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DARPA STTR 2005 Phase I Award Winners
AeroVironment,
Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: 3D Model Construction from a Micro Air Vehicle ABSTRACT: The innovative integration of two emerging technologies, computer vision systems and Un-manned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s), can dramatically improve the capabilities of the UAV for real-world urban missions. Computer vision is being developed for robotic planetary exploration. UAV’s are being developed for low-altitude military reconnaissance and surveillance in urban settings. The application of computer vision systems, using streaming video data from existing onboard UAV camera payloads, can provide critical 3-D structure intelligence to the warfighter and can feedback navigational information to enhance the UAV’s mission planning, autonomous flight and operational capabilities. Agiltron, Inc. ABSTRACT: This proposal provides a breakthrough solution to flexibly direct the field of view of an imaging system over a wide acceptance angle, having significant advantages over other candidate technologies. The innovation is based on an unconventional beam steering technology covering a wide angle ranging over at high speed with low power consumption and in a compact and lightweight construction. The design is simple comprising an IR lens array and two mirror arrays to divide a picture of a wide field into an image array with individual image cell of small angle FOV, which make it easy to minimize the dispersion of imaging system. The module offers unprecedented high speed and high reliability due to the use of electric rotation actuation controlling two single mirrors scanning in two dimensions. Our beam steering device can operate over wide IR spectral rang. In Phase I, the feasibility will be demonstrated in a functional prototype and the system design will be optimized. A prototype fully functional wide field of view imaging system with unprecedented performance is anticipated in Phase II. Agiltron, Inc. ABSTRACT: Leveraging Agiltron’s recent breakthrough in low loss/low cost solid-sate fiberoptic digital delay lines and variable splitter, we propose to develop a new type of affordable reconfigurable sparse delay line module. The proposed approach overcomes the deficiencies in limited delay time and excessive loss associated with electronic sparse delay line modules and provides sufficiently long delays and wide operation bandwidth, which are beyond electronic means. Our design is highly reconfigurable as well as scalable, providing the required time resolution/precision and delay range that meet a wide range of military and commercial application specifications. This module can precisely operate at frequency and the tapped weight whose response shape is programmable, forming a true matched microwave filter. The proposed sparse tapped delay lines module will have a wide tunable center frequency with high bandwidth up to 40GHz and high dynamic range. The associated theoretical model has been well established and the feasibility of the proposed optically-fed tapped sparse delay line module has been successfully demonstrated by the Agiltron and Tufts University team. This Phase I program addresses high-performance specifications of low loss, high reconfiguration speed, large variable tap weight dynamic range, and high scalability, as well as associated cost-effective fabrication issues. Applications
Technology, Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: Portable Bidirectional Speech Translator for Strategic Languages ABSTRACT: Efforts will focus on the physical and logical interface design for a bidirectional translation device. The deliverable will be a prototype design as well as recommendations on ergonomic factors and interaction requirements of a bidirectional speech driven mobile translation appliance. The design of both the physical and logical layout will be drawn from lessons learned from existing devices like the VoxTec Phraselator and commercial mobile devices such as the PalmOne Treo mobile appliance. PNNL has a growing expertise in the development of mobile interfaces from our work on mobile visual analytics (http://nvac.pnl.gov) and fieldable sensors and control devices (http://www.technet.pnl.gov/sensors/). The goal of this project is to build a device which translates in real time spoken utterances in a foreign language to English and vice versa. The needed software modules for this task are three fold: a software, that converts acoustic signals of spoken utterances into text, a software that converts (i.e. translates) from that foreign language to English, and a software that converts the result in English to spoken text. The aimed foreign languages are especially Arabic, including local dialects such as Iraqi or Egyptian Arabic. Also a methodology will be developed to give a possibility to develop the same system for any other Arabic dialect within a very short time. Archcom
