Program fy2009

Commercial Applications: The military, law enforcement, and intelligence community will be the dominant customers for the proposed technology. Many labs have teamed up with military organizations to develop new surveillance and imaging models or to adapt them to meet specific requirements. Our immediate target for technology transfer will be to support these DoD missions. Kun Sun Phone: Email: ksun [at] i-a-i. To improve the security of these systems, it is necessary to measure the amount of security provided by different systems and configuration since one cannot improve what cannot be measured.

In this proposal, Intelligent Automation Inc. IAI and its consultant, Professor Sushil Jajodia from George Mason University, propose to develop a systematic toolkit including security metrics collection, security metrics integration, and data visualization components for scalable and automatic security analysis using security metrics.

We will develop a security analysis toolkit using a bottom-up approach.. We first define which security processes, products, services, etc. Commercial Applications: The proposed toolkit employs attack graph technique to provide scalable, efficient and in-depth security analysis using network metrics. Our scalable and automatic data collection and analysis toolkit can provide accurate, repeatable, and frequent measurement of security features in a system.

Our toolkit can handle heterogeneous data sources and minimize the tedious data collection using the data integration service. We manage the challenges of visualizing large amount data in a scalable manner.

The market for military applications of our toolkit is quite large. Other potential commercial applications include banking, ecommerce, and various civil applications, possibly with a large and complex network.

Principal Investigator: J. Keith McElveen Phone: Email: keith. It introduced the then novel idea of live capture and streaming of raw array microphone audio over Ethernet for use by one or more computers on a network.

The design has been improved over the years to bring it to the Mark III version 2 The present system is an excellent tool for research into microphone arrays, audiovisual computer interfaces, and smart spaces. With some modification to address existing issues, as well as the addition of some useful features, the system can be successfully tailored for a variety of commercial, academic, and governmental applications. Our proposal focuses on fundamental enhancements to the motherboard and the microboards that will provide the most near-term benefit to the NIST research application and goals, while at the same time providing a solid foundation for Phase II and Phase III commercialization objectives.

Principal Investigator: Daniel A. Campbell Phone: Email: dcampbell [at] metrosage. Design of the system will fully leverage existing, related software technologies.

The resulting software, when fully developed and commercialized, will enhance the competitive position of manufactured products by reducing waste, both in manpower and raw materials, by improving the utilization of energy-intensive raw materials and will enhance the perceived quality of items so measured and certified.

Commercial Applications: The availability of an easily accessibly cost-of-measurement software toolset suitable for mechanical measurement and for CMM metrology in particular will constitute a valuable addition to the arsenal of tools for advancing U. While the size of the customer organization may span the entire range from the one-person company to the very large multinational corporation, it is expected that the need for and value of our product will be recognized earliest among organizations at the high end of the size range, and in their first- and second-tier suppliers.

It is chiefly in this arena that economies of scale and the complexity of the interaction between measurement practice and profit margin will be most evident. Principal Investigator: Stuart Berkowitz Phone: Email: sberkowitz [at] outofthefogresearch. The first focus is to modify the NIST designs for fabrication by an outside vendor. The second focus is to fabricate the limiter designs using co-evaporation for deposition of the HTS material and compare the achieved device parameters.

The third focus is the integration of the limiter onto a cryocooler. Commercial Applications: Microwave signal limiters are particularly valuable for high dynamic range receivers that typically operate in harsh electromagnetic environments, such as above military platforms or in electronic warfare systems.

Such limiters are also important for commercial communications systems in crowded EM environments. Principal Investigator: Patrick R. When mechanically applied to a fingerprint sensor-under-test, the synthesized modulated surface appears to be a human fingerprint.

Some of the key parametric attributes of this technology are: greater-thandpi resolution, large contiguous active area 3. Commercial Applications: This research will lead to the development, manufacturing and marketing of test equipment for use in the testing, characterization and calibration of fingerprint sensors, sensor systems, and of matching algorithms.

Such equipment does not currently exist in the marketplace. The significant advance of this tester is in its ability to generate high resolution over dpi mechanical fingerprint patterns over a large area compatible with the 4-finger slap requirement in a computer-controlled programmable and dynamic manner. This system is based on unique integration of multifunctional sensors into a novel wireless sensor network architecture.

