. Based on laboratory
and field test measurements, we will optimize the FBG sensors and the
system to reduce or eliminate the acoustic background noise from the
vessel environment. In Phase II all the FBG sensors will be integrated
on a single optical fiber and interrogated using a compact, battery
powered interrogation device with wireless data transmission capability.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Ultrasonic wave detection technology have immediate applications in
civil engineering for monitoring and evaluating damages, corrosion, and
fatigue in steel and concrete structures such as bridges, freeways, and
buildings. High frequency ultrasonic signal detection method
development can be utilized in ultrasonic testing, medical imaging, and
other non-destructive testing
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The developed tool sets will be useful to predict the residual stress
state limits of current and future NASA vehicles. Future generations of
NASA vehicles will greatly benefit from advancements in made in
advanced damage sensing, detection and analysis.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Fiber (see also Communications, Networking & Signal Transport; Photonics)
Detectors (see also Sensors)
Optical/Photonic (see also Photonics)
Diagnostics/Prognostics
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T12.01-9908 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Advanced Structural Health Monitoring |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Modified Acoustic Emission for Prognostic Health Monitoring |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Prime Photonics, LC
1116 South Main Street
Blacksburg, VA
24060-5548
(540) 961-2200
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Virginia Tech
Burruss Hall
Blacksburg, VA
24061-0001
(540) 231-0745
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
David Gray
david.gray@primephotonics.com
1116 South Main Street
Blacksburg,
VA
24060-5548
(540) 808-4281
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
A variety of nondestructive inspection (NDI) techniques are already
available for detection of small defects within structures. These
techniques, although useful, provide little insight in terms of the
remaining useful life of components or structures. Furthermore, NDI
techniques rely on statistical analyses of historical usage records and
can often result in situations where maintenance schedules are occurring
more often than necessary to insure safe operation. Intelligent
monitoring of the state of constituent materials allows for operation at
reduced sustainment costs without sacrificing mission safety. Prime
Photonics, LC. proposes to develop a novel acoustic emission monitoring
sensor as part of a larger structural health monitoring system capable
of providing end-of-useful life determination. The designed acoustic
emission spectrum (AES) system will combine constituent fatigue history
with local impact events tp provide a complete view of component
lifetime.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The Department of Defense (DoD) has made considerable investment in
implementing condition based maintenance (CBM) throughout its fleet.
Emphasis is placed on aerospace applications which prove expensive to
survey but require long lifetimes to avoid costly replacement.
Nondestructive verification systems for monitoring of critical
infrastructure has also seen increases. With aging bridges and
railways, an improved system for component lifetime and failure
prediction is necessary.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The primary NASA application for the acoustic emission sensing system
will be in structural health monitoring and leak detection. The system
is well-suited for predicting end of useful life conditions for
composite structural components, especially those in stable operational
load regimes. The traditional acoustic emission component of the system
will aid in detection and localization of impact events.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Acoustic/Vibration
Contact/Mechanical
Sensor Nodes & Webs (see also Communications, Networking & Signal Transport)
Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE; NDT)
Diagnostics/Prognostics
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T12.02-9935 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | High Temperature Materials and Sensors for Propulsion Systems |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Ceramic Matrix Composite Environmental Barrier Coating Durability Model |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Materials Research and Design, Inc.
