| | | | Foreword | | | | ENSURING DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY | | | Missile Defense Agency Mission | | | | Technology Applications Program | | | | Advancing Missile Defense | | | | The Spirit of Innovation | | | | Ensure Domestic Tranquility: Introduction | | | | Sensing Roadway Integrity | | | | Lighting the Olympic Spirit | | | | Enabling Emergency Communication | | | | Power In-flight Entertainment | | | | Erasing the Work of Vandals | | | | Keeping Trains on Tracks | | | | Detecting Toxic Leakage | | | | PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE | | | Provide for the Common Defense: Introduction | | | | Replicating Large Parts Fast | | | | Enabling High-speed Signal Processing | | | | Improving Warfighter Response Time | | | | Destroying Roadside Bombs | | | | Planning the Next Battle | | | | PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE | | | Accelerating Cancer Therapy | | | | Promote the General Welfare: Introduction | | | | Stimulating Aural Functionality | | | | Casting Bone Replacements | | | | Simulating and Simplifying Surgery | | | | Beaming Medical Diagnoses | | | | Blending a Better Drug | | | | SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY | | | Secure the Blessings of Liberty: Introduction | | | | Stabilizing Flight-deck Electronics | | | | Improving Aircraft Aerodynamics | | | | Enhancing Image Quality | | | | Revealing Counterfeit Documents | | | | Fueling Next-generation Vehicles | | | | Conclusion | | | | PDF | | | Download PDF | | |
Foreword
After more than a century and a half of being ruled by an autocratic monarch, the Founding Fathers of the United States fought with both pen and sword to establish a government dedicated to protecting life and liberty in ways that enable all of us to pursue happiness to the best of our abilities. They set forth their vision in the Constitution, a living document that reflects our national ideals and values. It is the soul of this Nation, and it is a document that extends beyond the era in which it was written.  |
| ENSURING DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY |
Missile Defense Agency Mission
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) mission is to develop and field an integrated Ballistic Missile Defense System capable of providing a layered defense for the homeland, deployed forces, friends, and allies against ballistic missiles of all ranges, in all phases of flight. MDA’s predecessor agencies—the Ballistic Missile |
Technology Applications Program
The MDA Technology Applications (TA) program helps MDA-funded researchers commercialize and scale up their technologies. Commercialization and technology transfer efforts by the program ensure that MDA-funded technologies survive and mature, allowing them eventually to be rolled into the Ballistic Missile Defense System. |
Advancing Missile Defense
“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”
When Francis Scott Key penned these words during the War of 1812, America’s history forever became linked to the defense of freedom through the use of rockets and missiles. For almost two centuries, these words have given Americans the resolve to defend this great Nation and the flag that characterizes our founding values. Today, the defense of America continues to mean defending the land of the free and the home of the brave. |
The Spirit of Innovation
The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution sets in motion a series of principles that our leaders have been addressing for more than 220 years. It reads:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” |
Ensure Domestic Tranquility: Introduction
Domestic tranquility amounts to peace within our Nation’s borders—the absence of chaos and major internal conflict.
