DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY
FY2007.2 SBIR Proposal Submission
DARPA’s charter is to help maintain U.S. technological superiority over, and to prevent technological surprise by, its potential adversaries. Thus, the DARPA goal is to pursue as many highly imaginative and innovative research ideas and concepts with potential military and dual-use applicability as the budget and other factors will allow.
DARPA has identified technical topics to which small businesses may respond in the fiscal year (FY) 2007 SBIR solicitation (FY2007.2). Please note that these topics are UNCLASSIFIED and only UNCLASSIFIED proposals will be entertained. Although they are unclassified, the subject matter may be considered to be a “critical technology” and may be subject to ITAR restrictions. If you plan to employ NON-U.S. Citizens in the performance of a DARPA SBIR contract, please inform the Contracting Officer who is negotiating your contract. These are the only topics for which proposals will be accepted at this time. A list of the topics currently eligible for proposal submission is included followed by full topic descriptions. The topics originated from DARPA technical program managers.
ALL PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS TO DARPA MUST BE SUBMITTED ELECTRONICALLY THRU WWW.DODSBIR.NET.
It is mandatory that the complete proposal submission -- DoD Proposal Cover Sheet, entire Technical Proposal with any appendices, Cost Proposal, and the Company Commercialization Report -- be submitted electronically through the DoD SBIR website at http://www.dodsbir.net/submission. Each of these documents is to be submitted separately through the website. Your complete proposal must be submitted via the submissions site on or before the 6:00am EST, 13 June 2007 deadline. A checklist has been prepared to assist small business activities in responding to DARPA topics. If you have any questions or problems with electronic submission, contact the DoD SBIR Help Desk at 1-866-724-7457 (8am to 5pm EST).
Acceptable Format for On-Line Submission: All technical proposal files must be in Portable Document Format (PDF) for evaluation purposes. The Technical Proposal should include all graphics and attachments but should not include the Cover Sheet or Company Commercialization Report (as these items are completed separately). Cost Proposal information should be provided by completing the on-line Cost Proposal form. This itemized listing should be placed as the last page(s) of the Technical Proposal Upload. (Note: Only one file can be uploaded to the DoD Submission Site. Ensure that this single file includes your complete Technical Proposal and the additional cost proposal information.)
Technical Proposals should conform to the limitations on margins and number of pages specified in the front section of this DoD solicitation. Your Cover Sheet will only count as two pages, no matter how they print out after being converted. Most proposals will be printed out on black and white printers so make sure all graphics are distinguishable in black and white. It is strongly encouraged that you perform a virus check on each submission to avoid complications or delays in submitting your Technical Proposal. To verify that your proposal has been received, click on the “Check Upload” icon to view your proposal. Typically, your proposal will be uploaded within the hour. However, if your proposal does not appear after an hour, please contact the DoD Help Desk.
DARPA recommends that you complete your submission early, as computer traffic gets heavy near the solicitation closing and slows down the system. DARPA will not be responsible for proposals being denied due to servers being “down” or inaccessible. Please assure that your e-mail address listed in your proposal is current and accurate. By the end of March, you will receive an e-mail acknowledging receipt of your proposal.
PLEASE DO NOT ENCRYPT OR PASSWORD PROTECT TECHNICAL PROPOSAL
HELPFUL HINTS:
Additional DARPA requirements:
· DARPA Phase I awards will be Firm Fixed Price contracts.
· If you collaborate with a University, please highlight the research that they are doing and verify that the work is FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH.
· Phase I proposals shall not exceed $99,000, and may range from 6 to 8 months in duration. Phase I contracts cannot be extended.
· DARPA Phase II proposals must be invited by the respective Phase I DARPA Program Manager. Phase 2 invitations will be based on the technical results reflected in the Phase I contract and/or final reports as evaluated by the DARPA Program Manager utilizing the criteria in Section 4.3. DARPA Phase II proposals must be structured as follows: the first 10-12 months (base effort) should be approximately $375,000; the second 10-12 months of incremental funding should also be approximately $375,000. The entire Phase II effort should generally not exceed $750,000.
Prior to receiving a contract award, the small business MUST be registered in the Centralized Contractor Registration (CCR) Program. You may obtain registration information by calling 1-888-227-2423 or Internet: http://www.ccr.gov.
The responsibility for implementing DARPA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program rests with the Contracts Management Office. The DARPA SBIR/STTR Program Manager is Connie Jacobs, see address below. DARPA invites small businesses to submit proposals thru the DoD website www.dodsbir.net/submission.
DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY
Attention: CMO/SBIR/STTR
3701 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203-1714
(703) 526-4170
Home Page http://www.darpa.mil
SBIR proposals submitted to DARPA will be processed by DARPA and distributed to the appropriate technical office for evaluation and action.
DARPA selects proposals for funding based on technical merit and the evaluation criteria contained in this solicitation document. DARPA gives evaluation criterion a., “The soundness, technical merit, and innovation of the proposed approach and its incremental progress toward topic or subtopic solution” (refer to section 4.2 Evaluation Criteria - Phase I - page 12), twice the weight of the other two evaluation criteria. PLEASE NOTE THAT MANY OF THE WEAKEST PROPOSALS SCORED LOW ON EVALUATION CRITERIA “C” “THE POTENTIAL FOR COMMERCIAL (GOVERNMENT OR PRIVATE SECTOR) APPLICATION AND THE BENEFITS EXPECTED TO ACCRUE FROM THIS COMMERCIALIZATION. DARPA IS PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN THE POTENTIAL TRANSITION OF SBIR RESULTS TO THE U.S. MILITARY, AND EXPECTS EXPLICIT TREATMENT OF A TRANSITION VISION IN THE COMMERCIALIZATION-STRATEGY PART OF THE PROPOSAL. THAT VISION SHOULD INCLUDE IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM OR NEED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE THAT THE SBIR RESULTS WOULD ADDRESS, A DESCRIPTION OF HOW WIDE-SPREAD AND SIGNIFICANT THE PROBLEM OR NEED IS, AND IDENTIFICATION OF THE POTENTIAL END-USERS (ARMY, NAVY, AF, SOCOM, ETC) WHO WOULD LIKELY USE THE RESULTS. THE SMALL BUSINESS MUST DEMONSTRATE UNDERSTANDING OF THE END USE OF THEIR EFFORT AND THE END USERS.