300 East Swedesford Road
Wayne, PA
19087-1858
(610) 964-9000
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
1001 North Emmet St., PO Box 400195
Charlottesville, VA
22904-4195
(434) 924-4270
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Michael Dion
michael.dion@m-r-d.com
300 East Swedesford Road
Wayne,
PA
19087-1858
(610) 964-9000
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
As the power density of advanced engines increases, the need for new
materials that are capable of higher operating temperatures, such as
ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), is critical for turbine hot-section
static and rotating components. Such advanced materials have
demonstrated the promise to significantly increase the engine
temperature capability relative to conventional super alloy metallic
blades. They also show the potential to enable longer life, reduced
emissions, growth margin, reduced weight and increased performance
relative to super alloy blade materials. MR&D is proposing to
perform a combined analytical and experimental program to develop a
durability model for CMC Environmental Barrier Coatings (EBC). EBCs are
required for CMCs in turbine exhaust environments because of the
presence of high temperature water. The EBC protects the CMC and
significantly slows recession. However, the durability of these
materials is not well understood making life prediction very
challenging. This program will be the first step in developing a tool to
accurately evaluate the life of the EBC for a CMC turbine blade helping
to facilitate their inclusion in future engine designs. This will be
done by developing a custom, user defined element formulation for finite
element modeling to simulate the kinetic reactions of the EBC with the
turbine exhaust. It will be built on the back of earlier work developing
such an element to model the oxidation of carbon fiber in reentry
environments.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
In the commercial sector, the Rolls Royce Trent 1000 and Trent XWB
engines are being developed for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 XWB
aircraft, respectively. There are currently 1030 Boeing 787s on order or
flying and 814 Airbus A350 XWBs on order. The Trent 1000 was the launch
engine for the Boeing 787. These are large markets where the benefit of
this technology will have a lasting impact in efficiency and cost. By
working
closely with Rolls Royce during the early stages of this development
program, MR&D has ensured that the resulting products will meet the
requirements of future customers. Rolls Royce has expressed a serious
interest in this technology and, as demonstrated above, has a sizable
market for its application. The aerospace industry is not the only
potential beneficiary of this technology. The Department of Energy (DOE)
is working hard to improve the efficiency of power generators. Just as
with aircraft engines, power turbines' efficiency improves with higher
operating temperatures. As an example, current turbines operate at
2600F, which provided a large improvement in efficiency over earlier
models operating at 2300F. CMC turbine blades and stators will allow
even higher temperature operation and is a topic which the DOE is
currently investigating.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
NASA Glenn has been directly involved in the effort to bring these
materials to turbine hot section components. The NASA Ultra Efficient
Engine Technology program (UEET) is focused on driving the next
generation of turbine engine technology. One of the major thrusts is the
development and demonstration of advanced high temperature materials
which are capable of surviving the extreme environments of turbine
combustion and exhaust.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Methods
Generation
Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation)
Ceramics
Coatings/Surface Treatments
Composites
Atmospheric Propulsion
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T12.02-9985 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | High Temperature Materials and Sensors for Propulsion Systems |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Integrated Reacting Fluid Dynamics and Predictive Materials Degradation Models for Propulsion System Conditions |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
CFD Research Corporation
701 McMillian Way Northwest, Suite D
Huntsville, AL
35806-2923
(256) 726-4800
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Sandia National Laboratories
PO Box 5800, MS-1322
Albuquerque, NM
87185-0701
(505) 844-0121
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Bryce Devine
bryce.devine@cfdrc.com
701 McMillian Way, NW, Ste D
Huntsville,
AL
35806-2923
(256) 726-4816
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are routinely used by
NASA to optimize the design of propulsion systems. Current methods for
CFD modeling rely on general materials properties to determine fluid
structure interactions. This introduces uncertainty when modeling
extreme conditions, where materials degrade and properties may change as
a consequence. This also limits the use of CFD as a modeling tool to
assist in material selection and specification. CFDRC in partnership
with Sandia National Laboratories proposes to develop a computational
materials model to simulate degradation of a ceramic matrix composite
material under the high temperature, high velocity flow conditions of
the propulsion environment. The objective is to provide a computational
tool to assist NASA in the selection and optimization of propulsion
system materials and to predict material degradation and failure
throughout the service life in extreme conditions. During Phase I the
team will demonstrate a mesoscale materials model based on peridynamics,
a theory of continuum mechanics that can describe fracture and defect
progression at the level of the microstructure. Peridynamics provides a
theoretical framework to dynamically simulate fracture and mechanical
erosion at the mesoscale, where properties such as tensile strength and
toughness are affected by features of the microstructure and composite
design. The proposed modeling scheme use CFD to establish the
thermal-mechanical stresses imposed at the boundaries of the structure.
Peridynamics simulations will be used to determine the evolution of the
macroscale properties as a function of microstructure, damage and
boundary conditions. Methods to link time and condition dependent
materials properties with the CFD system will be evaluated.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
DoD supported programs such as the development of hypersonic systems
involve the selection and incorporation of materials for extreme
environments. Performance of energy systems for power generation and
fossil energy extraction involve applications where material degradation
limits the performance. The work established in this project can be
transitioned to support these other applications. A reasonable extension
of this model would be to model accumulated damage in cyclic fatigue
applications which could substantially reduce maintenance cost of
aircraft.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) has been
identified as an enabling technology to both advance the development of
new materials and to accelerate their incorporation them into commercial
systems. The proposed modeling product falls within the scope of ICME
as a means to link material features to product performance. This work
product can be transferred as a modeling tool to assist material
selection in any application where mechanical degradation limits
performance such as ablative and high temperature materials for
hypersonic environments.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Software Tools (Analysis, Design)
Composites
Joining (Adhesion, Welding)
Ablative Propulsion
Atmospheric Propulsion
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T12.03-9881 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Advanced Bladder Materials for Inflatable Habitats |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Ultra Low Air and H2 Permeability Cryogenic Bladder Materials for Inflatable Habitats |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Nanosonic, Inc.