Technology, Inc. ABSTRACT: For many communication applications, the demand for more bandwidth is a never ending problem. Military system applications often can exceed commercial demands by an order of magnitude or more as SIGINT and IMINT data collection and transmission are keys to our National Security. Optical delivery of RF signals is an increasingly important topic for applications including RF antenna remoting, signal routing, CATV, wireless repeaters and tunnels, in-building coverage, and surveillance and reconnaissance. Communication systems using optical signals are a common approach for both military and commercial applications and advancements made for one application form the foundation for advancements in another application. In recent months, Archcom has recently received a number of requests from a variety of customers regarding high current handling, high linearity photodetectors for a few of the aforementioned applications. These requests were targeting the 20GHz and 40GHz bands. Our existing product at 50GHz was optimized for digital communication systems where achieving a high responsivity/bandwidth product was the primary design goal to create a receiver with the highest sensitivity possible. Archcom’s proposal is to modify our world’s best commercially available 50GHz waveguide photodetector to improve linearity and current handling capability to address these new customer requests. AVID LLC PROPOSAL TITLE: Visual Odometry and Automatic 3D Model Construction for MAVs ABSTRACT: We propose to commercialize the real-time visual odometry and automatic 3D model construction method developed by David Nister for use on Micro Air Vehicles. The system will be developed for the Honeywell MAV and tested on that platform. The front end of the system is a feature tracker. Point features are matched between pairs of frames and linked into image trajectories at video rate. Robust estimates of the camera motion are then produced from the feature tracks using a geometric hypothesize-and-test architecture. An important strength of this real-time approach is that it also provides a sparse estimate of 3D structure. CDM Optics, Inc.
PROPOSAL TITLE: Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnected Cluster (ELASTIC) ABSTRACT: A new
concept of ballistically deployed sensors that form an ad hoc network
for uplinking data to the user will meet a critical need for a method of
projecting situational awareness into high-risk or inaccessible
locations. This new method of obtaining tactical intelligence puts
extraordinary demands on the sensors and especially on imaging sensors:
The requirements for extreme ruggedness and simplicity work strongly
against the equally critical requirements for high-quality imaging in
all light levels and at all distances and can be met using Wavefront
Coding in the imager design, allowing simple, rugged optical systems to
have sufficient performance. The Phase I study will look in depth at the
ELASTIC concept on all scales and over a number of operational modes,
from countrywide, long-term surveillance to real-time data from the next
room. Discovery
Semiconductors, Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: Ultra-fast, High Saturation Current, InGaAs/InP Photodetectors ABSTRACT: In Phase I, we propose to develop high saturation current photodiodes that will meet the following design criteria: (a) Responsivity > 0.7 A/W, (b) 1 dB compression current > 100 mA, (c) Bandwidth > 10 GHz, and (d) Wavelength response of 1300 to 1550 nm. Two different photodiode designs will be tested for maximum saturation current: Partially Depleted Absorber (PDA) and Charge Compensated Uni Traveling Carrier (CC UTC). A comparative study of these two designs will determine which structure is more suitable for the above design goals. As saturation current levels increase above 100 mA, the problem of excessive Joule heating (multiple of voltage bias and photodiode current) creates the problem of “thermal runaway” leading to eventual device failure. We will investigate “wafer bonding” of InGaAs photodiodes to silicon wafers for better heat removal caused by Joule heating. This will ultimately lead to a more reliable photodiode. In a potential Phase II, we will expand the bandwidth of the photodiodes to 100 GHz with current saturation limit up to 50 mA. EPIR Technologies,
Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: High Speed Room Temperature Infrared Imaging ABSTRACT: We propose the development of infrared detectors with high detectivities operating at high speeds and at room temperature in the 1-12 micron wavelength range using a combination of two techniques. First, non-equilibrium device operation concepts will be implemented to suppresses both radiative and Auger recombination. Second, the detector volume is incorporated into a resonant cavity, which gives rise to a substantial reduction of thermal generation currents by permitting a small active volume without degrading the quantum efficiency. It also permits the predetermination of the peak wavelength of the optical resonance, and high speed operation is obtained due to short carrier transit times. In Phase I, we will develop a 2D model simulating the performance of the detectors fabricated based on the above techniques. EPIR Technologies will model the electrical and optical characteristics of these detectors and establish the feasibility of growing them by molecular beam epitaxy. The University of Michigan will model their transient response using the carrier continuity equations based on drift, diffusion, and G-R processes in the semiconductor material. SPILAB, a subcontractor for this program, will study the detector-signal processor interface. Etovia Systems,
Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: Robust Real-Time SFM for SMAV ABSTRACT: We shall investigate and implement robust Real-Time SFM for SMAV application scenarios. Automatic pose determination and extraction of 3D structure of the environment are critical to autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance of SMAVs in constrained and crowded environments. Extracting such state information under various constraints (low quality video, sensor payload limitations, minimal onboard processing capabilities, sudden and abrupt motions changes etc.) pose a significant challenge and require development of innovative and robust algorithms. We will 1) Develop and implement SFM algorithms with robustness at each processing stage to ensure reliable performance with low quality video input, and to detect degenerate or near degenerate cases to avoid erroneous estimation; 2) Perform extensive feasibility study of our proposed algorithm using data with progressive levels of fidelity including a) Simulated data with ground truth information b) Motion-captured data and c) Data collected from real SMAVs equipped with miniaturized cameras; and 3) Systematically evaluate the performance of our SFM algorithm for reconstruction accuracy at different flying patterns in various environments, and different depth ranges that can be recovered by our algorithm. The objective is to develop a practical and field deployable system that will provide navigation and obstacle detection capabilities to the SMAV platforms. JXT Applications,
Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: Human-Machine Interfaces for Coordination Decision Support in Tactical Settings ABSTRACT: Mobile Army commanders must frequently adjust their planned course of action (COA) in response to events and changes in the Battlespace. Advances in the battlefield information infrastructure and related technologies provide new opportunities for the development of human-machine collaborative systems to support decision-making in this context. The objective of this effort is to develop a “joint cognitive system” that will enable software agents and humans to effectively collaborate to evaluate, coordinate, refine and decide on optimal COAs. This project, which focuses on collaborative user interface development, complements the DARPA COORDINATOR project, which focuses on software agent development. We propose to employ the Cognitive Systems Engineering framework combined with an Ecological Interface Design approach to develop the system, which we call WICTOR. In our solution, the user interface provides a common framework for information exchange between the human and machine, as well as a mechanism for the human to guide the machine expert. The system will support functions ranging from monitoring the battle situation, detecting deviations from the plan, developing / selecting alternative COAs, and coordinating these COAs with other combat units at various levels of command. Kiara Networks PROPOSAL TITLE: Mid-IR Tellurite Fiber Raman Lasers ABSTRACT: Tellurite glass compositions show significantly enhanced Raman scattering behavior. Optimizing these oxide glass compositions with heavy-metal-oxides(HMO) leads to easily fiberizable and highly non-linear fibers with transparency in the mid-IR wavelength region. These fibers are ideally suited for cascaded Raman lasers to generate multiple wavelengths in the mid-IR region. Furthermore, the high optical damage thresholds, durability and stability of these fibers lead to a manufacturable and highly reliable fiber laser source. Natural
Interaction Systems, LLC PROPOSAL TITLE: Human-Machine Interfaces for Coordination Decision Support in Tactical Settings ABSTRACT: Natural Interaction Systems, LLC (NIS), its subcontractor, Prof. Sharon L. Oviatt (Oregon Health and Science Uni-versity), and its consultants, Dr. Kay Stanney (Univ. of Central Florida) and Lt. Col. S. Kelly Snapp (U.S. Army, Ret.) are pleased to present this STTR proposal to develop an advanced multimodal interface in support of tactical coordination. Although the military has devoted substantial resources to the generation of plans for a wide range of contingencies, once units deploy, those plans inevitably change. Unfortunately, insufficient technological support has been given to the problem of finding a new joint plan among the deployed units who are affected by those changes. In conjunction with the DARPA/IPTO COORDINATORS Program that is aiming to build software that would support tactical coordination, the proposed effort will address the interface between the dismounted war-fighter and his COORDINATOR, as well as the hardware platform that could host a COORDINATOR agent. The pro-posed effort will also investigate the effect of this interface on the user’s cognitive load during coordination tasks, and