NEXTGEN AERONAUTICS, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A18-137
NEXTGEN AERONAUTICS, INC. — SBIR Phase II award from Department of Defense.
Phase II SBIR prototype / development signal
- Phase II is where Department of Defense funds deeper R&D after feasibility. Incumbents with Phase II history are serious competitors on adjacent topics.
- Use this award as past-performance context and to map customer organizations for STRATFI/TACFI-style transition planning.
- Obligated amount $549,889 is consistent with substantial Phase II-scale effort; compare to related awards from the same agency.
- Topic code A18-137 links this award to a solicitation family — search the same topic stem for incumbents and recompete timing.
- Amount
- $549,889
- Agency
- Department of Defense · Army
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase II
- Topic
- A18-137
- Solicitation
- 18.3
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- CA
- Period
- 2020-07-09 → 2023-08-25
Description
The NextGen Aeronautics/Penn State team are proposing to extend their Phase I efforts to design and demonstrate an efficient shape memory alloy (SMA) heat engine utilizing improvements in material composition, processing and heat engine design. The proposed SMA heat engine will provide a practical, cost efficient method for powering structural and system health monitoring sensor networks. The primary focus of the proposed Phase II effort is the optimization of the SMA material composition to achieve room temperature phase transition with minimal hysteresis and long fatigue life, extensive material testing over a wide range of operational temperatures, demonstration of scalable SMA material manufacturing methods, development of a fully functional SMA heat engine with high power density, and extensive reliability testing of the system in realistic operational conditions. A comparative evaluation between the developed SMA heat engine and current state-of-the-art thermoelectric generators will also be performed. Successful completion of Phase II effort will result in demonstration of the proposed SMA heat engine in a realistic environment to provide long term, continuous power to integrated sensing systems. We expect to achieve a TRL = 7 for the proposed technology during the Phase II effort and we will develop transition paths with the Army and other DoD partners for further development and maturation of the technology.