158 Wheatland Drive
Pembroke, VA
24136-3645
(540) 626-6266
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Colorado State University
601 South Howes Street
Fort Collins, CO
80523-2002
(970) 491-6335
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Jennifer Lalli
jhlalli@nanosonic.com
158 Wheatland Drive
Pembroke,
VA
24136-3645
(540) 626-6266
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
NanoSonic has recently developed a hydrogen (H2) dispenser hose to
realize H2 as a safe, reliable, and cost competitive replacement for
gasoline. NanoSonic's ultra-low glass transition temperature (Tg of
-100 ?C) is expected to meet the service requirement of 25,550
fills/year (70 fills/day for 2 years) at a combined ultra-high pressure
of 875-bar and very wide service temperature range of -50?C to +90?C.
This state-of-the-art lightweight hose (0.99 g/cc) is based on a unique
fiber reinforced, high performance, cryogenically flexible polymer
designed to resist hydrogen embrittlement, survive the Joule-Thompson
effect thermal cycles, and endure mechanical wear and fatigue at the
pump. This system is offered herein as large area panels that may be
seamed via RF welding with our space partner, ILC Dover, to form
inflatable habitat bladders. This superior class of low Tg polymers
exhibited ultra-low air and H2 permeance (0.31 cc/100in2?Atm?day - post
triple cold flex) before and after being subjected to the harsh, triple
fold (180?) cold flexure (-50 ?C) test. Here, this non-electrically
conductive polymer shall be reinforced herein with an engineered fiber
design to dissipate static electricity and provide multifunctional
radiation shielding. Additional multifunctionality shall be built in
via NanoSonic's self-healing microspheres, while meeting the goal of
< 6 oz/yd2 for a triply redundant bladder. NanoSonic shall work with
our STTR partner, Colorado State University (CSU), Lockheed Martin
Space Systems Company (LM SSC), and ILC Dover to qualify the advanced
bladder material for space habitats.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Non-NASA applications for the low Tg TR™ inflatables include
ultra-lightweight deployable polar habitats, high altitude airships
(HAA), and rapidly deployable and reusable shelters. Additionally, the
self-healing component within the multi-layer bladder will be
transitioned as long-term H2 hoses, protective storage liners for food
or other sensitive materials, self-sealing tires, anti-ballistic fuel
tanks and life critical personnel protective equipment (PPE). The H2
hoses shall serve as a new standard for high-pressure hoses with the
additional benefits of fire resistance and self-healing. These fuel,
corrosion, ozone and UV-resistant, non-offgassing, non-metallic, yet
grounding hoses shall also serve as a new class of materials for wiring
and conduit for construction, aerospace, and space systems in need of
all temperature, mechanically durable solutions to long-term survivable
platform needs. It has the potential to revolutionize H2 as a green
alternative energy source to gasoline and diesel fuels.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
NanoSonic's Thoraeus Rubber™ materials will be primarily
developed as the bladder assembly for inflatable, life-critical, NASA
space habitats. The advanced lightweight bladder material offers superb
cold temperature flexibility and durability to maintain low air
permeability during handling and deployment in space. The puncture
resistant material will be transitioned as the multi-layer, self-healing
bladder system to ensure limited repair and maintenance. The
multifunctional TR™ materials formed via NanoSonic's ESA
process offer EMI and radiation shielding for enhanced long-term high
altitude and space durability. Additional NASA platforms include Lunar
systems, exploration vehicles, and satellites in LEO, GEO, and HEO.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Coatings/Surface Treatments
Composites
Joining (Adhesion, Welding)
Nanomaterials
Polymers
Smart/Multifunctional Materials
Textiles
X-rays/Gamma Rays
Microwave
Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE; NDT)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T12.04-9941 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Experimental and Analytical Technologies for Additive Manufacturing |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Advancing Metal Direct Digital Manufacturing (MDDM) Processes for Reduced Cost Fabrication of Cooled Rocket Engine Nozzles |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Keystone Synergistic Enterprises, Inc.