ALL SELECTION/NON-SELECTION LETTERS WILL BE SENT TO THE PERSON LISTED AS THE “CORPORATE OFFICIAL” ON THE PROPOSAL.
As funding is limited, DARPA reserves the right to select and fund only those proposals considered to be superior in overall technical quality and highly relevant to the DARPA mission. As a result, DARPA may fund more than one proposal in a specific topic area if the technical quality of the proposal(s) is deemed superior, or it may not fund any proposals in a topic area. Each proposal submitted to DARPA must have a topic number and must be responsive to only one topic.
DARPA SBIR 07.2 Topic Index
SB072-001 Nanotechnology-Enhanced Sensor for Toxic Industrial Chemicals
SB072-002 Innovative Pulse Programmers for Quantum Computing Applications
SB072-003 Crack Nucleation Prediction through Surface Roughness Measurement
SB072-004 Synthetic Combinatory Bendable Substrates (CyCoBs) for Ultra-lightweight, Structurally Embedded Infrared (IR) Camera
SB072-005 Spatial Control of Crystal Texture
SB072-006 Advanced Development for Defense Science and Technology
SB072-007 Tracked Vehicle Barriers
SB072-008 Novel Architectures Development
SB072-009 Self Aware Processing
SB072-010 Multi-Core Applications
SB072-011 Cognitive Assistance Tools for Victims of Traumatic Brain Injury
SB072-012 Game World
SB072-013 Validating Large Scale Simulations of Socio-Political Phenomena
SB072-014 Handheld Transcription Device for the Hearing Impaired
SB072-015 Simulation Center in a Box
SB072-016 Hierarchical Situation Visualization
SB072-017 Contextually Adaptive False Alarm Mitigation
SB072-018 Computationally Efficient Parallax Processing
SB072-019 Wide Area Video Image Storage Techniques
SB072-020 Anomaly Detection and Intelligent Sensor Resource Management
SB072-021 Ultra-Light Interlaced Active Electronically Steerable Antennas (ULI-AESA)
SB072-022 Optical Localization Techniques for Micro-Sensor Network Devices
SB072-023 Sensor-to-Symbol: Frameworks for Integrated Systems Research
SB072-024 Integrated Waveguide Optical Isolators
SB072-025 Micro-Actuated Optics
SB072-026 Reliable MEMS Ka-Band Filters
SB072-027 MEMS/NEMS High Temperature Thermal Barrier Coatings
SB072-028 Negative Index Materials for High Resolution Photolithography
SB072-029 Electro-Optic Polymer Based Ultra-Linear Directional Coupler
SB072-030 Scalable-Network Wireless Imaging Sensors for the Battlefield
SB072-031 Physically Small Superconducting Antennas
SB072-032 Rapid and Accurate Idea Transfer
SB072-033 Common Operating Picture for Information Operations
SB072-034 Upconverting Films
SB072-035 Metamaterials Lens
SB072-036 Optically Reflecting Flexible Membrane
SB072-037 Quantum Entangled Radio Communications
SB072-038 Wireless Power Transmission with Electromagnetic Inductive Coupling
SB072-039 A Sensor for Relative Position and Attitude Determination
SB072-040 Unmanned Underwater Riverine Craft (UURC)
SB072-041 Energy Storage Systems for Very High Altitude Very Long Endurance Solar Aircraft
SB072-042 Low-Stored-Volume Wings for a Very High Altitude Aircraft
SB072-043 Photovoltaic Cells for Very High Altitude Very Long Endurance Solar Aircraft
SB072-044 Reduction of Structural Mass Fraction for Extreme Solar HALE Flying Wings
SB072-045 Very High Altitude Aircraft Propulsion Engines
DARPA SBIR 07.2 Topic Descriptions
SB072-001 TITLE: Nanotechnology-Enhanced Sensor for Toxic Industrial Chemicals
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Chemical/Bio Defense, Ground/Sea Vehicles, Materials/Processes, Biomedical
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Develop a lightweight, portable sensor for toxic industrial chemicals (TICS) that incorporates nanoscale features to enhance detection sensitivity while reducing reagent requirements.
DESCRIPTION: Toxic industrial chemicals (TICS) also referred to as toxic industrial materials (TIMS), are chemicals not classified as chemical warfare agents that are harmful or lethal to humans. Toxic industrial chemicals include well known substances such as ammonia, chlorine, and hydrogen fluoride which are considered to be highly toxic, to lesser known materials such as acrolein and chloroacetaldehyde. The threat from TICS, while not being as lethal as traditional chemical agents, is enhanced due to the vast quantities produced and the ease of access to the materials compared to chemical agents. Additionally, most chemical agent detectors are not configured to detect TICS, thus exposure may not be recognized until significant exposure has occurred. The use of the military in urban areas will likely increase the risk to the warfighter of exposure to TICS used as weapons either through direct exposure or through the introduction of the chemical into the food and/or water sources used by the troops. TICS also pose a risk to the general population due to the proximity of chemical manufacturing and usage facilities to population centers. The goal of this effort is to take advantage of advances in nanofabrication technologies to develop small sensors for TICS that incorporate nanoscale features along with microfluidics to increase sensitivity while reducing reagent and power requirements. Any proposed sensor should be able to detect a wide range of TICS and/or be easily reconfigurable in order to detect additional chemicals. Additionally, proposed sensors should be designed with the following considerations in mind: 1) low power consumption operation, 2) capability for remote operation, including wireless data transmission, and 3) ruggedized construction of small reconfigurable sensors for use in battlefield scenarios such as mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) and/or unmanned ground vehicles (UGV’s). The proposed sensors should also have a low likelihood of false alarms.