It can be applied to commercial, industrial, and transportation sectors as well as military use. In the commercial and industrial sectors, it can be used to monitor energy usage in small- or large-scale offices, whereas in industries it can be used to monitor energy usage in big processors or plants. In the transportation world, the sensors can be modified to measure various parameters in a vehicle, ship, or airplane.

In the military sector, it can be used to monitor energy usage in a bunker, camp, or vehicle. Firm: Physical Sciences Inc. Principal Investigator: Krishnan R. Parameswaran Phone: Email: parameswaran [at] psicorp. Proper administration of drugs in this form requires knowledge of the droplet size and concentration of the active pharmaceutical ingredient API within the aerosol. Optical imaging is a robust method for obtaining this information. Physical Sciences Incorporated proposes to develop, build, and test a novel measurement system including optical patternation that will monitor droplet size and API concentration produced by metered dose inhalers.

The development program will enhance the NIST prototype system by adding optical patternation software capable of quantifying the API concentration using fluorescence intensity measurements and correlating droplet fluorescence and scattering images. The resulting system will provide a robust, cost-effective measurement solution for qualifying commercial inhaler use with new drug formulations. Commercial Applications: Commercial manufacturers of drug delivery systems and therapies based on metered dose inhalers will be able to use the proposed system to characterize the droplet size and API distribution within aerosol sprays.

These measurements will enable optimization of the combined drug formulation and delivery system for improved drug delivery and patient health. The instrument also has the potential of improving the results obtained during clinical trials, where the effectiveness of aerosol treatments can be correlated with aerosol properties. Other commercial applications of aerosol delivery systems that could benefit from this technology include pharmaceutical spray coating and drying operations, combustion diagnostics and environmental monitoring, where measurement of droplet size and composition are useful in diagnosing process and climactic conditions.

It will use the most advanced fs fiber laser at nm developed in-house and PCF technology to generate two required wavelength bands at nm with SHG and nm. Commercial Applications: The technology proposed by PolarOnyx will provide a vital tool medical equipment, biomedical instrumentation, imaging microscopy, and precision spectroscopy.

SphereOptics is a manufacturer of integrating spheres and has experience in developing high radiance output uniform sources based on sphere technology. Cost and size reduction to make this device simpler to install. Maintain the functionality and precision and accuracy of measurements of research system and extend it to a commercial system. Expand testing option beyond polymeric materials and offering a research tool for biological, medical, and agricultural applications. UV weathering studies on a variety of polymeric samples such as coatings, sealants, composites, roofing and siding components, paints.

Extend UV weathering applications beyond polymeric materials and expand to any photogenic application including agriculture e. Extend the concept of delivering equal irradiance on multiple samples simultaneously beyond UV range. User-friendly software will be provided to control the detector. Five copies of a prototype will be delivered. Commercial Applications: The device will be useful in research involving multiple single-photon detectors, particle detectors, time-of-flight experiments, and any research employing multiple detectors whose responses much be accurately time-stamped.

Robert Fricke Phone: Email: fricke. Advances needed to address this challenge for commercial success include making these components inexpensive, easy to install and operate, and supportive of intuitive decision making about energy usage.

The gap related to ease of installation is especially evident for sensors used to monitor residential infrastructure, such as furnaces, boilers, water heaters, and air conditioners. To address cost, TIAX proposes to use cost as an independent variable to develop a sensor suite and communication system at a price point that will permit a three year payback for the average consumer.

Furthermore, TIAX will use a human centric design methodology to develop a system that is easy to install and operate while monitoring the energy usage of specific end-use devices and providing feedback to the user.

Commercial Applications: Current residential energy monitoring systems R-EMS , with or without breakdowns of energy consumption by specific end uses, have negligible market penetration. It is estimated that with a three-year payback period the proposed R-EMS will achieve a market share of just over 20 percent in new construction and around 70 percent in existing homes. These penetration levels suggest that, within a decade of commercial launch, a cost-effective R-EMS could be installed in at least 10 percent of the approximately million U.

If it realizes an average savings of 10 percent, after ten years the R-EMS would achieve annual energy and energy cost savings of approximately 0. Firm: Voxtel, Inc. The 1-mm-diameter p-i-n photodetectors will be manufactured back-illuminated with a 5-micron absorber, allowing residual light to reflect off the front-side metal to make a double pass through the active layer.

The ultra-pure InGaAs will also reduce variation across the 1-mm-diameter detector and prevent breakdown. So that stray capacitance is minimized, the detectors will be bump-bonded directly to a sub-mount; the detector will then be integrated with low-noise transimpedance amplifiers and integrated with a three-stage thermoelectric cooler in a hermetic TO-5 package.

