On September 15, 2007, RL Associates opened its 3rd lab. Located in Pine Hill Technology Park, next to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, the 1000 Sq Feet lab/office space will be used for writing volume holograms in thin materials. It will also serve as a local office when consultations with our Navy sponsors are needed.

October 10, 2007
RL Associates Inc. has been selected as one of the winners of the 2007 Tibbetts Awards. Named for Roland Tibbettsóthe person acknowledged as the father of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programóthese prestigious, national awards are made annually to those small firms, projects, organizations and individuals judged to exemplify the very best in SBIR achievement. RL Associates, Inc. is one of 55 companies in the U.S. to receive this award. They were selected from over 4,000 companies that receive contract and grants under the SBIR Program each year.

June 2007
RL Associates, Inc. has just signed a 2 year, $1 million contract with the US Navy to develop a specialized optical filter for use in their airborne Lidar systems. This optical filter will enable daytime/nighttime operation of the Lidar systems in the naval fleet. As of now, the Navy is unable to use its Lidar systems during daylight hours because the reflection of the sunlight off of the water blinds the detector. This represents a significant limitation to the use of current Naval Lidar systems. A working prototype of this filter will be delivered to the Navy at the completion of the contract, scheduled for FY 09.

To Begin January 2008
NASA has awarded RL Associates, Inc. a 2 yr, $600,000 contract to develop an External Hazard Detection (EHD) System that will image through fog, rain and other obscurants. The Next Generation of Aviation Transportation Systems (NGATS or ìNexGenî) will require significantly better hazard mitigation systems both for ground-level and in-flight hazards. The RL Associatesí NIR system will significantly improve the pilots ability to both avoid in-flight hazards, by sensing them sooner, and to fly through ground-level obscurants, like fog or heavy rain, in order to safely keep to a tighter flight schedule. RL Associates plans to deliver a flight-validated prototype to NASA at the completion of the contract.

To begin November 2007
RL Associates, Inc. has been awarded a 2 year, $1 million contract to construct a 12-channel multi-spectral beamsplitter for use in a multi-spectral imaging system in development by the Navy. This system will allow for a significant reduction in the size and weight of currently available beamsplitters. As these systems are used on Navy Aircraft, a smaller size and less weight is a significant advantage. As the RL Associates beamsplitter is being constructed to the strict specifications of the system it will be used in, it will be ready for immediate introduction into the fleet upon its completion.

Phone: 610-499-7529