Department of the navy (don) 17. 1 Small Business Innovation Research (sbir) Proposal Submission Instructions introduction

DESCRIPTION: The characterization of ultra-short pulsed laser (USPL) pulses typically requires multiple instruments that separately measure and report key properties of the pulse, followed by analyses that incorporate the various data streams into a consolidated understanding of the laser performance. Individual instruments often include average power or pulse power meters, devices for measuring pulse duration, spectrum analyzers, instruments for measuring the wavefront, and beam spatial profilers. This is unsatisfactory for Navy needs because the individual instruments often require significant expertise to operate, maintain, and interpret. Furthermore, the individual instruments are often bulky and highly sensitive to the environment, and are not easily or readily co-integrated with one another. More importantly, using separate, non-integrated instruments prevents the user from having a holistic and easily interpreted understanding of the laser performance without detailed analysis. Finally, the physical size and weight of carrying multiple instruments is unsatisfactory for Navy needs where deck (or rack) space, weight, power, and cooling services are severely restricted. .

The Navy is interested in developing a single, robust, fully integrated and user-friendly instrument suite that measures and reports USPL pulse characteristics in a holistic manner in a compact and transportable package. A comprehensive USPL characterization suite would incorporate, at a minimum, instruments to measure pulse energy, pulse duration (including residual long pulse 'pedestals'), beam spatial profile, spectral content, and a means to evaluate the pulse phase. The system would implement a comprehensive software package for pulse analysis and include a user interface that allows a single trained operator to control the system and monitor all of the salient properties of an ultra-short pulsed laser beam on a single display screen.

Physically, the system should be transportable by no more than 2 persons, run off of standard electrical supplies (120VAC, or preferably, rechargeable battery supplies) and interface with a single laptop computer or, preferably, a single hand-held device. Systems that require external cooling supplies or become inoperable outside narrowly controlled environmental conditions are undesirable.

PHASE I: The Phase I effort should focus on identifying commercial or developmental instrument(s) that can be used to measure the spectral, spatial, temporal, and energetic properties of a Ultra Short Pulsed Laser (USPL) beam, and which can be miniaturized or integrated into a single platform or suite of diagnostic tools. The resulting product concept should be capable of comprehensively and holistically reporting the key properties of a USPL beam in real time with a user-friendly interface and packaged in a compact, transportable package suitable for outdoor field testing. Required Phase I deliverables will include a mature design concept of required instrumentation to perform the requisite pulse measurements, an estimate of the size, weight, and power required for the system, and a complete description of the concept of operation, packaging concepts, and proposed user interface.

PHASE II: The Phase II effort will produce the proposed product concept in a prototypical configuration. The small business will perform the requisite engineering processes to complete the design, acquire the necessary components, integrate them into a single package, build, demonstrate, and validate that the product can comprehensively and holistically measure and report the key properties of a USPL beam in real time with a user-friendly interface. The resulting system must be demonstrated in an outdoor field test environment and operated by a single user with minimal maintenance of internal components.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Phase III activities will include the development and execution of a plan to manufacture a production-level instrument based on the Phase II prototype and assist in the engineering, integration, and testing of the production level system with existing or future Naval programs (potential future transition programs may include the Surface Navy Laser Weapons System, or a future PEO IWS sponsored program of record or Navy prototype system. Integration into Navy Directed Energy test ranges as a test asset may also be possible. Beyond these projected Navy transition paths, there are a variety of potential commercial applications; a comprehensive and user friendly diagnostic instrument suite would find utility in any manufacturing or laboratory environment where ultra-short pulsed lasers are used. Private Sector Commercial Potential: A comprehensive, transportable, USPL diagnostic system will have a multitude of commercial applications, ranging from a scientific laboratory instrument to a tool for maintaining USPL-intensive manufacturing equipment.

REFERENCES:

1. G. P. Agrawal, Nonlinear Fiber Optics, Third Edition, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2001.

2. J-C. Diels and W. Rudolph, Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena, Academic Press 1996. -

KEYWORDS: laser, lasers, ultra-short pulsed lasers, laser instrument, instrument, diagnostic tools, transportable

Questions may also be submitted through DoD SBIR/STTR SITIS website.

N171-086

TITLE: Compact, Low Loss, Broadband Power Inductors for Navy Sonar Applications

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Electronics, Sensors

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Undersea Tracking Range Equipment Program, NAVSEA 05H3

OBJECTIVE: Develop compact, low loss, high power inductors with inductances >25 mH to match single crystal projectors to power amplifiers in a size suitable for use in Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV), improving energy efficiency by at least 50% and thereby increasing vehicle operational availability.