In support of this effort, selective U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) fabrication and testing facilities are available for use by SBIR contractors AT NO CHARGE. Specific government furnished equipment (GFE) and restrictions are available upon request.
PHASE I: Conduct a feasibility study on the design and development of a sensor for toxic industrial chemicals the performance of which is enhanced by the incorporation of nanoscale features.
PHASE II: Develop and Demonstrate initial detection capabilities/methods for the toxic industrial chemicals having the highest hazard index as determined by the Department of Homeland Security. Experimentally test and validate the performance of the prototype system. Submit a working prototype to the Army for testing.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The sensors developed under this topic will have broad dual use applications outside of the military including homeland defense areas, environmental quality monitoring, and industrial chemical monitoring.
REFERENCES: 1) Guide for the Selection of Chemical Agent and Toxic Industrial Material Detection Equipment for Emergency First Responders, Department of Homeland Security Guide 100-04, Volume 1, March 2005
2) Optical detection of chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals: Simulation, M.E. Webber, M. Pushkarsky, C.K.N. Patel, Journal of Applied Physics, Volume 97, Issue 11, pp. 113101-11 (2005).
KEYWORDS: Chemical Detection, Environmental Monitoring, Toxic Industrial Chemicals, Toxic Industrial Materials
SB072-002 TITLE: Innovative Pulse Programmers for Quantum Computing Applications
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Sensors, Electronics
OBJECTIVE: Research and development of innovative techniques and architecture for precise control and generation of complex pulse shape and sequence to enable qubit operations for scalable quantum computing.
DESCRIPTION: Logic operations and error correction in trapped ion, superconducting, and semiconductor qubits are performed by sequences of shaped pulses that modulate voltages applied to control electrodes or gates. This topic seeks scalable generator of precisely shaped pulse sequences through the design and development of innovative techniques, a reconfigurable and extensible architecture, and five modular subsystems of programmable hardware.[1] The first module is a high-speed Digital Sequencer to produce sequenced digital control outputs under software control. Second is a RF Subsystem (typically 400 MHz) interfaced to the Digital Sequencer to synthesize RF output with digitally controlled amplitude, phase, and frequency. Third is a high-speed Digital Serializer, interfaced to the Digital Sequencer, to output serial streams of digital bits with buffered TTL, LVTTL, ECL, or LVDS output. High-speed operation and radiated energy (noise source) would be important considerations in the choice of the output type. Fourth is a High Frequency radio frequency (RF) Subsystem that interfaces the Digital Sequencer to high-speed 16-bit D/A converters and provides buffered 50 ohm outputs. Fifth is a Waveform Synthesizer interfaced through D/A converters to the Digital Sequencer and provides outputs, typically to 50 ohms.
PHASE I: The Phase I study should describe the design and estimate performance of a prototype programmable pulse sequence generator based on commercial off the shelf (COTS) components that can perform scalable qubit operations. Prototype hardware design should include a memory depth of at least 4 MB by 18 or 2 MB by 36 for the Digital Sequencer. A performance reference for RF synthesis for the 400 MHz RF Subsystem is the Analog Devices AD9858 chip. The Digital Serializer should output at least 4 serial streams of digital bits at 16 times the speed of the Digital Sequencer (or 8 by 8) using parallel-to-serial conversion chips. The High Frequency RF Subsystem should interface the Digital Sequencer to 4 high-speed 16-bit D/A converters, such as the 500 MSPS Maxim MAX5898 chip, and provide buffered 50 ohm outputs. The Waveform Synthesizer should interface sixteen 20-MHz 16-bit D/A converters to the Digital Sequencer and provide 50 ohm low voltage outputs (examples; 0-3V, +-3V, +-5V, or +- 10V).
PHASE II: Construct a prototype generator of precisely shaped pulse sequences in an extensible architecture able to control 100 qubits using open source hardware and software. Adaptability of the plug and play design to meet the requirements of different qubit embodiments, and addressability of hot-swappable modular units in subsystems, must be demonstrated using low noise, low jitter hardware. The prototype must interface with high-level programming software to control qubit operations. Requirements and testing should be done in coordination with an experimental group developing appropriate qubits.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The technology developed here has application to a broad range of quantum computing technologies. In addition to critical national security applications, quantum computing is anticipated to have an impact on commercial applications involving hard computational problems such as planning and scheduling. The technology developed here is also anticipated to have wide application to DoD and commercial applications involving pulse generators, pulse shaping, and pulse sequencing.
REFERENCES: 1) http://pulse-sequencer.sourceforge.net/
http://www.darpa.mil/SBIR/workshopresults/pulseprogrammer
2) Kenneth R. Brown, Aram W. Harrow, Isaac L. Chuang: Phys. Rev. A v70, p052318, Nov. 2004.
3) H. Haffner et al.: Appl. Phys. B 81, p. 151 (2005).
4) R. McDermott et al.: Science 307, pp. 1299-1302 (2005).