assess his ability to maintain situation awareness and perform tasks. If successful, the proposed work will pro-vide an extremely useful interface, not only for coordination, but for tactical collaboration of all types. Moreover, the proposed work will also generate a usable interface appropriate to dismounted and mobile settings, a problem that has resisted solution to this day. This STTR effort will transfer dialogue management and interface simulation software to NIS, as well as knowledge of how these interfaces affect users’ cognitive load. Finally, the empirical testing methodology has immediate benefits to NIS’ developing and assessing many different kinds of mobile inter-faces. Nomadics, Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: Reconfigurable Solid State Weighted Tapped Delay Line Filter ABSTRACT: Optical circuits provide many benefits for large time-bandwidth signal processing in microwave photonic applications. SeTapped delay lines using surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are in use today for carrier frequencies in the MHz to 100 MHz range, and thus their general theory and efficacy are well known. In order to be widely applicable, the tapped delay line filter must be robust enough to be deployed in fixed as well as mobile platforms. This calls for a solid state implementation of the components and a high degree of integration of all the optical elements. Further, it is desirable to have rapid real time reconfigurability and feedback for frequency scanning, filter shape adaptation, and noise figure optimization. Finally, an integrated solid state approach that uses conventional semiconductor practices will ensure cost effectiveness, scalability, and multiple sourcing. We propose through our Little Optics Division to implement reconfigurable optical tapped delay line filters using our proprietary high-index contrast planar lightwave circuit technology, achieving robust solid state filter solutions with femtosecond accuracy on the delay elements. Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) will develop adaptive algorithms for the control of the filter and facilitate system testing of the filter units. Nova Research,
Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnected Cluster (ELASTIC) ABSTRACT: A persistent threat to US forces deployed in hostile territories is lack of knowledge of the engagement environment to avoid ambush. US forces constitute prime targets for hostile elements evidenced from the organized attacks and ambushes on US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnected Cluster (ELASTIC) would constitute a small, light, wireless surveillance system that would be invaluable in these scenarios, providing situational awareness of a remote location to a squad of soldiers. Teamed with Innovative Wireless Technologies (IWT) and its University partner, Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Nova will address the critical elements of low bandwidth, image-based bandwidth compression techniques, and low power imaging sensors inter-connected via a reconfigurable mesh-network. During the Phase I program, Nova will develop and demonstrate ELASTIC, a dual sensor (visible and IR) breadboard network that utilizes off-the-shelf cameras communicating through an existing ad-hock mesh wireless network to transmit real-time video over a commercial network protocol. Under Phase II, the customized low-cost solution for ELASTIC will be fully developed into a prototype system with multiple nodes meeting the objectives of a system capable of being deployed to provide situational awareness of a remote location to a squad of soldiers. Omni Sciences,
Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: Mid-Infrared Fiber Laser Based on Super-Continuum ABSTRACT: Infrared counter-measures require a mid-infrared laser operating between 3-5 microns with average powers of tens of watts. Omni Sciences, Inc.’s (OSI’s) aims to develop a Mid-Infra-Red FIber Laser (MIRFIL) based on super-continuum (SC) generation that produces a continuous spectrum between 1-5 microns. OSI has demonstrated broadband SC in high-nonlinearity fused silica (HiNL) and ZBLAN fluoride fibers using laser diode pumping. For HiNL the SC covers ~950nm to ~2700nm, while in ZBLAN the spectrum covers ~850nm to ~3600nm. This SC is unique in that modelocked lasers are not required and only short fiber lengths are used. The spectral density is more than three (eight) orders-of-magnitude brighter than a lamp in average (peak) power. In Phase I OSI will develop a MIRFIL covering the 3-5 micron window. The HiNL results will be extended to ~3600nm using extra drying steps in the fiber. The ZBLAN results will be extended to ~5000nm by tailoring the material composition of ZBLAN to reduce the bend induced loss. Damage threshold and power scaling will also be tested. In preparation for Phase II, a MIRFIL will be designed that can reach power levels of tens of watts over the 3-5 micron window. QorTek, Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: Wide Field of View Electronically Stearable Imaging Sensors ABSTRACT: The proposed project will develop the revolutionary solid-state gimbal system, using three proprietary technologies (ultrasonic motor, piezoelectronics and advanced modeling software) to enable it to be small, lightweight, low power, and with almost no moving parts. The system will still maintain high performance and will provide precision controlled high angular rate motion over a wide acceptance angle. The gimbal system concept will be lightweight, uncooled, and mechanically robust with 60 degrees of rotational motion. The system will provide a significant technological advance for infrared and visible imaging, on-missile seekers, search and tracking devices, and surveillance equipment. Tanner Research,