For the Founding Fathers, ensuring domestic tranquility might have meant avoiding conflict among factions in a new nation. But in its capacity as a living document, the Constitution allows us to acknowledge modern needs within the context of domestic tranquility. Today, a peaceful Nation relies on adequate resources and efficient use of those resources, safe infrastructure, capabilities for countering crime, and tools for dealing with the emergencies that threaten to fracture our domestic tranquility. |
Sensing Roadway Integrity
Ensures domestic tranquility by…
reducing the possibility of catastrophic bridge collapses by detecting structural deficiencies or strain in materials, including composites. Blue Road’s fiber-optic-enabled sensor software also can be used to monitor the structural |
Lighting the Olympic Spirit
Ensures domestic tranquility by… offering long-lasting, energy-efficient lighting solutions
to brighten our world—in cars, homes, offices, and Olympic venues. Since its original funding back in the 1980s for semiconductor materials, improvements to Cree’s light-emitting diode (LED) technologies have increased lighting performance 10 times over ordinary light bulbs, 4 times that of halogen bulbs, and 1.5 times that of most fluorescent bulbs. Plus, using LEDs reduces overall lighting costs by nearly eliminating the need for replacements and by requiring less energy to operate. Cree is well ahead of the game when it comes to lighting, being on the forefront of the congressional mandate to phase out the use of incandescent bulbs. And its LEDs can be used anywhere lighting is needed. |
Enabling Emergency Communication
Ensures domestic tranquility by… providing emergency communications access to civilians, military, and rescue workers when no other forms of transmission are possible. GATR’s satellite communications terminal, which can be used just about anywhere and in any weather condition, resembles an inflatable beach ball with a built-in antenna. It is lightweight, inexpensive to operate, and has low power consumption. Potential applications include military and emergency communications, and remote news broadcasts. The company has successfully used its antenna technology to enable communications in the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast region. |
Power In-flight Entertainment
Ensures domestic tranquility by…
offering airlines a cost-effective way to increase payload weight and aerodynamic efficiencies by installing a single, high-voltage generator to power cabin devices such as in-flight entertainment systems. Beyond aerospace, the Innovative Power Solutions (IPS) technology could provide backup power for commercial buildings and provide power to geographically remote areas or disaster sites. |
Erasing the Work of Vandals
Ensures domestic tranquility by… enabling public-works employees to easily remove urban “artwork” that defaces buildings, bridges, and overpasses. The environmentally friendly, thin-film plastic material, a nonstick fluoropolymer, can be applied like wallpaper to graffiti-prone infrastructure. |
Keeping Trains on Tracks
Ensures domestic tranquility by… providing the behind-the-scenes power to sensors, batteries, or supercapacitors for monitoring braking systems of trains, planes, and cars. Midé’s energy-harvesting distributed power systems, including the MDA-funded Volture™ product line, can be attached to any structure that vibrates to convert or “scavenge” the otherwise wasted mechanical energy it radiates into direct current (DC) electrical energy. Volture has been tested in the laboratory and real-world situations, and it is commercially available in many configurations as off-the-shelf systems. |
Detecting Toxic Leakage
Ensures domestic tranquility by… improving environmental quality through the detection of oil leaks that cause groundwater contamination and refrigerant leaks that increase greenhouse gas emissions. The piping’s sensor system alerts public-utility providers and other piping-systems operators of structural deficiencies that are likely to leak, or even cause explosions. Odyssian’s smart pipes and smart seals are made of lightweight composites that have embedded sensors designed to detect toxic chemical leaks. Once a possible leak is detected or occurs, the sensors broadcast via wireless protocol to the piping system’s operations monitoring center for quick response. Odyssian’s piping system is particularly well-suited for both original use and upgrades to public utility infrastructure, such as natural gas lines, as well as to automobile fuel and air-conditioning systems, and in aircraft to protect against corrosive chemicals like chlorine. |
| PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE |
Provide for the Common Defense: Introduction
America’s Armed Forces maintain our national integrity by defending against military aggression.