5) J.R. Petta et al.: Science 309, p. 2180 (2005).
KEYWORDS: Pulse Generators, Pulse Shaping, Pulse Sequence, Quantum Computing.
SB072-003 TITLE: Crack Nucleation Prediction through Surface Roughness Measurement
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes
OBJECTIVE: Identify and develop innovative methodologies to predict crack nucleation in aircraft grade Al alloys as a function of the surface roughness.
DESCRIPTION: Much success has been realized predicting the remaining useful life of critical airframe parts through the analysis of downloaded flight data under the DARPA Prognosis Program. The development of an analytical technique to measure surface and predict the nucleation of fatigue cracks based on this measurement would further enhance the capabilities previously developed under Prognosis. The ability to predict crack nucleation based on surface roughness measurements would further reduce the need to have frequent inspections that require an airframe to be out of service and incur significant costs. Previous studies have shown a large effect of roughness on crack nucleation conditions [1, 2]. In order to achieve this, variable surface quality must be quantified and correlated to the fraction of contribution to the system that causes a crack to nucleate under fatigue loading.
PHASE I: Conduct a study on fatigue crack growth as a function of surface roughness. Conditions would be similar to loading profiles as those established in Prognosis. Develop portable, easy-to-use, non-contact profilometry measuring techniques to be used for inspections.
PHASE II: Develop a set of algorithms for predicting fatigue crack initiation based on physics and data-driven models gathered in Phase I. Produce predictive computer code/module with easy integration into existing commercial software package FASTRAN code developed under Prognosis.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The technology developed under this SBIR can be used in military and civilian inspection schemes such as Navy aircraft EA-6B, P-3, and Air Force aircraft A10 and for commercial civilian legacy airframe applications.
REFERENCES: 1) Proudhon, H., Fouvry, S., and Buffiere, J.-Y., “A fretting crack initiation prediction taking into account the surface roughness and the crack nucleation process volume,” Int. J. Fatigue, 27 (5), 2005, 569-579.
2) Lovrich, N. R. and Neu, R. W., “Effect of mean stress on fretting fatigue of Ti-6Al-4V on Ti-6Al-4V,” Fatigue & Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures, 29 (1), 2006, 41-55.
KEYWORDS: Fatigue Cracking, Surface Profilometry, Modeling, Al Alloys
SB072-004 TITLE: Synthetic Combinatory Bendable Substrates (CyCoBs) for Ultra-lightweight, Structurally Embedded Infrared (IR) Camera
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Sensors
OBJECTIVE: Identify and develop innovative technologies to enable ultra-lightweight IR cameras for use on Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) to achieve long endurance (> 90 mW-hr) and carry high power payloads.
DESCRIPTION: Currently available small infrared (IR) and short wavelength infrared (SWIR) cameras are ~100 grams in weight. DARPA aims to develop cameras with equivalent performance at less than1/10th the mass. A large portion of the mass of a state-of-the-art camera is dedicated to the focal plane array (FPA), read out circuitry, cooling system, lens assembly, signal processing, and energy storage. There is immediate need to address these limitations to achieve a small IR camera that weighs less than 10 grams and possesses state-of-the-art sensitivity that can be integrated directly on Micro Air Vehicle platforms (e.g., DARPA’s Wasp MAV). Weight savings will be achieved through the exploitation of the multifunctional materials concept. For example, by imprinting the structural MAV components with Focal Plane Array (FPA) and readout circuitry to provide more efficient packaging, thermal management, incorporation of novel lens assemblies and communication antennas into the airframe it may be possible to achieve reduced weight, and, therefore, increased endurance [1-3].
PHASE I: Conduct a feasibility study on transferring FPA circuits from rigid to flex substrates using die level elements on plastic with more efficient packaging, improved cooling, and incorporation of novel lens assemblies. Reducing package weight and thinning substrates will result in a reduction in weight from 25-50 g (state-of-the-art) to <1 g.
PHASE II: Develop the materials and methods identified in Phase I and integrate solutions with MAV structural elements. Produce functional lightweight IR with FPA on flex chip integrated to MAV structure with 1/10th the current mass.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The technology developed under this SBIR can be used in military and civilian IR cameras such as on-board WASP and for civilian inspection applications.
REFERENCES: 1) Y. Xiao, H. N. Shah, R. Natarajan, E. J. Rymaszewski, T. P. Chow, R. J. Gutmann, “Integrated flip-chip flex-circuit packaging for power electronics applications,” IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 19 (2), 2004, 515-522.
2) Rivera, A. and Murray V., “Friendly Eyes, Hostile Skies: An SwRI-developed flight management system adds capability to compact unmanned aircraft system”, SwRI Technology Today, 27 (2), 2006, 8-11.
3) Paradiso, J. A. and Starner T., Energy Scavenging for Mobile and Wireless Electronics, IEEE Pervasive Computing, 4(1), 2005, 18-27.
4) http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/wasp.htm DARPA WASP program
KEYWORDS: Cameras, Sensor Array, Flexible Substrate, Material Processing.
SB072-005 TITLE: Spatial Control of Crystal Texture
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes
OBJECTIVE: Develop a manufacturing process for spatial control of crystal texture in metallic components and demonstrate an application where performance is enhanced due to the control of the texture.
DESCRIPTION: Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) is a class of layered manufacturing processes which convert computer representations of components into solid components without part specific tooling. Examples of SFF include Stereolithography, 3-D Printing, Fused Deposition and Laminate Object Manufacturing. Many of these processes have been used to manufacture metal component via powder metallurgy. In powder metallurgy large seed grains may be oriented in the ‘green state’ to control crystal texture via secondary grain growth. Since tensor properties of material depend on crystal orientation, it would be useful to control properties spatially within a component to enhance the performance of components. Development of machine capabilities for the spatial control of crystal texture (for each voxel or volume element) provides a method of making things that can’t be manufactured by conventional manufacturing methods.