The matched detectors will be testing and characterized in an optical homodyne detection system. Commercial Applications: In addition to the demand for high-responsivity photodetectors for quantum information applications, there are significant markets for the innovation in the fields of spectroscopy, industrial sorting of products and materials, and thermal sensing.

Each application places different demands on the detectors, creating opportunities to fulfill the varying requirements, and to produce higher-quality, lower-cost imagers. Principal Investigator: George M. Williams Phone: Email: georgew [at] voxtel-inc. Existing Matlab and Simulink tools will be used to model the instrument, to perform design tradeoffs, and to develop a user interface for DLS experiments. The DLS algorithms will then be demonstrated using simulated and existing data.

Commercial Applications: There is a growing interest in research and applications of photon-counting technology. An increasing number of research laboratories use single-photon technologies for various applications, such as quantum communication and computing, single-molecule monitoring, and precision measurements. Time-of-flight measurements are used in science research experiments in nuclear physics and astronomy , industry dynamic testing of integrated circuits and hard drives , telecommunications evaluation of high-speed data transfer , geodesy, military equipment laser ranging, laser tripwire intrusion detection systems and laser radar systems , and medical PET, tomography, etc.

Firm: 4pi Analysis, Inc. Principal Investigator: Stefan A. Jeglinski Phone: x12 Email: jeglin [at] 4pi. A problem with existing digital signal processing, as applied to SDDs, is the significant presence of coincidence peaks above the x-ray background. These coincidence peaks occur with amplitudes comparable to low-concentration species. In specimens with x-ray peaks arising from two or more elemental constituents, the coincidence peaks can occupy a sizeable portion of the spectrum between the high abundance peaks, leading to false identification of elements and significant errors in quantification.

The objective of the Phase II work is to provide NIST a prototype digital pulse processor that demonstrates an order-of-magnitude reduction in coincidence counting, at an output count rate of , cps.

Our Phase I work and continuing development in anticipation of a Phase II award suggest that the requirement can be met and likely exceeded, with the additional bonus that other parts of the event stream can also be recovered instead of rejected, leading to significant improvements over current state-of-the-art pulse processing.

Commercial Applications: The Silicon Drift detector SDD is rapidly gaining acceptance as the standard of SEMs, with its ease of use compact, no liquid nitrogen , high resolution, and high-count-rate capability. As its commercial penetration continues, especially for advanced or metrological work, demand will increase for digital pulse processing that can address spectral artifacts caused by coincidence in the event stream.

This research directly supports instrumentation development for improved SDD coincidence rejection. The result will be a next-generation digital pulse processor for EDS that establishes new standards of accuracy. An added benefit is its likely applicability to related technologies, such as X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy.

Principal Investigator: Mark W. Munro Phone: Email: munro [at] advr-inc. The key innovation is using low noise periodically poled waveguides with a long wavelength nm pump leading to higher efficiency single photon detectors when used with PMTs or Silicon-based avalanche photo diode single photon detectors Si-APD.

Use of waveguide Sum Frequency Generation SFG for nm to nm up-conversion cou0pled with inexpensive and very efficient PMT or SI-APD technology is expected to significantly increase single photon detection efficiency while maintaining long fiber optic transmission distance for quantum communication networks and quantum-key-distribution QKD systems.

Commercial Applications: This type of single photon detection system is a key component needed to implement Quantum Key Distribution QKD based encryption over existing fiber networks, bringing about a new level of secure communication. Such a system could also be implemented in the Oil industry for fiber based distributed pressure and temperature sensing. Principal Investigator: Ryan J. Epstein Phone: x Email: repstein [at] arete.

OPSL technology exhibits a unique combination of compactness, efficiency, high power, wavelength tunability, and excellent beam quality. The successful designs will be subsequently developed in Phase 2, with the goal of delivering a system that NIST can use in its atomic clock and quantum information processing experiments. Commercial Applications: Frequency-stable OPSLs will find commercial application in high resolution spectroscopy and metrology, gas analysis, sodium guide star laser systems, state-of-the-art atomic clocks, quantum information processing, and basic atomic, molecular and optical research.