DESCRIPTION: Single crystal transducers are of interest in Navy and maritime application for their compact size, high acoustic output and broad bandwidth. These single crystal transducers require tuning inductors to provide optimal matching to the power amplifier. Such matching can allow nearly 100% of the amplifier power to reach the transducer over as much as 2.5 octaves of frequency, which allows an efficiency improvement of nearly 100% over the band over current ceramic based transducer technology. Such power matching is critical to efficiently utilize power in platforms with limited energy resources such as UUVs. Particularly at lower frequencies, the tuning inductance values can be quite large (>25 mH). Additionally, these inductors must be able to withstand input voltages up to 600 Vrms. It must also have low losses (DC resistance less than 2 ohms) and low harmonic distortion. For both size and energy constrained environments like UUVs, inductors with values this large that are stable over a wide bandwidth and have low loss do not exist in a compact form factor. Current high power inductors with values >25 mH are either too large for size constrained platforms like UUVs or have DC resistance values of 20 ohms or more. The objective of this program is to develop compact high power tuning inductors that exhibit stable properties over a 10-40 kHz bandwidth, and operate under drive voltages able to withstand up to 600 Vrms and input power levels of 180 W with harmonic distortion levels of -50 dB or less at the 2nd harmonic. The maximum size should be less than 0.85” OD by 0.54”H, and the inductance and loss must remain constant over a temperature range from -10°C to 85°C. Producing these inductors may require use of novel magnetic materials, manufacturing and/or packaging. Availability of these broad band, low loss, high power tuning inductors can extend operational availability of UUVs by better utilizing available energy resources.

PHASE I: Develop a conceptual design for a low loss, broadband, compact tuning inductor to meet the inductance, loss and distortion level targets identified in the objective and description sections. Identify candidate materials and topologies to meet these requirements. Conduct a proof of feasibility analysis on the stability of the inductance over the frequency range and estimate the potential heat generated during operation under 180 W input.

PHASE II: Fully develop candidate inductor designs identified in Phase I. Construct prototypes that conform to the required 0.85” OD by 0.54”H size constraint. Demonstrate conformance to inductance, loss and distortion requirements over the frequency and temperature ranges identified in the Description section. Using a dummy load representative of a notional single crystal transducer provided by the Navy TPOC, demonstrate stable performance using 600 V and 180 W input using both sine and white noise pulses. Demonstrate reproducibility of design by constructing and testing no fewer than 5 inductors of the chosen design. Identify any issues with manufacturing scalability of the selected design and estimate potential production costs.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Demonstrate scalability of the design by constructing 100 of the tuning inductors and testing for conformance with the design goals in the Description section. Working with the Navy POC, transition the inductor technology into the Undersea Tracking Range Equipment (UTRE) Program. Private Sector Commercial Potential: Unmanned underwater vehicles have become ubiquitous in the oceanographic community and oil exploration industry. The use of single crystal transducers provide a high power, compact, broadband transducer technology for acoustic communications and surveying. Since the vehicles have considerable power constraints, providing compact tuning inductors to utilize available energy resources more effectively.

REFERENCES:

1. K.A. Snook, P.W. Rehrig*, W.S. Hackenberger, and X. Jiang, "Advanced Piezoelectric Single Crystal Based Transducers for Naval Sonar Applications," Smart Structures and Materials 2005: Active Materials: Behavior and Mechanics, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 5

2. M.B. Moffett MB, H.C. Robinson, J.M. Powers and P.D. Baird, "Single-crystal lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate (PMN/PT) as a broadband high power transduction material", J Acoust Soc Am., vol. 121, pp. 2591-2599 (2007).

3. D. Stansfield, Underwater Electroacoustic Transducers, Peninsula Publishing (2000).-

KEYWORDS: transducer; single crystal; tuning; inductor; broadband; transduction

Questions may also be submitted through DoD SBIR/STTR SITIS website.

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Air Platform, Ground/Sea Vehicles

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) INP, MCSC Program Manager for Armor and Fire Support Systems (PM AFSS) Fire Support Systems

OBJECTIVE: Develop an autonomous cargo loading/unloading system to be demonstrated in conjunction with the Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) equipped UH-1H Optionally Piloted Aircraft (OPA) that will provide a capability to deliver supplies autonomously to a manned or unmanned location.