Each proposal must include a Defense relevant challenge problem for manufacture where the spatial control of crystal texture is essential to the enhanced performance. A few examples are given of suitable challenge problems although the proposer may choose any Defense relevant problem.
1. Depleted Uranium (DU) is used as a ballistic penetrator in part because of its self sharpening behavior. Proper orientation of shear planes in another material without self sharpening behavior could be used to change its failure behavior to enhance penetration.
2. Single crystal turbine blades have superior creep rupture properties compared to polycrystalline turbine blades but the manufacturing process is slow and therefore expensive. Proper orientation of seed grains might be used to self assemble single crystal turbine blades complete with internal cooling passages.
3. Magnetic pole pieces can be designed such that magnetic field strength is enhanced by orienting the crystallographic axis with the highest permeability to follow the field lines in the magnet. Currently such magnets are produced by cutting pieces from a textured billet and assembling and bonding a mosaic of magnetic pieces. Such magnets could be made directly with the machine capabilities to be developed in this project.
PHASE I: Establish sintering conditions and seed grain requirements for secondary grain growth for the alloy composition of interest. Develop and demonstrate a laboratory scale manufacturing process for spatial control of crystal texture suitable for the chosen challenge problem. Develop models to describe how spatial control of crystallographic texture affects the performance of the demonstration component.
PHASE II: Based on the results of Phase I, design and build a second generation computer driven machine capable of manufacturing components for test and evaluation. Characterize the performance of the components of manufacture and how the performance changes with changes in the design for spatial control of texture.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The manufacturing process developed in this project may also be used to control the tensor properties of materials. This could for example be used to increase the surface hardness of armor systems. When applied to ceramic materials, the machine capability developed in this program could be used to enhance optical or piezoelectric performance.
REFERENCES: 1) DU Exposure in the Gulf war: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/
du_ii/du_ii_tabg.htm
2) P. W. Rehrig, S-E. Park, S. Trolier-McKinstry, G. L. Messing, B. Jones, and T. R. Shrout, “Piezoelectric Properties of Zirconium-doped Barium Titanate Single Crystals Grown by Templated Grain Growth,” J. Appl. Phys. 86(3):1657-1661 (1999).
3) “Fabrication of Grain Oriented Lead Metaniobate Components by fused deposition of Ceramics”, K. Nonaka, M. Allahverdi, A. Safari, J. of Ferroelectrics, Vol. 269, pp. 255-260, 2002.
KEYWORDS: Solid Freeform Fabrication, Penetrator, Turbine Blade, Magnetic Pole Piece, Crystal Texture, Manufacturing.
SB072-006 TITLE: Advanced Development for Defense Science and Technology
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes
OBJECTIVE: Identify and develop innovative technology in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences for enabling defense technology.
DESCRIPTION: Novel technology which relies on innovations in science and engineering has provided a critical advantage to our national defense. To this end, DSO is soliciting proposals for advanced technology development in a variety of enabling technical areas which include:
•Application and development of advanced mathematics for DoD applications.
•New and innovative approaches to biosensor technology and biological technology for maintaining the warfighters performance, capabilities and survival in battlefield conditions.
•Remote interrogation and control of biological systems at the system/organ/tissue/cellular/molecular scales and new technologies to drastically reduce the logistics burden of medical treatment in the field;
•Novel interface and sensor designs for interacting with the central (cortical and subcortical structures) and peripheral nervous systems, with a particular emphasis on non-invasive and/or non-contact approaches;
•New technologies for understanding and predicting the behavior of individuals and groups, especially those that elucidate the neurobiological basis of behavior and decision making;
•New technology for training individuals and teams, including embedded training and simulation; technologies which lead to understanding and improving team performance; and new approaches to improve rapid decision-making in chaotic or data-poor environments.
PHASE I: Conduct a feasibility study which would investigate and define the proposed idea or device and its feasibility.
PHASE II: Develop the research and technology advances and methods identified in Phase I to demonstrate a proof-of-concept prototype.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The technology developed under this SBIR will be used in military and civilian commercial sector.
REFERENCES: 1) http://www.dod.mil/ddre/mainpage.htm
2) http://www.dod.mil/ddre/scitech.htm
3) http://ostp.gov/html/m06-17.pdf
KEYWORDS: Sensor Array, Biotechnology, Novel Materials, Embedded Training, Decision Making, Neural Signal Analysis
SB072-007 TITLE: Tracked Vehicle Barriers
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Battlespace
OBJECTIVE: Identify and develop innovative portable barriers to restrict tracked vehicle movement in a wide variety of tactical situations.
DESCRIPTION: Current barrier systems used to impede enemy freedom of movement are labor and logistics intensive, requiring significant time, manpower, equipment, and materials to emplace and sustain. This problem is exacerbated for the larger-scale (e.g., Jersey) barriers used to deny larger tracked vehicles such as tanks. There is an immediate need for lightweight small-volume barrier systems which can stop or degrade the forward motion of tracked vehicles. Such systems are envisioned to have a small form-factor when stored, but upon deployment will expand to achieve the desired operational form-factor. Furthermore, it is desired for the barriers to be fully reversible and reusable. Barriers for wheeled vehicles such as trucks and sedans, constructed from polymeric foams and other lighter weight components, are currently under development. This topic addresses the more difficult problem of stopping a heavy tracked vehicle such as an M1A2 tank (70 tons), an SP Howitzer (40 tons), or a Bradley (50 tons). Innovative approaches, such as designs which use the mass and momentum of the vehicle itself as part of the stopping mechanism, or which incorporate mimics of terrain conditions known to impede tracked vehicle movement (soft ground, mud, water, or significant slope) are sought.
