Design and Preliminary Evaluation of the r-Gamma Display Concept, Phase I

The objective of this proposed Phase I SBIR effort is to develop and assess the feasibility of an innovative new flight instrument proposed to replace the traditional Turn Coordinator (or Turn-and-Slip Indicator) currently found in most general aviation (GA) aircraft. The primary innovation is the inclusion of climb-dive information and gyroscopic heading, in addition to the turn-rate information now available, in one low-cost display. In essence, this new ?r-Gamma? display concept will ?fuse? flight information on one display that the pilot must now gather and correlate from among five separate indicators whenever the aircraft experiences loss of the Attitude Indicator (AI) and the Heading Indicator (HI) due to vacuum system or gauge failure. The innovative technology that makes this concept feasible and affordable, with a projected cost similar to that of today?s Turn Coordinator, is derived from a technique called ?Air-Data Tracking,? recently developed and flight tested by our firm under an SBIR contract that involved tracking the flightpath of a small USAF sensor vehicle. We firmly believe this concept has the potential to improve significantly the safety of emergency ?partial-panel? flight operations in GA aircraft.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.