Inc. PROPOSAL TITLE: High Speed Room Temperature IR Camera Based on Plasmon Physics ABSTRACT: Several critical DoD missions require reliable, rapid, and non-cryogenically cooled long wave IR cameras. This camera, in turn, can be developed only with a new photodiode architecture wherein detector dark current is reduced by at least 3 orders of magnitude. In this proposal, Tanner Research and Stanford University are proposing a plasmon lens & resonant antenna device to efficiently focus broadband incident IR radiation onto a spatially reduced photodiode. Photodiode volume reduction corresponds to a reduction in photodiode dark current. During Phase I, we will investigate and demonstrate the feasibility of our high risk/high reward approach of a new photodiode architecture. During Phase II, we will collaborate with Raytheon Vision Systems to build the IR camera. TechFinity, Inc.
PROPOSAL TITLE: Efficient, Collaborative Image Processing and Flow Assignment with Filed of Viw Coverage in Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnect ABSTRACT: The Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnected Cluster (ELASTIC) concept is a set of small, ballistically distributed optical imaging sensors that form an ad hoc wireless sensor network (WSN) that provides real time information to a tactical decision maker. ELASTIC provides the infrastructure and technologies to enable quick deployment, sensing, processing, and communication. This proposal addresses four key technical areas for ELASTIC: a) Suitable Imaging Systems: Wireless sensor nodes with imaging systems. b) Low-Power Wireless Network Technologies: Peer-to-peer ad hoc network capabilities and challenges in collaborative, distributed, and localized algorithms, including WSN coverage and optimal data flow assignment. c) Signal Processing: New and novel approaches to signal processing in a WSN, including collaborative image processing and object tracking. d) Spatially Locating Deployed Sensor Nodes: Location discovery with GPS nodes used as beacons to seed iterative multilateration techniques for locating non GPS nodes. The TechFinity-University of Wisconsin, Madison team has expertise in wireless networks, sensor networking, image processing, and algorithm development. In this Phase I study the team will investigate the feasibility of the ELASTIC concept. In Phase II and Phase III the team will demonstrate its design, at first in benign environments, and then in demanding operational environments, such as the tactical battlefield, urban military operations, and surveillance of vulnerable commercial assets. Toyon Research
Corp. PROPOSAL TITLE: Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnected Cluster (ELASTIC) ABSTRACT: Providing situational awareness to ground-based personnel in tactical scenarios is a challenging problem. This proposal provides a plan for developing a ballistically deployed wireless imaging sensor with networking capabilities. Our solution addresses all aspects of the problem from the imaging system itself to deployment strategies. For this effort, we will incorporate hardware and software as well as general experience obtained from a 3rd generation wireless camera system developed at The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Similarly, although our team will initially rely on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) transceiver hardware, our plan is to eventually integrate a custom ASIC being developed for the JPL Mars Technology Program. In particular, the custom transceiver has capabilities that are well suited to this effort including low power operation, small size, and asymmetric data rates on the uplink and downlink. For packaging, we will leverage Toyon’s experience with antenna and receiver development for a guidance integrated fuse used on ballistically fired munitions. Our work will utilize Toyon’s experience with custom antenna design and packaging. Both Toyon and JPL have significant experience with wireless communications and networking to ensure a successful design. Voice Signal PROPOSAL TITLE: A Portable Efficient Phrase Translation System ABSTRACT: This proposal combines two technologies to create an efficient, effective translation device. We propose coupling commercially available cell phone basic technology from Voice Signal with approximate search from the International Computer Science Institute through an API on a portable device to demonstrate multi-lingual approximate phrase searching and translation on COTS devices.
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