DESCRIPTION: Currently no system exists that allows for autonomous loading/unloading of cargo in a tactical/austere landing zone after touchdown of the AACUS equipped UH-1H aircraft (AEH-1) and the UH-1Y aircraft. Cargo missions today still require manpower for deploying and unloading of cargo from the air vehicle. This results in a reliance on manpower for unloading tasks, as well as fire teams in unsecured locations. Autonomous capability to load and unload cargo would greatly reduce burden on troops in the field to move supplies out of the supplying aircraft. Manual handling of cargo increases time the aircraft is on the ground in the Landing Zone and increases exposure of personnel.

AACUS is a sensor suite and software package designed to operate an unmanned rotary wing aircraft into and out of an unprepared landing site while conducting the Assault Support mission. It is an applique (i.e. kit) that is installed on an aircraft and the effort would be an additional capability of the kit for applicable aircraft. The UH-1H demo will be a proof of concept for installing on later aircraft such as the UH-1Y and H-60. This will expand the autonomous capabilities of the AEH-1 by developing an unmanned/automatic solution to handling cargo in an unprepared and unmanned landing zone. This Autonomous Cargo Handling System (ACHS) should leverage the AACUS kit‘s STANAG-4586 [1] compliance to enable real-time sensor data sharing and communication with the AACUS system. Technical Risks will include Autonomous interaction of manned/unmanned platforms, effectiveness in unprepared environments, “cargo agnostic” handling capabilities and integration with legacy aircraft and expansion ability to future platforms including the UH-1Y. Current load capacity and characteristics, center of gravity limitations, and cargo compartment capabilities are available in U.S. Department of the Army, “Operator's Manual: Army Model UH-1H/V Helicopters [2]. Load and unload time should be comparable to expected times for manual cargo handling for similar cargo delivery sizes in manned conditions.

PHASE I: During Phase I, the small business will define and develop a concept for the Autonomous Cargo Handling System (ACHS). The company will develop the testing and validation methodology for the ACHS, along with performance parameter goals, not limited to speed of loading/unloading and load capacity, size, weight, volume, interface, and power requirements. The system should be able to be modular and designed to be rapidly removed from the host aircraft in less than 8 hours (threshold) and 4 hours (objective). Full interfacing functionality with the UH-1H cargo access door is required [2]. Highlight the design choices that ensure future interoperability with other platforms including the UH-1Y and H-60. Key deliverables in Phase I would be documentation of conceptual design that would lay the framework for prototyping in Phase II.

PHASE II: Develop an Autonomous Cargo Handling System prototype based on the Phase I efforts. Validate performance parameters and technical goals expressed in Phase I final report through an iterative test schedule. Demonstrate the performance capabilities of the autonomous cargo handling system and architecture that includes the following activities:

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: If Phase II is successful, the small business will provide support in transitioning the system for Marine Corps use in UH-1Y program and be an integrated capability in the AACUS installation kit. The small business will develop a plan to determine the effectiveness of the expeditionary ACHS system in an operationally relevant environment (Technology Readiness Level 7). The small business will support the Marine Corps with certifying and qualifying the system for Marine Corps use and shall also submit the system for certification. As appropriate, the small business will focus on scaling up manufacturing capabilities and commercialization plans. Private Sector Commercial Potential: This capability would have wide applicability for use on commercial helicopters for loading and unloading of internal cargo. This includes patients for air ambulances, providing supplies for humanitarian assistance as well as reducing manpower requirements for normal operations. Since it will be a kit applicable to multiple types of helicopters it will be applicable to all current helicopters as well as new designs. It will reduce the requirement for material handling equipment to load and unload the aircraft making the aircraft more capable and less costly to operate. Many commercial helicopters are single piloted require extra manpower for doing cargo type missions, this capability would reduce or eliminate that need.

REFERENCES:

1. NATO Standardization Agency. “Standard Interfaces of UAC Control System for NATO UAV Interoperability”. (9 November 2012). http://nso.nato.int/nso/zPublic/stanags/current/4586eed03.pdf

2. U.S. Department of the Army. “Operator's Manual: Army Model UH-1H/V Helicopters”. Figure 6-8, Cargo Compartment, Pg. 6-15. (15 February 1988). https://books.google.com/books?id=h3k-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false -

KEYWORDS: Autonomy; Ground Vehicles; UGV; AACUS; Cargo; Utility

Questions may also be submitted through DoD SBIR/STTR SITIS website.