As there are currently no commercial sources of tunable single-frequency OPSLs, Arete will be able to provide custom laser products to niche markets that require the unique capabilities of OPSL technology. Firm: Boulder Nonlinear Systems, Inc. This research aims to bridge this gap through the development of a commercially available hyperspectral image projector HIP system.

The proposed effort is to build a prototype visible HIP system to generate calibrated, realistic imagery with enough fidelity such that, from the viewpoint of the sensor under test, the scene is indistinguishable from the real-world. This system will incorporate two liquid crystal on silicon spatial light modulators SLM. The first SLM will be used in the spectral engine as a programmable amplitude modulator that will selectively transmit spectral components of a broadband input source.

The output of the spectral engine will be fed into a spatial engine, where a second SLM will be used to generate two dimensional scenes.

The scenes will be imaged onto a unit under test, and used to quantitatively calibrate the detector. This research will mark the first step toward the development of a commercially available hyperspectral detector calibration system.

Commercial Applications: The goal of the Phase II research will be to develop a stand-alone compact instrument capable of producing spectrally and spatially calibrated reference scenes for calibration of a variety of imaging sensors. One application for hyperspectral image detectors can be found in medical diagnostics, ranging from cancer and tumor detection to burn quantification. In order for the technology to be integrated into optical medical imaging systems, a standardized set of simulated scenes must be generated to calibrate hyperspectral detectors.

Without the standardized calibration offered by the HIP system, hyperspectral detectors cannot be safely introduced into the medical community. Beyond medical diagnostics, applications can be found in: factory calibration of CMOS sensors, quality control of photographic film materials, remote sensing, and machine vision simulation.

Additionally the spectral engine can be sold as a stand alone product that would fit well within pulse shaping systems.

Principal Investigator: Robert A. Miles Phone: Email: bobm [at] circuitequipment. The unit is capable of measuring resistances from 0 to ohms with better than 0. The unit will have advanced features such as a built-in web-browser, USB interface and built-in complex functions. Examples of such complex functions are complimentary ratio-check and zero ohms power extrapolation for sensor measurements.

The laboratories can be either primary or secondary calibration type facilities. The goal of Phase II works is to address two primary use cases:1 validation of data sources that are of arbitrary size and complexity, with arbitrary numbers of constraints, and non-trivial update rates; 2 validation of messages exchanged in Enterprise Service Bus ESB and Service Oriented Architecture SOA systems, where data sizes are relatively small but message throughput may be high and data validation times must be short.

An IC validation service would enhance the capabilities of existing commercial semantic data stores. The secondary commercial application is the integration of semantic data validation service as an extension to commercial Enterprise Service Bus ESB systems.

This service will improve the message validation capabilities currently provided in ESB systems by attaching semantics to exchanged messages via ontologies and validate the message contents using OWL-based ICs. Shubo Datta Phone: x Email: sdatta [at] chipsat.

This will correspond to a 6 dB improvement in excess phase noise as compared to the Phase 1 photodiodes. Commercial Applications: The proposed low noise dual photodiode is the enabling technology for developing ultra-high precision clocks that can provide improved system performance in several applications, such as: 1 Optical clock distribution networks for phased array radars 2 Navigation systems, such as next generation global positions system 3 Distributed frequency and time standards 4 Test and measurement systems 5 Laser metrology 6 Long baseline interferometry.

Geoffrey A. Barrall Phone: Email: gbarrall [at] electronicbio. Of particular interest is the rapid, direct sequencing of DNA through a nanopore as well as the characterization of other biopolymers. Although progress has been made with nanopore sequencing, some fundamental instrumental and system issues have so far kept the method from realizing its potential. Electronic Bio Sciences has already developed a substantially lower noise single channel measurement system that has allowed the measurement of a number of DNA translocation phenomena that have not been previously recorded.

These improvements will provide the tools necessary to advance the state-of-the-art in nanopore sequencing methods and the characterization of biopolymers with nanopores. Commercial Applications: The proposed low noise protein pore based DNA sequencing system has the potential to allow routine sequencing of the human genome.

A QNM based system could be scaled to a 50 channel system. In theory this would allow a 3 billion base mammalian genome to be sequenced in a few hours, a times improvement over current systems. Such rapid low cost sequencing could be used to obtain individualized information on predisposition to diseases and treatments and could thereby revolutionize medicine.

Low cost sequencing systems will also find use in biological research laboratories around the world for the sequencing of full and partial genomes of a variety of species. In many applications it is only necessary to sequence a small part of the genome in order to match unknown DNA with known samples.