664 Northwest Enterprise Drive, Suite 118
Port Saint Lucie, FL
34953-1565
(772) 343-7544
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Mississippi State University
Mississippi State
Mississippi State, MS
39762-1234
(662) 325-7404
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Bryant Walker
bryanthwalk@aol.com
664 NW Enterprise Drive, Suite 118
Port Saint Lucie,
FL
34953-1565
(772) 343-7544
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Use of additive manufacturing (AM) techniques are of interest as they
can be used to create complex shaped rocket components in addition to
the potential for multi-material, or functionally graded materials
(FGM). The main technical challenge lies in the ability to deposit
various materials at relatively large diameters with the desired
properties while maintaining the overall structural integrity of the
assembly. Use of interface materials can also assist in joining these
very dissimilar metals ranging from Cu-based to Ni-based alloys. In
response to this need, Keystone, in collaboration with MSU, is proposing
a Phase 1 STTR project to demonstrate the feasibility of applying the
Robotic Pulsed-Arc AM process to fabricate FGM Cu-to-Ni components in
support of advanced engines for the Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle.
During the Phase II the Keystone team envisions maturing the processes
to AM a 21-inch diameter cooled nozzle for delivery to the NASA for
machining and preparation for hot fire testing by the NASA.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Rapid manufacturing methods for regeneratively cooled nozzles and skit extensions.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Rapid manufacturing methods for regeneratively cooled nozzles and skit extensions.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Prototyping
Processing Methods
Metallics
Structures
Spacecraft Main Engine
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T12.04-9977 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Experimental and Analytical Technologies for Additive Manufacturing |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Integration of Fast Predictive Model and SLM Process Development Chamber |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Mound Laser & Photonics Center, Inc.
2941 College Drive
Kettering, OH
45420-1172
(937) 865-3730
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Wright State University
3640 Colonel Glenn Highway
Dayton, OH
45435-0001
(937) 775-5143
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Ahsan Mian
ahsan.mian@wright.edu
3640 Colonel Glenn Highway
Dayton,
OH
45435-0001
(937) 775-5143
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
This STTR project seeks to develop a fast predictive model for
selective laser melting (SLM) processes and then integrate that model
with an SLM chamber that allows full control of process variables and is
equipped with in-process sensors. The combination will create a closed
loop in which the model suggests process parameter settings for test
builds and the sensors provide feedback to the model. This creates a
powerful tool for iterative process development far faster than is
currently possible by standard simulation methods and accessible to a
wide range of potential SLM innovators who are not simulation
specialists.
The key innovation will be the development of a simple set of empirical
equations that relate SLM process inputs to actual build results. This
is accomplished by a combination of finite element simulations and
verification experiments whose process parameters are selected by a
design-of-experiments methodology. The resulting easily calculable
empirical functions (a.k.a. the fast predictive model) will replace
arduous simulation and undirected trial-and-error as methods of SLM
process development. A user-friendly interface will be written that
links the fast predictive model to sensorized SLM chamber to allow easy,
rapid and flexible SLM process development. The simplicity of the
system, and relatively low cost of the SLM chamber will allow large
numbers of new innovators and industries to enter the field of SLM and
develop novel processes that meet their application needs, as well as
help solve specific problems of NASA interest.
Phase I activities include 1) development of the fast predictive model,
2) development of a control algorithm and user interface linking the
model to the SLM chamber, and 3) demonstration of the integrated system
for rapid development of novel SLM processes.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Aerospace commercial applications have high overlap with NASA
applications including strong interest in fabrication of rocket engine
components and a variety of other light-weighted structures.
Apart from a desire for faster SLM process development, the commercial
market also has a keen interest in in-process monitoring and closed loop
process control. The use of feedback from in-process sensors both to
develop the fast predictive model and conduct rapid process development
entails concepts and techniques that are closely related to in-process
control. (I.e., in-process control is essentially continuous, real-time,
in situ process development.) Thus it is likely that fast predictive
models, as developed under this project, can be implemented to
facilitate or enable closed loop process control.
Finally, we note that a key goal of this project is to provide a system
that will make SLM process development accessible to a large number of
new innovators and industries, allowing them to enter the field and
create a wide range of applications that are currently unidentified.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The technology developed under this STTR will enable rapid development
and optimization of SLM processes. The experimental process
development chamber can be configured to simulate existing commercial
SLM machines, and thus process developed with the proposed system can be
exported to these machines (which are not themselves well designed for
process development). This supports the goals of the SLM laboratory at
Marshall Space Flight Center as well as participation of the NASA Space
Technology Mission Directorate in the Materials Genome Initiative.
