Air force 14. 1 Small Business Innovation Research (sbir) Proposal Submission Instructions

AF141-142 TITLE: Plug and Play for Architecture for Modular Weapons

OBJECTIVE: Develop novel interface hardware & protocols for integration of weapon seeker, sensor, fuzing, guidance and control. Investigate plug & play open architecture for rapid evolution of new seeker, guidance units, & fuzing for multi-role munitions.

DESCRIPTION: Current legacy weapons are tightly integrated "stove-pipe" closed architectures. Technology innovation to improve weapon performance, increase mission effectiveness, reduce acquisition cost, and extend weapon support lifetime are often negatively impacted by unique proprietary weapon data interconnect architectures. This topic is to investigate an open architecture "plug and play" concept for the communication, guidance and control, fuzing, and safe and arm functions along with communications to the aircraft or ground controller (weapon -aircraft interface and weapon data link). This will consist of building a technical framework that will begin by defining several open interfaces for a BUS system to connect the communication, guidance and control, fuzing, and safe and arm functions together. This will be the basis for a technical framework that will be developed. From this technical framework a technical service oriented architecture will be designed in a current software modeling language. Each service will be unassociated, loosely coupled units of functionality that are self-contained. Ultimately this will allow simultaneous use and easy mutual data exchange between modules of the weapon developed by different vendors without additional programming or making changes to the services.
By example new improvements in fly by light transponders and environmentally rugged fiber optics provide opportunities to replace costly and delicate cable/connector assemblies. Kalman and optimally filtered guidance schemes provide for novel opportunities to mix and match inertial, seeker, and GPS inputs instead of tightly integrated stove pipe guidance schemes of the past. New secure wireless network technologies may provide opportunities for minimal cabling through the aircraft bay, racks and pylons providing maximum flexibility for which type of weapon can be carried on a particular rack. Investigate functional equivalents for MILSTD 1553 and 1760 protocols along with new "broadcast Remote Direct Memory Access" RDMA and precision time protocols that would support rapid addressing multiple weapons at the same time.
The goal is to provide the ability to develop weapons components, guidance law software and processors, target recognition and track modules, attitude and control units, seekers and sensors and be able to integrate rapidly technology from various sources in response to new and evolving user needs. An example would be to re-utilize a seeker from an current weapon on a new weapon without extensive redevelopment time and cost.

PHASE I: Investigate critical components to demonstrate a robust plug and play framework for weapon systems. This framework should address various open interface standards from Optical to Wireless. Various use cases should be developed and defined. Estimate cost,size, and weight savings over current cabled weapons systems and racks. Determine interfaces to legacy weapons and launcher systems.

PHASE II: Develop and demonstrate a modular weapon open interface architecture based on the framework developed in Phase I. This should include both seeker and guidance and Control modules. Functional and system testing of the architecture will be used to verify the architecture against the design documents and specifications developed in Phase I. The use cases developed in Phase I will be turned into test cases to provide traceability throughout the development.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Working with DoD weapon primes, develop and demonstrate flight functional units and provide live drop testing showing accuracy, performance, and long term logistical cost savings to the U.S. government.

REFERENCES:

1. Meindl, J.D., Beyond Moore's Law: the interconnect era, Computing in Science & Engineering, Vol:5, Issue 1, 2003, pp 20-24.

AF141-143 TITLE: Data Analysis and Mining for Penetration Environment Dynamics (DAMPED)

OBJECTIVE: Develop innovative analytic tools to describe the stochastic/probabilistic features of the penetration fuze environment and analyze using data mining from diverse experimental and computational data sources.

DESCRIPTION: The operational dynamic environment for hard target fuzes is known to be exceedingly harsh. The environment is typically characterized as having long duration, high amplitude, high frequency content, impulsive loading characteristics (i.e., shock-like). The loading is also multiaxial and typically involves several repeated impulses (i.e., repeated loading cycles). Finally, the penetration dynamics are anything but repeatable, even nominally identical test events can have orders-of-magnitude difference in severity, both quantitatively and qualitatively. This is due (at least in part) to natural variations in the weapon systems (assembly and materials), targets (strength, geometry, etc.), and a host of other contributing factors (such as incident attitude of the weapon). All of these factors support the assertion that hard target fuzes experience a harsh, complex, stochastic environment.
While several individual metrics/figures-of-merit have been proposed and used to describe the environment, it is beyond the current state-of-the-art to completely parameterize and describe in a probabilistic sense (e.g., using the joint probability distribution) the various aspects of the mechanical environment that are relevant to evaluating fuze survivability and lethality. Additionally, the survivability of a given fuze system in a range of weapon systems and/or operational target engagement scenarios must also be considered and described using this same probabilistic language. Given the high dimensionality (i.e., the number of contributing parameters is >>10), it is impractical from a resource or schedule standpoint to build this information using test data alone. However, combining empirical and computational simulation data can provide valuable insight into the environment, and both sources of data need to be assimilated. (Note: Available test and simulation data will be provided as government-furnished information at the initiation of the contracted effort.)
This SBIR topic seeks to develop and mature the language and analytic tools necessary to describe this environment in a probabilistic sense and improve the accuracy (i.e., the predictive power) of simulations. It is expected that this effort would lead to the development of tools and submodels that evaluate the mission-level performance/effectiveness (i.e., survivability, reliability, and lethality) of a fuze design for arbitrary operational scenarios. The long-term vision of this effort is to establish a new paradigm for evaluating the design margin of fuzes in operational environments, complementing empirically-based methods such as the Fuze Survivability Protocol with probabilistic modeling tools.
Note: The data, analysis methods, and results are expected to be classified at or above the Secret level.

