NASA SBIR 2007 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
M4 Engineering, Inc.
2161 Gundry Avenue
Signal Hill, CA 90755 - 3517
(562) 981-7797

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Kevin M Roughen
kevin.roughen@m4-engineering.com
2161 Gundry Avenue
Signal Hill, CA 90755 - 3517
(562) 981-7797

Expected Technology Readiness Level (TRL) upon completion of contract: 6

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
M4 Engineering proposes to develop a generalized reduced order model generation method. This method will allow for creation of reduced order aeroservoelastic state space models that can be interpolated across a range of flight conditions. This development will be a significant advance to the process of control law development, especially in the design of control systems required to provide flutter suppression, gust load alleviation, and ride quality enhancement. The proposed technique will be an excellent compliment to modern linear and nonlinear aeroservoelastic analysis methods.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The first NASA application is the S4T program, which is currently a subject of ASE control law development at M4 Engineering. It is also expected that this technology will be directly applicable to the research projects planned in the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD). The multidisciplinary nature of the technology makes it an ideal candidate for use any time a very high performance vehicle is designed, where interactions between components, disciplines, and the control system are important. Examples include future high efficiency subsonic aircraft, quiet supersonic aircraft, high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft, hypersonic aircraft, and next-generation launch vehicles (either airbreathing or rocket powered).

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
M4 Engineering has active relationships with several prime contractors who are likely users of this technology. These include Boeing Phantom Works, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. These provide excellent commercialization opportunities for the technology. Active marketing to prime contractors and other specialty airframers (e.g., Aerovironment, General Atomics, etc.) will follow these applications.

The application of these new reduced-order modeling techniques is expected to find wide application to many aerospace and non-aerospace products. Model reduction for control system development is a widely applicable concept. Examples include the medical engineering field, automotive, aerospace/defense, and alternative energy applications.

NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING

Airframe Controls-Structures Interaction (CSI) Guidance, Navigation, and Control Launch and Flight Vehicle On-Board Computing and Data Management Simulation Modeling Environment Structural Modeling and Tools