Implementation of the fast predictive model technology can improve the
processes for SLM manufactured parts. This impacts a number of space
platforms and terrestrial applications too long to list. Of particular
interest to NASA is the use of in-process monitoring to verify build
quality. Because the proposed system has in-process monitoring built
into the process development methodology, it has a high likelihood of
developing processes of which NASA engineers can be confident and for
documentation of process quality can be compiled.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Analytical Methods
Process Monitoring & Control
Prototyping
Processing Methods
Metallics
Launch Engine/Booster
Thermal
Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE; NDT)
Simulation & Modeling
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T12.04-9979 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Experimental and Analytical Technologies for Additive Manufacturing |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Real-Time Geometric Analysis of Additive Manufacturing |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Mound Laser & Photonics Center, Inc.
2941 College Drive
Kettering, OH
45420-1172
(937) 865-3730
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Wright State University
3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy
Dayton, OH
45435-0001
(937) 775-2425
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
John Middendorf
johnmiddendorf@mlpc.com
2941 College Drive
Kettering,
OH
45420-1172
(937) 865-3492
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 4
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Current selective laser melting additive manufacturing (AM) systems do
not have adequate process control features for wide-spread adoption
across NASA. In this project Mound Laser & Photonics Center (MLPC)
will work with Wright State University (WSU) to implement a novel system
for layer-by-layer in-process monitoring for AM. The key innovation in
this work will be the use of a line-laser profilometer (LLP) for
3-dimensional, in situ, sub-micron profilometry on every layer during an
AM process, both before and after the layer has been melted. Several
advantages will be gained from this approach: (1) Measurements on the
spread powder layers will determine powder distribution and quality,
enabling correlation between powder distribution and finished part
material properties such as microstructure and density; (2) Measurements
on the melted layer profile will determine the geometric accuracy of
the melted layer (both in depth and lateral dimensions), compared to the
CAD file, and allow correlations between geometric accuracy to powder
distribution, laser parameters, and material properties; and (3) simple
layer defects will be easily identified before the next layer is spread.
This technology could enable real-time process qualification, and
eventually automatic powder re-spreading or layer re-melting to fix
defects in the layer.
In this project, the SBC (MLPC) will build test coupons in their
custom-built, fully tunable, research-grade AM testbed and monitor the
build process with the LLP. The RI (WSU), who has tremendous expertise
in AM sample characterization, will then perform in-depth material
analysis on the test coupons to determine material properties. At the
time of this proprosal, MLPC has already determined that the LLP can
measure the AM testbed with micron-scale accuracy. Therefore, achieving
success with this approach is very likely, the primary needs for
implementation are the development of experimental methods and process
control correlations.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
(1) Commercial aerospace applications have a high overlap with NASA
applications, including strong interest in fabrication of rocket engine
components and a variety of other lightweighted structures.
(2) The US Army Armament Research and Development Engineering Center
(ARDEC) has expressed an interest in AM process control technology.
They seek to use AM manufacturing to enhance munitions and weapon
systems under development at Picatinny Arsenal. ARDEC hopes to
implement a process monitoring solution on commercial AM machines (made
by EOS and SLM Solutions GmbH)
(3) Sensorized Process Development Cell (PDC) for general research:
There is a general frustration in the market with the limitations of
commercial AM machines. End users are typically constrained to given
material types and build protocols. Several institutions have expressed
interest in obtaining a PDC similar to the one MLPC has developed for
its own research. Examples are Rolls-Royce North America, and Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory. Integration of the PDC with the
LLP-based process monitoring system developed under this project will
create a comprehensive, low cost tool for AM research.
(4) Miniature AM processes: MLPC also has a direct interest in using the
STTR sensor technology, integrated with its PDC, to develop miniature
additive manufacturing techniques to make components for the medical
device industry.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
(1) Improving SLM additive manufacturing processes: The in-process
profilometry data collected in this STTR will be fully quantitative and
useful for controlling AM processes. This will be possible through
direct experimentation on the user's machine, experimentation across
machines, or by supplying quantitative data to validate process
modelling.
(2) Non-Destructive evaluation (NDE) and part qualification: This
project will provide verification and qualification of the build
consistency, identify build errors layer-by-layer, and possibly enable
inspectable 3D models of the built part constructed from the LLP
measurements.
