September 2023 - Page 2 of 2 - Physical Sciences Inc.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Navy to develop an advanced algorithm suite for data translation across the various sensing modalities integrated with unmanned underwater vehicles. The Deep Diffusion Sensor Translation tool will produce synthetic sensor measurements to aid in the development of automated target recognition algorithms. The resulting imagery will be accurate with respect to acoustical and optical reflectivity at Peak Signal-to-noise Ratios of 30dB and 25dB respectively.

PSI, in collaboration with a university partner, is developing an advanced algorithm suite for data translation across sensing modalities to support the development of automated target recognition and classification algorithms for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles. The Deep Diffusion Sensor Translation (DDST) leverages recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence, and latent diffusion models in particular, to enable highly realistic data synthesis to supplement these underwater ATR datasets. The DDST tool will be capable of translating between sidescan sonar, forward looking sonar, synthetic aperture sonar, imaging magnetometry, and visible sensing modalities. The DDST incorporates advancements in underwater image enhancement and three-dimensional scene reconstruction to normalize variability across instruments, environments, and sensing conditions. The DDST will also leverage PSI’s computer vision and image fusion expertise developed under multiple DoD programs, through customization of an in-house super-resolution technique to the task of enhancing DDST inputs and outputs. The DDST technology will produce synthetic sensor outputs with quantifiable accuracy, achieving acoustical and optical reflectivity accuracies with PSNRs of 30dB and 25dB respectively.

For more information contact:

Dr. Bogdan Cosofret
Vice President, Detection Systems
cosofret@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under a contract with the Naval Sea Systems Command. This support does not constitute an express or implied endorsement on the part of the Government.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the NASA to develop a source of quantum photon-number state at the telecom wavelength of 1540 nm.

Quantum Sensors have use in a wide variety of applications including microscopy, positioning systems, communication technology, electric and magnetic field sensors, as well as geophysical areas. Significant gains from Quantum Sensors include technologies important for a range of NASA missions including efficient photon detection, optical clocks, gravimetry, gravitational wave sensing, ranging, and optical interferometry. Entangled multi-particle states used for precision measurements provide tools to reach the so-called Heisenberg limit and thus, overcome the shot-noise limit (fundamental noise limit for classical systems) and hence perform measurements at a precision unachievable for classical sensors. Quantum photon-number states, also known as Fock states, are the key ingredient to realizing the most useful entangled multi-particle states. Furthermore, photon-number states have applications in quantum communication and quantum information sciences as well. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) will develop a robust and deterministic source of photon-number states. The source is based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion inside a low-loss optical loop – a switchable quantum ‘buffer’ – and will produce quantum photon-number states on demand at the telecommunications wavelength, thus providing a key resource for advanced quantum sensors.

For more information contact:

Dr. Joel Hensley
Vice President, Photonics Enterprise
hensley@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under NASA Stennis Space Center, MS. This support does not constitute an express or implied endorsement on the part of the Government.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center to develop high-performance modulator technology for radio-frequency (RF) over fiber links.

PSI’s Active Low-Voltage Modulators (ALVM) are based on the thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic-integrated circuit platform to realize enhanced RF links that are compact, efficient, and can be scalably manufactured using a commercial wafer-scale production capability. Our ALVM design combines semiconductor optical amplifiers with ultra-low V-π modulators to enable RF-over-fiber links with low noise figures and high bandwidths for advanced electronic-warfare applications.

For more information contact:

Dr. Joel Hensley
Vice President, Photonics Enterprise
hensley@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under a contract with the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division. This support does not constitute an express or implied endorsement on the part of the Government.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Navy to develop a surrogate Maxwell solver capable of simulating large-scale flat-optics operating across the long wave infrared (LWIR) with a high degree of accuracy at a fraction of the computation cost of the conventional cpu-based finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation technique.

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI), in collaboration with a university partner, will develop an electromagnetic simulation package used for the development and optimization of large-scale meta-optics, and demonstrate the functionality of the package in the long-wave infrared (LWIR). Our team will combine recent progress in physics-augmented deep learning neural networks with rigorous far-field diffraction integrals to assess the focusing efficiency of a 5cm x 5cm optic performing at a wavelength of 10 microns. Additionally, we will compare the performance of our modeling techniques to conventional central processing unit (CPU)-based Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) methods and show > 1000 x improvement in computational costs.

For more information contact:

Dr. Joel Hensley
Vice President, Photonics Enterprise
hensley@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under a contract with the Naval Air Warfare Center. This support does not constitute an express or implied endorsement on the part of the Government.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Space Force to develop a low-cost packaged laser transmitter capable of Watt-scale output powers and modulation bandwidths with up to 100 GHz.

On-chip high-power and high-bandwidth laser transmitters can be a cost-effective solution to the problem of equipping our distributed national defense network with the hardware needed for secure communications. The large size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) of portable laser communication systems has greatly limited the proliferation of laser communication technologies in the field. To overcome this challenge, Physical Sciences, Inc. (PSI) will develop a packaged high-power, high-bandwidth laser transmitter based on integrated photonics. To achieve this performance at the lowest SWaP-C, PSI’s High-power External-cavity Laser Modulator for Integrated Transmitter (HELMIT) platform will combine an external cavity laser capable of producing Watt-scale output powers with an on-chip electro-optic modulator capable of 100 GHz bandwidths.

For more information contact:

Dr. Joel Hensley
Vice President, Photonics Enterprise
hensley@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under a contract with the United States Space Force. This support does not constitute an express or implied endorsement on the part of the Government.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Air Force to develop a novel optical sensor capable of providing aircraft paint thickness measurements, which can be integrated within the current laser robotic systems used for aircraft paint removal.

Currently, such robotic systems use color-based sensors for guiding the paint stripping process. However, these sensors do not measure paint thickness and thus leave the potential for imprecise guidance and costly substrate damage, particularly when employed on composite airframes. A technology for measuring the varying thicknesses of paint in real-time, compliant with the speed and field of view of the robotic arm is needed, as this will enable the laser power and the number of passes to be adjusted for more efficient and safer removal of the paint. To address this need, PSI proposes to use an optical technique capable of measuring paint thickness with micron-scale resolution. An industrial prototype device will be designed, fabricated, and integrated within the current laser robotic systems used for aircraft paint stripping.

For more information, contact:

Mr. William J. Kessler
Vice President, Applied Optics
kessler@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Telephone: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under Warner Robins AFB, GA. This support does not constitute an express or implied endorsement on the part of the Government.