Whether helping local authorities with search-and-rescue operations, tracking hostile intruders by satellite, assisting Federal agencies secure our Nation’s borders, or engaging armed insurgents on the ground in the Middle East, the U.S. military defends our interests with superior technology. |
Replicating Large Parts Fast
Provides for the common defense by… offering military vehicle repair depots an innovative way to fabricate tooling for large parts—up to 65 feet in length—in less than 15 minutes and at a fraction of the cost. Products that could be replicated with this tooling system range from Black Hawk and Chinook helicopter doors to rocket motor casings. |
Enabling High-speed Signal Processing
Caption L: S2 Corporation’s radar-signal processor, if deployed onboard satellites such as the one above, could enhance our Nation’s defense by enabling high-speed targeting and identification of missiles. The technology is enabled by rare-earth doped optical crystals to allow real-time processing of complex, high-bandwidth radio frequencies. |
Improving Warfighter Response Time
Provides for the common defense by… equipping our warfighters in the field with accurate data analyses from which to make informed decisions about engagements, based on location and position of enemy troops, weapons, and known inventories. This software allows variables to be programmed, including changes in military tactics, to ensure an attack is properly executed. Tests show the software can reduce response time by 43 percent and can improve accuracy by 58 percent in situations requiring human discretion. |
Destroying Roadside Bombs
Provides for the common defense by… equipping our Armed Forces with technology that can destroy—with precision accuracy—improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other ordnance, which have caused many casualties during the Iraq conflict. SiMMtec’s cooled diode-pump lasers require minimal cooling, meaning that more vehicles, as well as smaller vehicles, may be able to carry laser weaponry onto the battlefield. In addition, the lasers can be powered on and off at will and diode array units easily can be repaired on the battlefield without manufacturer assistance. |
Planning the Next Battle
Provides for the common defense by… enabling military commanders to plan, organize, and optimize the location of missile-defense assets such as ships, ground-based shooters, sensors, and related equipment—given the potential of incoming threats. The software can run scenarios based on enemy missile inventories and possible trajectories and then generate likely outcomes. These scenarios, displayed on computer-enhanced map projections, will provide commanders the data needed to ensure efficient weapons resource management. Its algorithms can analyze battlespace to give advance warning and extend the window of time for engagement, while running on more than one machine simultaneously to allow for faster computing. |
| PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE |
Accelerating Cancer Therapy
Promotes the general welfare by… offering patients peace of mind through the use of high-speed proton accelerators to destroy deep cancerous tumors without causing discomfort or the sometimes debilitating symptoms associated with chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Proton therapy allows for all the destructive energy to be focused directly upon the tumor and administered in high dosages, without damage to surrounding tissue, effectively destroying the cancer with minimal side effects. AccSys’ proton accelerators now are being used in hospitals worldwide to provide cancer patients another therapeutic option. |
Promote the General Welfare: Introduction
The Founding Fathers wrote in the Constitution’s Preamble that it is necessary for the Government to “Promote the General Welfare” in the United States. For them, the concept might well have meant economic prosperity. And over the years, Government has facilitated that prosperity—by creating conventions such as uniform currency and a postal service, for example. But in a broader context, general welfare as we see it today encompasses not only prosperity, but health and happiness—all elements of living well. |
Stimulating Aural Functionality
Promotes the general welfare by… offering the hearing impaired a safer and more effective way to significantly improve their auditory functioning with implants that use laser stimuli. Aculight’s Capella™ technology can be implanted in an ear without physically contacting the nerve tissue, producing irritating electrical artifacts, or causing any residual damage. |
Casting Bone Replacements
Promotes the general welfare by… providing patients who require bone repairs and transplants a stronger and less painful long-term option by using composites instead of common prosthetics that require pins or screws. And, damage to adjacent bones will be eliminated since the wear and friction caused by metal bone-bonders is gone. The ceramic composite used in Advanced Ceramic Research’s (ACR’s) Plasti-Bone technology is strong enough to carry human body weight and is osteoconductive, meaning that bone cells can grow on top of the artificial bone. |
Simulating and Simplifying Surgery
Promotes the general welfare by…
enabling algorithmic software to identify and track objects used in the medical and aerospace arenas from scalpels to aircraft bridges. The software can track virtually any object type using computer-aided design (CAD) data. It also can track any number of objects simultaneously, and it can use almost any type of sensor—such as a black-and-white camera, color camera, ladar (laser radar), and hyperspectral imager. Energid’s medical focus is on machine-vision surgical simulation and robotic ultrasound for minimally invasive surgery. Using the same MDA-funded algorithms, the company has successfully fielded the first robotic aircraft bridges at a major U.S. airport, and is now working with the Navy to develop a robotic satellite-retrieval apparatus. |
Beaming Medical Diagnoses
Promotes the general welfare by… cal industry to diagnose a patient’s illness or even perform noninvasive, optical glucose monitoring for diabetics.using laser-based sensors to diagnose drug overdoses, pending organ failures, or the onset of stomach ulcers quickly, accurately, and noninvasively. The sensors use interband cascade (IC) and quantum cascade (QC) lasers, which are semiconductor lasers that emit in the mid- to far-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Maxion developed efficient and cost-effective lasers that expand the capabilities of infrared-sensing devices for various molecules having strong infrared-absorption fingerprints. This expanded capability is especially useful in the medi |
Blending a Better Drug
Promotes the general welfare by… reducing the possibility of damage to the molecular structures of pharmaceuticals during the manufacturing mixing process. Resodyn’s technology quickly can combine difficult-to-mix chemical substances using sound instead of rotors, which have been known to destroy elements within various mixtures. |
| SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY |
Secure the Blessings of Liberty: Introduction
New inventions, new comforts, new ideas, new businesses, new technologies—these are all blessings that result from our Liberty.