(3) Materials Genome Initiative: The correlation of process parameters
and sensor data to resultant material properties and microstructures
would directly support NASA's role in this multi-agency initiative by
providing better empirical methods to validate computational modeling of
additive manufacturing processes.
(4) Final inspection of part geometry: The LLP can measure the
dimensions of finished parts. For dimensionally critical systems this
is an important step, and using the same sensor for both in-process
monitoring and post-process geometric verification will streamline the
production process.
(5) Closed-loop processing: Closed-loop process control could be
realized by measuring each layer both before and after melting, and
making automatic adjustments based on LLP feedback.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Process Monitoring & Control
Quality/Reliability
3D Imaging
In Situ Manufacturing
Joining (Adhesion, Welding)
Metallics
Lasers (Cutting & Welding)
Lasers (Measuring/Sensing)
Optical/Photonic (see also Photonics)
Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE; NDT)
PROPOSAL NUMBER: | 15-1 T13.01-9874 |
SUBTOPIC TITLE: | Advanced Propulsion System Ground Test and Launch Technology |
PROPOSAL TITLE: | Integrated Monitoring AWAReness Environment (IM-AWARE) |
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN:
(Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
American GNC Corporation
888 Easy Street
Simi Valley, CA
93065-1812
(805) 582-0582
RESEARCH INSTITUTION:
(RI Name, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Louisiana Tech University
P.O. Box 3168
Ruston, LA
71272-4235
(318) 257-4641
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
(Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/ZIP, Phone)
Francisco Maldonado
emelgarejo@americangnc.com
888 Easy Street
Simi Valley,
CA
93065-1812
(805) 582-0582
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 5
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
For this STTR project, American GNC Corporation (AGNC) and Louisiana
Tech University (LaTECH) are proposing a significant breakthrough
technology for improving embedded sensing, remote and wireless
monitoring, and the capture of data, information, and knowledge (DIaK)
at propulsion ground test facilities with the Integrated Monitoring
AWAReness Environment (IM-AWARE). This system consists of smart sensors
that interface with transducers measuring parameters such as heat flux,
temperature, pressure, strain, and near-field acoustics. Low-level fault
diagnostic autonomy is granted by advanced algorithms that not only
extract features in measured data which are highly correlated with
potential failure modes, but also take advantage of the interrelations
in a large, complex system. High-level knowledge is infused into the
environment with graph-based methods which allow describing cause and
effect relationships. These core capabilities are then deployed in an
innovative Enterprise networking infrastructure based on wireless and
ubiquitous information sharing. Finally, at the front-end of IM-AWARE,
graphical user interfaces (GUI) for both PCs and mobile devices deliver a
complete picture of the monitored system and associated DIaK with
real-time updates.
POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
One of the main objectives of this STTR is the commercialization of
the project's research results and introduction of a commercialized
product into the marketplace (both civilian and government). The
IM-AWARE will provide an integral solution for embedded sensing and
health monitoring for a variety of systems. Specific uses of the
technology include, but are not limited to: (1) heating and cooling
systems in large and expansive commercial facilities; (2) support
systems in nuclear power plants (cooling lines, gas pressurization
lines, and so on) as well as other power plant types (fossil fuels,
geothermal power, hydroelectric, etc.); (3) industrial environments that
require the proper operation of fluid flow systems (e.g. refrigerant
for cooling, hydraulic power systems, etc.); (4) general manufacturing
environments; and (5) natural gas pipelines and other gas delivery
systems.
POTENTIAL NON-NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The Integrated Monitoring AWAReness Environment will directly support
health monitoring and management within NASA propulsion and testing
facilities. The integration of the system into NASA Stennis Space
Center's rocket engine test stands will immediately benefit the
Integrated System Health Management (ISHM) program by providing powerful
embedded sensing with wireless networking. This includes the monitoring
of leakage, fire, etc. in propellant or gas delivery systems, cooling
water lines, etc. Another example is the remote monitoring of vacuum
lines as part of the low pressure and low cryogenic temperature A3 test
stand at NASA SSC. Possible applications outside of SSC involve the
health monitoring of test facility support systems at Glen Research
Center, for example, vacuum line monitoring at the zero gravity research
facility, as well as usage in wind tunnel test facilities such as those
at Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center.
TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Condition Monitoring (see also Sensors)
Computer System Architectures
Data Acquisition (see also Sensors)
Data Fusion
Data Processing
Knowledge Management
Acoustic/Vibration
Sensor Nodes & Webs (see also Communications, Networking & Signal Transport)
Thermal
Diagnostics/Prognostics