An inexpensive sequencing system would allow for the more routine use of DNA matching for forensics and the detection of biological threats. In each of these areas there are both private sector and government markets. Principal Investigator: Andrew J. Chepaitis Phone: Email: ajc [at] elialife. ELIA, braille, and Roman , multiple lines of text, and graphics to benefit the more than 1. The researchers will develop an advanced prototype based on the patented NIST technology, using new technological approaches.

Commercial Applications: If the technology were commercialized, the access to its graphical information would enable the blind to compete on a more equal footing in the workplace and educational systems. The company believes the blind person market would demand several thousand TRCDs per year.

Firm: High Precision Devices, Inc. Current easily deployable cryostat technology required to reach the ultra-cold operating temperatures of TES arrays 50 to mK can not cope with the size or the heat load of kilopixel arrays.

Also, the heat load of several hundred wires traveling from room temperature down to the TES arrays in addition to the self-heat generated by the array itself e. Commercial Applications: TES array applications include ultra-high-resolution x-ray spectroscopy for the semiconductor industry crucial for rapid and accurate understanding of wafer defects and hence processing line diagnostics , gamma ray spectroscopy for rapid isotopic plutonium and non-destructive nuclear fuel rod assay a critical application which TES arrays can uniquely solve to monitor nuclear reactor use , quantum-key distribution, and many research applications such as sub-mm astronomy, polarimetry of the Cosmic Microwave Background CMB , and energy resolving x-ray cameras for advance light sources.

Principal Investigator: Daniel J. Kane Phone: Email: djkane [at] mesaphotonics. These light sources have high brightness and are spatially coherent.

Output in near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelength ranges has been demonstrated. SC wavelength ranges are constrained by the transmission and dispersion properties of the fibers. Previously, output to 4. In Phase 1, we achieved supercontinuum output to 5. Further improvements into the mid-infrared region meaning 6 to 12 microns would enable a plethora of new opportunities including high-resolution infrared microscopy, remote sensing standoff detection , and IR countermeasures.

Indeed, because of the stability of our supercontinuum source, entirely new applications such as mid-IR frequency combs could be developed. In Phase 2, we will further improve the Phase 1 results by using better mode control. Commercial Applications: Detection and identification of chemical compounds is important for industrial applications, atmospheric monitoring, homeland security and hazardous waste identification and monitoring. Key to the development of badly needed improvements to optical detection of important compounds is the development of stable, bright and spatially coherent sources in the mid-IR microns where strongly absorbing fundamental ro-vibrational transitions can be accessed.

Supercontinuum sources use highly nonlinear materials pumped by ultrafast lasers to shift and broaden the ultrafast pump to the wavelength regions of interest. While promising, they are unstable, relying on chaotic cascaded nonlinearities to shift available ultrafast laser sources to necessary wavelengths. Approach from AD Identify and test compounds with insecticidal activity that makes them especially beneficial in the rapid control of mosquitoes, flies, and other arthropods responsible for carrying disease agent.

Devise innovative means of applying control agents especially suited for use in combat or deployment conditions. Identify and test new classes of topical and area repellents for use by troops. This project is being conducted under the DoD Deployed WarFighter Protection Program; the goal of the project is to establish the effectiveness of sprayers used to make adult and barrier treatments in military settings and to develop a spray system for an autonomous helicopter so as to provide for unmanned treatment delivery in hostile environments.

During FY , the droplet spectra produced by nine different ultra low volume ULV and thermal sprayers with oil- and water- based spray solutions were evaluated. The volume median diameter from the sprayers ranged from 16 to microns one micron is one-millionth of a meter for the oil-based spray solutions. For the water-based spray solutions, volume mean diameters ranged from 3 to microns. Progress in the unmanned aerial vehicle UAV work was greatly hindered by serious equipment failures caused by inherent telecommunications and structural weaknesses in both of the autonomous helicopters employed in the work.

The UAVs are being repaired by project scientists given that the manufacturer is, unfortunately, providing essentially no support. It is projected that the two machines will be operational sometime in FY and the planned work with these helicopters will resume.

To support key aspects of project work, a new 4 ft x 4 ft low speed mph wind tunnel was constructed in FY This project provided foundational data to support ongoing efforts by the parent project to develop a practical spray platform to be utilized by UAVs to effect control of pest or disease-carrying insects not only in hostile military environments but in appropriate agricultural environments as well.