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Processor for Real-Time Atmospheric Compensation in Long-Range Imaging

Award Information
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Branch: N/A
Contract: NNK06OM14C
Agency Tracking Number: 053114
Amount: $69,974.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: O2.03
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2005
Award Year: 2006
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2006-01-20
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2006-07-24
Small Business Information
51 East Main Street Suite 201
Newark, DE 19711-4676
United States
DUNS: 071744143
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 James Durbano
 Principal Investigator
 (302) 456-9003
 durbano@emphotonics.com
Business Contact
 Eric Kelmelis
Title: Business Official
Phone: (302) 456-9003
Email: kelmelis@emphotonics.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

Range surveillance is a critical component of space exploration because of its implications on safety, cost, and overall mission timeline. However, launch delays, due to the difficulty of verifying a cleared range, are common and will increase as spaceports are developed in new areas. In order to expedite range clearance, it is vital to see "through" the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the quality of the images taken with long-range optical systems is severely degraded by atmospheric movements in the path between the region under observation and the imaging system. We therefore propose the use of custom hardware, specifically designed to compensate for atmospheric disturbances in long range imaging. Furthermore, we propose the use of a reconfigurable hardware platform, specifically field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), to reduce costs and development time, as well as increase flexibility and reusability. Alternative hardware platforms are not well suited for this particular application. Our unique approach would allow a single device, with the computational power of a computer cluster, to be used for not only atmospheric compensation, but also encrypted communications, audio and video encoding/decoding and transmission, neural network implementations, etc. The applications of such a technology are virtually limitless!

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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