N171-088

TITLE: Nickel Aluminum Bronze for Additive Manufacturing Alloy Development

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Materials/Processes

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: EPE-17-03 Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing (Quality Made)

OBJECTIVE: Develop, optimize and demonstrate use of a nickel aluminum bronze (NAB) alloy composition optimized for the additive manufacturing process for large seawater components (>12"). The alloy must exceed the current mechanical and seawater corrosion resistance of cast NAB alloy C95800.

DESCRIPTION: The Navy extensively uses components of cast nickel aluminum bronze (NAB) in sea-water applications for their combination of strength, toughness, and corrosion resistance. Commonly used for large scale, small-production-quantity castings, NAB is challenging to consistently cast in complex geometries and in thin sections. Additive manufacturing (AM) allows for layer by layer fabrication from a digital design, and offers significant opportunities for complex geometries that may be difficult to achieve in a traditional casting.

Direct fabrication of AM components has been demonstrated with a wide variety of materials and technologies. Current bronze and copper alloys for AM often utilize post processing and impregnation for final part fabrication. There has been limited work in direct AM fabrication of bronze; however, efforts have focused on utilization of traditional casting compositions or welding analogs. Cast NAB alloys (ASTM B 148, UNS C95800) are generally slow cooled and precipitation strengthened, which may not be ideal for the rapid heating-cooling associated with direct AM fabrication. Additive manufacturing can have cooling rates >1000°C/s and unique processing conditions due to the cyclic heating/cooling in localized areas during fabrication. Similarly, conventional welding of NAB can result in severe distortion due to residual stress and residual stresses may be further exacerbated in the AM process. Lastly, cast NAB has significant natural seawater corrosion resistance, but introduction of microstructural variation in the AM process may result in changes in corrosion behavior.

These considerations for layer by layer fabrication can be increasingly complex for large scale components >12”. To realize fully the capabilities of AM, new NAB alloys for large scale fabrication must be developed specifically for the additive manufacturing process to enhance strength and ductility compared to traditional cast NAB, while maintaining corrosion resistance.

PHASE I: During Phase I, the small business will define and develop a concept/approach using computational tools for a new/optimized nickel aluminum bronze alloy composition for AM, targeting initial mechanical properties (strength, ductility, etc.) and effects on microstructure and phase precipitation as a function of thermal processing (heating/cooling rate). If awarded the Phase I option, the small business will demonstrate the feasibility of a new/optimized composition for feedstock material amenable to the additive manufacturing process on the small coupon level.

PHASE II: Based on Phase I results, the Phase II effort will develop, demonstrate and validate the proposed computational approach for new/optimized AM NAB composition(s). This will include demonstrating optimized alloy composition(s) in AM fabrication of large test builds >12” to obtain as-fabricated mechanical properties and microstructural/chemical characterization. Mechanical properties such strength, ductility, toughness, fatigue, etc. will be tested; distortion relative to the original test build CAD drawing will be measured. Microstructural/ chemical characterization such as grain size, porosity, phase identification/quantification, precipitate formation/segregation, chemical segregation, electrochemical response, etc. will be measured for the new/optimized AM NAB composition(s). Conventional "as-cast" NAB will serve as the baseline for fabrication/processing and material property improvement. The performer shall demonstrate strength/ductility and corrosion equivalent or superior to cast UNS C95800 properties. It is recommended that the performer work with bulk material vendors/OEMs to facilitate transition for Phase III.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Phase III will transition optimized alloy composition to commercial suppliers through bulk material vendors, OEMS, or other partnering agreement. Phase III will demonstrate AM optimized NAB alloy(s) and transition an AM technical data package to Warfare Centers and other DoD production/maintenance facilities. Private Sector Commercial Potential: Nickel aluminum bronze is widely used in the maritime industry and would benefit from this material and AM technology.

REFERENCES:

1. Howell, Paul R. On the Phases, Microconstituents and Microstructures in Nickel-Aluminum Bronze. http://www.copper.org/publications/pub_list/pdf/A1310-Microstructures-NickelAlumBronzes.pdf

2. Wong, Kaufui V. and Hernandez, Aldo. A Review of Additive Manufacturing. doi:10.5402/2012/208760 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2012/208760/

3. ASTM B 148 https://www.astm.org/Standards/B148.htm-

KEYWORDS: additive manufacturing; casting; bronze; nickel aluminum bronze; sea water components; alloy development

Questions may also be submitted through DoD SBIR/STTR SITIS website.

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Information Systems

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: The USMC MRC-142 program and the Navy Digital Wideband Transmission System (DWTS) programs

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 5.4.c.(8) of the Announcement. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws.