July 2024 - Physical Sciences Inc.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Navy to develop High Energy Laser with Rechargeable Energy Magazine.

The proliferation of unmanned aerial systems and missiles on the battlefield has led to increased interest in short range air defense for both fixed base and maneuver elements. This situation is motivating the adaptation of high energy laser weapons to smaller combat vehicles, which amplifies the challenge of creating systems with the footprint, power, and thermal management that can be supported by these resource limited vehicles. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) proposes to develop a compact, battery-powered, high power direct diode laser integrated with a rechargeable magazine. By separating the system into a laser subsystem and a rechargeable magazine that contains the cooling and battery power subsystems, the footprint is minimized. Our magazine concept includes a liquid carbon dioxide cooling system and PSI’s high-performance batteries. The magazine will provide sufficient cooling and electrical power for several cw.

For more information contact:

David Sonnenfroh
Area Manager, Laser and Atmospheric Technologies
sonnenfroh@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 Navy to develop a flat form-factor microlens array capable of interfacing with image sensors.

PSI’s microlens array leverages our proprietary metalens technology, originally developed for wide field-of-view imaging applications, to produce mass-manufacturable lens arrays that seamlessly integrate into planar image sensing devices. PSI’s technology enables precise numerical aperture matching of the lens array to the acceptance angle of the sensor inputs, decreasing the system insertion loss while reducing system size, weight, and power.

For more information contact:

Dr. David Woolf
Group Leader, Structured Optical Materials
dwoolf@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

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

Press Release

Imperia Batteries^®, a division of Physical Sciences Inc., (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Air Force to develop a high energy, flexible lithium-ion battery design. This design will enhance mission capabilities by withstanding extreme temperatures and fitting securely into tight or irregular spaces without compromising safety.

In this battery, connections between cells will be capable of flexing nearly 360°, enabling conformation of the battery to variable available spaces in AgilePod. Utilizing Imperia’s high energy cell designs, the battery will deliver 300 Wh/kg for hundreds of cycles. The battery will incorporate a directly applied separator technology, which will increase the thermal and mechanical stability of the cell. The design will also incorporate Imperia’s low volatility electrolyte, limiting gas generation and ignition under failure conditions. Phase I will demonstrate the functionality of the flexible connection feature. At the end of the program Imperia will propose a cell and battery design with which to proceed into Phase II. In Phase II full scale prototypes will be produced and tested based on the design developed in Phase I. Upon maturation of the technology, the battery system will be marketed and domestically produced as part of Imperia’s product line.

For more information contact:

Dr. Christopher Lang
Vice President, Energy Enterprises
lang@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

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

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has recently been awarded a contract from the US Navy to develop a novel machining capability for hardened optical materials.

Physical Sciences Inc. will develop Hard Optical Material Exquisite Quality Electrochemical Surface Tuning (HOME-QuEST) capability for generation of prescribed uncoated optical surfaces in hardened optical materials. Such materials are desirable for their high specific stiffness and chemical resistance. An electrochemical machining (ECM) process will be optimized to provide a 3mm radius, 6mm aperture reflective surface as demonstration, with irregularity better than 500nm and root-mean-square roughness better than 30nm.

For more information, contact:

Dr. David Woolf
Group Leader, Structured Optical Materials
dwoolf@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under a contract with the Naval Surface 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. Navy to develop a compact in-tank oxygen sensor capable for real-time monitoring ullage oxygen level and surviving the harsh fuel tank environment.

Military and some commercial aircraft protect fuel tanks from explosion by reducing the gaseous oxygen (O₂) content in the ullage headspace above the fuel from typical ambient levels of 21% to less than 9% via a process called inerting. To this end, engine compressor bleed air feeds an On-Board Inert Gas Generation System (OBIGGS) that supplies Nitrogen-Enriched-Air (NEA) to the ullage. The NEA O₂ is usually measured prior to pumping it into the fuel tank. However, the ullage O₂ content can fluctuate compared to the NEA, especially during rapid maneuvers or altitude changes, since the tank is vented to the external atmosphere. No sensor technology is presently able to monitor the O₂ content of the ullage itself under the widely variable aircraft operating conditions. Therefore, reliable and accurate real-time sensors are needed. The sensors must be lightweight, compatible with fuel vapors and the aircraft electrical system, and low cost. The project proposed herein, through Phase II, seeks to build upon prior foundations with innovations that simplify the design for manufacturability and ease of installation, and for eliminating supplemental measurement of temperature and pressure. The developed oxygen sensor system intends to achieve TRL8 upon completion of Phase II.