PHASE I: Design and test concept for an expandable lightweight (<10 lb) barrier capable of stopping a tracked vehicle. The barrier will be reversible and reusable. Barrier must be deployed and reversed in under 5 min.
PHASE II: Develop manufacturable prototype barriers and demonstrate performance in field tests.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The technology developed under this SBIR can be used in military operations, law enforcement, and industrial safety.
REFERENCES: 1) Jane’s Military Vehicles and Logistics, 26th Edition (2005), Jane’s Information Group.
2) Military Field Manual FM 5-114, “Engineer Operations Short of War.”
KEYWORDS: Barrier, Tracked Vehicle, Lightweight, Reversible, Reusable, Expandable, Rapid Deployment
SB072-008 TITLE: Novel Architectures Development
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Sensors, Electronics, Weapons
OBJECTIVE: This SBIR solicits novel, unique, breakthrough processing approaches and architectures (including novel micro-architectures, input/output (I/O), and related technologies) for tomorrow’s embedded and mainframe DoD applications. The goal is to identify and pursue leap-ahead processing architecture techniques and approaches that will provide revolutionary new processing and productivity capabilities. In summary, this SBIR seeks fresh new promising ideas required to seed future new directions in processing for DoD and commercial applications.
DESCRIPTION: Military platforms and systems for many applications require real-time, high-performance computing, but typically have severe constraints on space, weight, power, latency, and cost. Computing solutions are increasingly being implemented with commodity processing systems, which, because they are driven by mass-market demands and need to accommodate generations of legacy code, cannot provide revolutionary innovations in both hardware and software. More importantly, the gap between critical high-end DoD processing needs and the incremental progress of commercial industry is continuing to widen and threaten US superiority in an area that is a foundation of our national security.
This SBIR pursues concepts outside mainstream commodity design developments. It is imperative that proposers describe and justify how their processing architectures and/or concepts far surpass today’s evolutionary processors, in both performance and productivity. Novel, break-through processing architectures and approaches are sought that are especially relevant to DoD applications and that can dramatically drive processing capabilities forward to both dramatically enhance today’s applications and enable a whole new spectrum of DoD applications. This SBIR seeks to initiate a new generation of computer concepts and architectures that are both truly innovative in concept and approach, are currently unexplored by today’s mainstream commodity developers, and provide significant, quantifiable advances in performance and productivity for a broad user community.
PHASE I: Identify and evaluate leap-ahead processing architectures. Establish novel and revolutionary processing approaches, architectures, and technologies that will provide leap-ahead processing performance and productivity. Conduct feasibility studies on the proposed architectures, detail the architectural approaches proposed, establish the productivity and performance advantages and advancements, and propose plans to proceed to full development of the proposed revolutionary architectures.
PHASE II: Develop selected leap-ahead, revolutionary processing approaches, architectures, and technologies from Phase I. Establish the viability of these architectures, both for DoD and commercial applications. Fully develop the proposed architectures and critical design elements. Initiate the path to full-scale development and fabrication approaches for the identified architectures. Develop test structures and demonstration devices to verify critical elements of the architectures. Identify technology transition pathways to DoD applications and platforms – initiate transition and insertion opportunities based on the novel architectures’ processing performance and productivity advances.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Develop DoD transitions and insertions to utilize the processing breakthroughs. Also, pursue technology transitions and insertions into commercial processing architectures. The selected novel architectures will enable a new spectrum of DoD and commercial applications. Commercial applications include a range of functions, from real-time 3-D medical imaging to personal computers that adapt to and anticipate their users’ needs.
REFERENCES: 1) "Clock Rate Versus IPC: The End of the Road for Conventional Microarchitectures," V. Agarwal, M.S. Hrishikesh, S.W. Keckler, and D. Burger (University of Texas at Austin), 27th International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA), June, 2000, http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cart/trips/publications/isca00.pdf
2) “Stream Programming: Managing Explicit Parallelism and Locality,” Bill Dally (Stanford University), EDGE workshop briefing – EDGE Workshop University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 24 May 2006, http://gamma.cs.unc.edu/EDGE/SLIDES/dally.pdf
KEYWORDS: Unique Micro-Architectures, Novel Processing Architectures, Revolutionary Architectures, High Performance, Productivity, Fabrication.
SB072-009 TITLE: Self Aware Processing
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Sensors, Electronics, Weapons
OBJECTIVE: Apply cognitive and other appropriate approaches to monitor, assess, and control system resources for optimized productivity – performance and use of resources – for dynamic mission and system conditions.
DESCRIPTION: Current high-performance processing systems are complex and frequently composed of heterogeneous processor subsystems. These systems are typically static in nature, and predetermined prior to deployment. If mission dynamics or system performance change, these systems are limited to their originally pre-determined mode of operation, resulting in inefficient use of resources and performance penalties at best and catastrophic failure at worst. An example of a potentially inefficient use of resources and system limitations could be illustrated for multi-tasking systems. Efficient pre-set, static utilization of system resources for multiple tasks will be difficult to establish given dynamic mission requirements. Priorities would be fixed and resources explicitly set given pre-mission expectation. These priorities could easily change a mission due to dynamic situations, altered missions, or actual hardware failures. A hardware failure could lead to loss of a high priority activity and loss of a mission despite the availability of other resources capable of performing the mission. A self-aware system could balance resources, efficiencies, and mission priorities to efficiently use system resources to dynamically and effectively meet mission requirements. This SBIR addresses these limitations by pursuing the development of self-aware processing systems that monitor their own condition and state, evaluate that condition and available resources, and respond by re-allocating resources to manage and optimize system performance.
The SBIR seeks approaches and techniques that will observe and monitor system performance, i.e., detect system failures, monitor usage of system resources, and observe overall system performance and then manage and utilize system resources for maximized overall mission performance. Maximized performance of systems is anticipated to be enhanced by the application of cognitive and self-aware approaches to monitoring and managing usage of system resources. Such technologies could detect and correct system anomalies and failures, and optimize system resource configuration. Proposers are encouraged to examine and incorporate the use of cognitive approaches to address all of the areas described above with a single end-to-end solution, but may also consider novel approaches that address one or more of the individual areas described above.
PHASE I: Develop and evaluate concepts and approaches for self-aware processing systems. Proposals should include techniques for monitoring processor state, system capability, and performance; techniques for managing and configuring system resources to achieve best performance; and quantitative, systematic methodologies for measuring and evaluating the efficacy of these techniques. This SBIR topic encourages, but is not limited to, cognitive approaches. Plans to develop and implement the proposed concepts and approaches should be included in the Phase I proposal.
PHASE II: The most promising concepts and approaches from Phase I will be fully developed in Phase II. Demonstrations of key concepts and implementations on variable size systems will be developed to verify the proposed approaches. The impact on selected, critical DoD applications will be evaluated, and transitions to DoD platforms and applications will be initiated.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The implementation of self-aware techniques and capabilities would enable self-optimizing and fault/failure resistant systems for applications ranging from critical DoD missions to real-time complex medical imaging and diagnostic systems to personal computers; it would increase the reliability and reduce the maintenance for systems, ranging from large-scale production facilities to multi-application office applications. Self-aware systems will provide major advances in reliability, performance and productivity for both DoD and industry.
REFERENCES: 1) “Organic Computing,” Anant Agarwal (MIT CSAIL) and William Harrod (DARPA IPTO), Self Aware Computing Concepts Paper, 3 August 2006, http://www.cag.csail.mit.edu/raw/documents/Agarwal-Harrod-organic-2006.pdf
KEYWORDS: Self-Aware, Reliable Processing, Adaptive Processing, System Optimization, Reactive Systems, Self-Optimizing Processing; Self-Managing Systems.
SB072-010 TITLE: Multi-Core Applications
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Sensors, Electronics, Weapons
OBJECTIVE: Develop innovative, unexplored approaches for addressing and utilizing homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-core processors. Key areas of interest include, but are not limited to, novel operating systems, new language extensions, comprehensive software environments, and tools that address multi-core resources and make application development transparent to the user.
DESCRIPTION: The advancement of on-chip processing performance has moved from increases in clock speed to the use of parallel processing resources that utilize the increasing number of transistors available on current and future chips. This change requires a fundamental change in the way applications are developed and implemented. DoD application developers now face a far more complex problem: the efficient use of multiple cores on a single microprocessor. This problem has been a historic and continuing major issue for large scale, massively parallel, high performance systems. However, as chips have become increasingly complex and multi-tiled (multi-cored), the problem of developing applications for parallel processing systems now extends to single chip processing resources. The ability to efficiently address and utilize parallel processing resources will be a key to optimizing efficient use of large multi-core processors, both for high-end and embedded systems.
This SBIR seeks novel, innovative techniques and approaches to deal with the problems associated with the efficient and effective use of multi-core processors. As the leading industrial processor developers move from dual and quad core processors to 10 and 100s of processing cores on a chip, application developers will increasingly need effective techniques to utilize these resources. This topic addresses these issues by soliciting a novel suite of software aimed specifically at solving the unique problems facing users of multi-core processors. Software of interest includes, but is not limited to: automated or semi-automated application mapping tools, new operating systems, new language extensions, new debugging and other tools, and transparent application development environments that make multi-core systems accessible to an increasingly wider user community. Proposed technologies should demonstrate their ability to scale as multi-core processors increase in number of cores. Proposed techniques and approaches should address both the processing device and system level. Proposers are encouraged to address approaches that will dramatically improve current DoD missions and enable ambitious new DoD applications.
PHASE I: Identify, establish, and evaluate approaches and techniques to effectively utilize multi-core processors, both homogeneous and heterogeneous. Conduct feasibility studies of the proposed approaches, provide a detailed technical approach, provide quantitative measures of the productivity and performance advantages and advancements, establish and justify the viability of the proposed approaches, and propose plans to proceed to full development of the proposed techniques and approaches.
PHASE II: Develop the selected multi-core software techniques and approaches from the Phase I designs. Demonstrate the effectiveness of the techniques using existing multi-core processors. Initiate developments that will provide the developing capabilities to DoD and commercial user communities. Initiate transition and insertion opportunities based on the developing performance and productivity advances.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: High-performance processing is critical to DoD and commercial applications. The efficient and effective use of processing resources, both current and future – as represented by the commercial development of multi-core processing systems as the path for future processing architectures as identified by leading processing device developers – will be critical to enabling any high performance processing application.
REFERENCES: 1) Sutter, Herb. « The Free Lunch is Over : A fundemental Turn Towards Concurrency in Softwear ». Dr. Dobbs Journal, Volume 30, Number 3. March 2005.
http://www.gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj.htm
2) Halfhill, T « Multi-Cor Programming .» September 19, 2005
http://maximumpc.com/2005/09/multi-core_prog.html
3) A. Agarwal (MIT) “The Why, How and When of Multicore”, EDGE workshop briefing – EDGE Workshop University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 23 May 2006, http://gamma.cs.unc.edu/EDGE/SLIDES/agarwal.pdf
KEYWORDS: Multi-Core Processor Software, Multi-Core Processor Operating Systems, Multi-Core Processor Languages, Multi-Core Processor Tools, Multi-Core Processor Development Environments, Heterogeneous Systems, Application Implementation Efficiency, Sustained Performance, Processor Utilization.
