NASA SBIR 2008 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
RNET Technologies, Inc.
240 W Elmwood Drive, Suite 2010
Dayton, OH 45459 - 4248
(937) 433-2886

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
V. Nagarajan
vnagarajan@rnet-tech.com
240 W Elmwood Drive, Suite 2010
Dayton, OH 45459 - 4248
(937) 937-2886

Expected Technology Readiness Level (TRL) upon completion of contract: 4 to 5

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
NASA has been tasked to develop new and advanced capabilities to support both future manned and robotic missions to the lunar and Martian surfaces. It is the purpose of this program to develop advanced avionics, software, and information technologies for exploration missions. In particular, NASA is concerned with the extreme radiation present on the lunar surface, Martian surface, and in deep space. Spacecraft electronics will need to be radiation hardened against a TID of 100 krads (Si) or more and provide SEL immunity of 100 MeV cm2/mg or greater. Furthermore, electronics in these environments are also subjected to multiple thermal-cycling and wide temperature ranges.

Our innovation provides solutions for the mitigation of radiation effects on reprogrammable SRAM-based FPGA processor elements through the use of an advanced foundry process combined with innovative and RHBD methods to mitigate total ionizing dose and provide SEL immunity, and SEU tolerance. These techniques will be utilized to develop a prototype of radiation hardened, reprogrammable FPGA that will be fabricated and tested, suitable for consideration in future NASA Flagship programs.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Several NASA missions have been identified as prospective customers for technologies developed under this SBIR, although others are possible.

The Constellation Program is one of NASA's new space programs which entail both manned and unmanned spaceflights beyond Earth. In support of the program spacecraft electronics will need to be radiation hardened against a TID effects and provide SEL immunity.

Another potential Flagship program is the Europa Jupiter System Mission where the goal of the program is the general exploration of the Jupiter System, as well as, additional focus on Europa and Ganymede. The baseline mission consists of two orbiters, Jupiter Europa Orbiter and Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter. It is expected that the Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter will have experienced a TID of 5 Mrads after nine years in operation. Development of our rad-hard mitigation methods and rad-hard FPGA technology would be timely for consideration in these programs.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The same technology would also have applicability with the DoD. Example applications could include satellites, high attitude UAVs and aircraft, nuclear power plants (i.e. ship or submarine), or basically any electronic circuits requiring extended radiation hardness. This technology could also be applied in several DOE focused areas. The first and most obvious application would be the support electronics in a nuclear reactor. Another, potential area would be in support of electronics of a particle collider.

There are also multiple places in industry where radiation hardened integrated circuits are needed. Some are not obvious as others. Certain medical equipment does require a degree of radiation tolerance. Apparently, some communication equipment and servers used in the banking industry have radiation mitigation requirements.

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

Highly-Reconfigurable Radiation-Hard/Resistant Electronics