For more information contact:

Dr. Shin-Juh Chen
Group Leader, Industrial & Environmental Sensors Group
schen@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 expressed or implied endorsement on the part of the Government.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from National Institute of Health (NIH) / National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to develop a real-time, continuous, mobile benzene detector with ppb-sensitivity to monitor environmental exposures and address impact on the human population.

Benzene is a known carcinogen linked to leukemia with primary entry into the human body via the lungs, thus detecting, tracking and localizing emission sources in real-time are critical for preventing personal exposures. Premature death from air pollution (due to household air, ambient particulates and ozone) has increased drastically over the past two decades and was responsible for over 6.7 million deaths in 2019. The complexity and high operational cost of existing laborious measurement tools for benzene are responsible for infrequent air sampling activities. The lack of a real-time continuously monitoring benzene instrument for ambient air is making the impact of environmental exposures on the general population very difficult to assess.

An easily-operating instrument capable of measuring benzene continuously in real-time with sensitivity of parts-per-billion by volume (ppbv) and adaptable to typical survey modalities (e.g. mobile, fixed, and walking) is the overall goal of this research and development program. The proposed project will improve both scientific knowledge on the impact of benzene on the health of the general population and technical capability in the measurement of benzene in real-time with high-sensitivity and fast time response.

The Phase I Specific Aims are to engineer a laboratory prototype to detect benzene, establish the performance of the laboratory prototype, and demonstrate operations in outdoor urban environments. This proposed benzene detector will take advantage of key enabling technologies including recently available room-temperature quantum cascade lasers, custom compact system electronics designs, rugged multipass measurement cell designs, and data analytics for estimating emission rate and source. This real-time continuously monitoring benzene detector will enhance the understanding of its impact on human to reduce or eliminate cancers caused by exposure to benzene.

For more information contact:

Dr. Shin-Juh Chen
Group Leader, Industrial & Environmental Sensors Group
schen@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under a contract with the National Institutes of Health. This support does not constitute an expressed or implied endorsement on the part of the Government.

Press Release

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to develop a Spectro-Radiometrically Programmable Infrared Scene Projector (SRP-IRSP) to provide a field calibration capability for longwave infrared (LWIR) hyperspectral imagers (HSIs) performing passive chemical vapor plume imaging.

The SRP-IRSP will specifically enable quantitative simulation of chemical plumes of dynamically commandable radiometric parameters/temperature differentials and mass concentrations in operationally relevant background scenes and release mechanisms. The proposed capability is programmable for the chemical of interest at mass concentrations associated with release of 10 g to >10 kg and can project thermal contrast in both absorption and emission with ∆T of 1-15K. The resulting capability enables calibration, training and validation for LWIR HSIs in an efficient and streamlined manner without the uncertainty and logistics of an actual chemical release.

For more information contact:

Elizabeth C. Schundler
Group Leader, Optical Systems Technologies
eschundler@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

Acknowledgement of Sponsorship: This work is supported under a contract with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). 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 novel technology for non-destructive imaging through paint or epoxy coatings on naval air vehicles to detect subsurface defects and corrosion.

Undetected corrosion can lead to serious functional and structural failures with consequences that include the risk to the safety of persons, damage to the equipment and environment, and economic impacts. Early detection of corrosion and related defects is critical, as it would reduce the remediation cost, improve the operational safety, and minimize mission downtime of fielded assets. Unfortunately, traditional methods for detecting corrosion defects are inefficient, and involve costly removal and replacement of the coatings and paints for visual inspection of the underlying surface. Removal and replacement of these polymer or painted sections involve costly operations in terms of labor and materials costs. To address this need, Physical Sciences Inc. proposes to develop a novel non-contact optical imaging technology, which will use mid-infrared radiation (~ 4 um) to penetrate paints and resins and examine sub-surface material quality and presence of corrosion.

For more information contact:

Dr. Dr. Nicusor Iftimia
Area Manager, Biomedical Optics Technology
yzhao@psicorp.com
Physical Sciences Inc.
Office: (978) 689-0003

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