Small Business Grant Awarded for Helicopter R&D

(Defense.gov)

EMTEQ, an aviation engineering and avionics systems developer in New Berlin, Wisconsin, has received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research for research on a lighting system for helicopter rotor blades. The award is part of the Department of Defense SBIR program, which devotes part of its R&D budget for small businesses.

Under the grant, EMTEQ will research the technical and commercial feasibility of a lightweight rotor blade tip lighting system. A lighting system attached to the blade tips that allows navigation lights to be displayed directly at the edges of the rotor disk would improve visibility to other aircraft and ground crews.

The specifications call for red, green, and white navigation lights at appropriate positions on the plane of the rotor’s arc. The system also requires a hover mode to mark the complete rotor disk circumference to ground crews, as well as a night-vision goggle compatible mode for night formation flight.

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