PHASE I: Define analytic techniques to describe the fuze environment. Document and develop interface information on data sources and formats, including both experimental and simulation. Apply methodology to empirical laboratory-scale shock test data to demonstrate viability of approach.

PHASE II: Refine analytic toolset to accommodate diverse sources of information. Perform analysis on all available information for an inventory legacy penetrating weapon system and write document summarizing environment. Develop user interfaces and optimize data management to ensure usability.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Develop campaign-level weaponeering tools (e.g., compatible with IMEA) based on tools and analysis developed in Phases I and II.

REFERENCES:

1. Foley, J. R., J. Caulk, et al. (2012). "Harsh Environment Fuze Technology (HEFTY), Vol. 1: Legacy Fuze Environment and Fuze Survivability Protocol." AFRL-RW-EG-TR-2012-017 (U.S. DoD and U.S. DoD Contractors Only).

OBJECTIVE: Develop cooperative RF sensor systems that improve operations in the A2AD environments, including low probability of intercept; resistance to interference; and, greater flexibility in accomplishing assigned missions with reduced time line.

DESCRIPTION: The future of radar sensors will be software defined and have flexible missions. They will need to operate cooperatively in hostile environments and meet the demanding cost, size, weight and power (CSWaP) constraints of weapons for 5th- and 6th-generation platforms in all-weather conditions. Furthermore, in the Anti Access/Area Denial (A2AD) environment, the survivability and effectiveness of the munitions during ingress is crucial. Cooperative radar sensors will have beneficial characteristics for improved operations in the A2AD environments, including low probability of intercept, resistance to interference, and greater flexibility in accomplishing assigned missions with reduced timeline.
Due to the size constraints (9" diameter), and required operating ranges (> 10 Km), cooperative RF sensor systems are expected to operate in the Ku or Ka bands. In order to accomplish this, advanced digital signal processing techniques will be required to implement the adaptive clutter and interference mitigation algorithms and/or form synthetic aperture radar imagery. With the overall goal of being able to achieve 1-foot range and cross range resolution in the cooperative SAR mode.

PHASE I: The Phase I study should determine the feasibility of the cooperative RF sensor techniques and implementation strategies. System performance requirements for cooperative RF sensor concepts should be considered and translated into design specifications. Trade-off analysis and simulation of critical performance parameters is expected during Phase I.

PHASE II: Determining the requirements for the algorithms to process the RF data collected in a cooperative scenario. Refine the system requirements developed in Phase I using the results of the trade-off analysis. Develop and demonstrate the cooperative RF algorithms with simulated and/or real data. Tune the algorithms to maximize performance and develop the concepts of operation for cooperative RF sensors.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Build prototype and perform demonstration of cooperative RF sensor system. Commercialization potential exists for automated vehicle navigation techniques.

REFERENCES:

1. Bistatic radar, Nicholas J.Willis - SciTech - 2005.

OBJECTIVE: Use electromagnetic (EM) fields to alter the properties or combustion of energetic materials. Exploit these effects for real-time control of sensitivity, energy release, or power release, or greater lethality from combined kinetic-EM effects.

PHASE I: Develop a means to alter an explosive's properties or its combustion behavior with an electromagnetic field and a concept to exploit this effect for a selectable effect or enhanced lethality warhead. Use or develop physics-based and chemistry-based modeling. Small-scale testing to show proof-of-concept is highly desirable. Merit and feasibility must be clearly demonstrated during this phase.

PHASE II: Develop, demonstrate, and validate the component technology in a prototype based on the modeling, concept development, and success criteria developed in Phase I. Deliverables are a prototype demonstration, experimental data, a model baselined with experimental data, and substantiating analyses.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Military applications include insensitive munitions, enhanced lethality, selectable effect, and low collateral damage munitions. Commercial applications include variable-rate airbag inflation and low collateral damage weapons for DHS and law enforcement in sensitive urban scenarios.

REFERENCES:

1. Martin E. Colclough et al., "Novel Explosives," United States Patent Application 20100089271 A1, filed 18 February 2008.

Detonating Solid Explosives," AIO Conf. Proc., 1426, 227 (2012).

AF141-151 TITLE: Engineered Process Materials for Casting of Aerospace Components

OBJECTIVE: Develop casting mold materials and/or processes for the production of cast aerospace components with improved dimensional control and material properties through efficient heat transfer and thermal stress management.

DESCRIPTION: High performing turbine airfoils and structural components for turbine engines are typically produced via investment casting. Investment casting molds are created by successive iterations of slurry dipping, stucco application and hardening over a wax replica of the final casting geometry. These ceramic molds (or shells) are typically designed to (1) minimize structural failure of the mold prior to solidification, (2) provide sufficient casting surface finish and (3) crush during cool down to minimize stresses in the casting. Concurrently, casting core materials and processes (that ultimately provide internal features in castings) have matured separately from investment molds, limiting integration of the two processes in order to achieve superior dimensional control of the final casting.