Technologies that we cannot imagine living without today—airplanes, light bulbs, computers, and telephones—were developed with determination, hard work, and ingenuity that epitomize the American entrepreneurial spirit. |
Stabilizing Flight-deck Electronics
Secures the blessings of liberty by…
improving the safety of airplane transportation. Using Lawrie’s flexible matrix composite materials to build driveshafts, pumps, and other major components of aircraft and rotocraft reduces the vibration they can cause. As a result, the stability of flight-deck electronics instrumentation is increased, as is the overall strength and lifespan of the aircraft. And, passengers and crew members receive a much smoother flight, too. |
Improving Aircraft Aerodynamics
Secures the blessings of liberty by…
giving airline passengers a faster and smoother flight to their travel destination. This becomes possible through the creation of aerodynamically enhanced and morphed aircraft wings made with composite shape-changing materials. Metal Rubber™, a flexible, lightweight, highly conductive, and radiation-resistant nanomaterial, is commercially available and can be used wherever materials, including electronic wires, need to bend and stretch. Beyond aircraft, Metal Rubber could be integrated into many consumer goods including cell phones, laptop computers, roll-up keyboards, and structural health monitoring sensors to increase their efficiencies. |
Enhancing Image Quality
Secures the blessings of liberty by… improving the technology that we use in our leisure time, offering television viewers sharper, crisper, and more brilliant pictures than ever envisioned. The Novalux Extended-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (NECSEL™) technology that produces these stunning on-screen images include three lasers housed in one unit about the size of a matchbox. NECSELs do not require the fans, lamps, color wheels, or beam-shaping optics found in today’s televisions. This laser suite enables state-of-the-art viewing, using light that is 1-million-times brighter than current light-emitting diode technology, is eco-friendly, and carries a low price tag. |
Revealing Counterfeit Documents
Secures the blessings of liberty by… offering American consumers and travelers added peace of mind through the protection of personal information from identity theft. Optodot’s security-marking technology could improve the safekeeping of official documents such as visas, passports, and drivers licenses by directly printing light-sensitive markings over key information. The company says the technology also could be used as a countermeasure to falsifying identification cards, currency, bank documents, and branded goods. |
Fueling Next-generation Vehicles
Secures the blessings of liberty by…
helping us improve the quality of air we breathe today and in the years to come. Like all other fuel cells, ZTEK’s technology generates electricity; the added benefit comes from its unique ability to generate hydrogen, too. The technology is well-suited for powering personal vehicles and buses, as well as for heating and cooling commercial buildings. Using large-size solid-oxide fuel cells would give companies, such as local utilities, a distinct advantage over those whose systems only generate hydrogen by providing them a revenue stream through electricity sales back to the grid. |
Conclusion
American researchers are meeting the challenge to move our country forward with fresh, groundbreaking innovations that are more energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, medically safe, and physically superior compared with currently available products. |
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Prior to 2011 the MDA TechUpdate used a seasonal naming format (Spring 2004, Summer 2009, etc.)
For 2010 and all previous years,
“Issue 1” corresponds to “Winter”
“Issue 2” corresponds to “Spring”
“Issue 3” corresponds to “Summer”
“Issue 4” corresponds to “Fall”
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