SB072-011 TITLE: Cognitive Assistance Tools for Victims of Traumatic Brain Injury
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Human Systems
OBJECTIVE: Develop a range of “cognitive prosthetic” systems to enhance the day-to-day effectiveness, independence, control and quality-of-life of soldiers and veterans with traumatic brain injury.
DESCRIPTION: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) occurs among OIF/OEF (Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom) wounded, due in large part to blast damage caused by IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). In terms of war-related injuries, TBI is more frequent than amputation. Additionally, over one million civilians are treated for TBI in the United States every year; 5.3 million Americans are living with a TBI-related disability; and 17.9 million Americans have cognitive disabilities. Often, diagnosis may be complicated because of an interaction between TBI and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Even moderate TBI can cause personality changes, as well as serious problems with memory, attention, decision-making, self-awareness, and self-control.
Our objective is to develop systems that enhance day-to-day control and effectiveness of people with TBI, providing compensatory functions where needed. These tools may combine a portable computing system with miniature sensors (e.g. small video camera, microphones, GPS) and cognitive software techniques that can make appropriate inferences. Based on the situation, state of the user and the user history, a user will be cued with appropriate information to assist with his actions or decisions in an optimal manner. A range of rehabilitation or restorative techniques to train brain-injured people to improve their ability to interact with real-time, real-world life situations may also be developed. This topic does not address research whose principal purpose is to further our understanding of brain function, but the systems envisioned might also collect data useful to researchers.
This effort is enabled by continuing rapid progress in two technology areas. The first is the continued miniaturization of sensing and computing devices such as video cameras, audio recorders, global position systems (GPS) and inertial navigation devices, and computing platforms like personal digital assistants (PDAs). The second is the emergence of computer cognitive techniques for storing, indexing, and retrieving data from these sensors and techniques for interpreting sensor data, inferring additional information about the world, and modeling intentions and internal state.
The systems envisioned by this topic span a broad spectrum of possible capabilities and realizations. The system may emphasize to varying degrees the prosthetic augmentation of patient capability, patient rehabilitation, relieving the burden on caregivers, real-time behavioral assessment, or long term measurement of progress. It may interact solely or principally with the patient, or with family, immediate caregivers, therapists, doctors, or researchers. Its realization may involve many different possible components, including different types of hardware (e.g., worn sensors, PDAs, laptops), software (e.g., cognitive software, knowledge bases), and other system-level elements (e.g., internet and other connectivity, database resources, web-based services). Proposers should be specific about what their proposed system is intended to do (and for whom), and what resources will be utilized in its implementation.
PHASE I: Develop a detailed system concept and initial design for a cognitive prosthetic system, and create a preliminary demonstration relevant to the proposed system. In addition to hardware components, identify and characterize the cognitive sensory interpretation and modeling capabilities required to fully implement the system, and define the approach to be used to develop them. Identify thresholds of subsystem capability that translate into thresholds of system-level capability, and define performance metrics for the system.
PHASE II: Refine and expand the system concept developed under Phase I. Develop a complete demonstration system and demonstrate performance in scenarios relevant to challenges experienced by patients suffering from moderate TBI.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: This technology can be commercialized by industry for use with civilian brain injuries, as well as military/veteran needs.
REFERENCES: 1) Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center website, http://www.dvbic.org/
2) E.F. LoPresti, A. Mihailidis, N Kirsch, “Assistive technology for cognitive rehabilitation: state of the art”, Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2004, 14(1/2), pp 5-39.
3) K.D. Cicerone, C. Dahlberg, J.F. Malec et al, “Evidence-Based Cognitive Rehabilitation: Updated Review of the Literature from 1988 Through 2002”, Arch Phys Med Rehabil Vol 86, Aug 2005, pp 1681-1691.
4) W. Garmoe, A.C. Newman, M. O’Connell, “Early Self-awareness Following Traumatic Brain Injury”, J Head Trauma Rehabil, Vol 20, No 4, Jul-Aug 2005, pp 348-358.
5) M. E. Pollack, L. Brown, D. Colbry, C. E. McCarthy, C. Orosz, B. Peintner, S. Ramakrishnan, and I. Tsamardinos, “Autominder: An Intelligent Cognitive Orthotic System for People with Memory Impairment,” Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 44(3-4):273-282, 2003.
KEYWORDS: Cognitive, Brain Injury, Prosthetic, Brain Mapping
SB072-012 TITLE: Game World
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Human Systems
OBJECTIVE: Develop a framework that permits game development by non programmers and the cooperative assessment of a range of instructionally rich educational games using performance on other games as the learning metric.
DESCRIPTION: This topic seeks to address a military training problem as well as the current science and technology education crisis. Simulators used for military training have become increasingly realistic due to technological advancements. However, there is variability in the efficacy of these simulators due in large part to the degree to which they captivate and engage users. Furthermore, it isn’t clear how to distinguish those that are more effective from those that are less effective. In terms of education, waning interest in the pursuit of science and technology is weakening the U.S. in the face of growing international competition. Having the ability to generate entertaining video games that teach effectively would address both of these problems and serve a broad range of related interests as well. It is expected that the successful application of science and technology curricula to the video-gaming medium would result in tremendous gains in both learning quantity and efficacy by exploiting the significant time allocation and high content retention associated with the video-gaming medium. Furthermore, it is expected that the successful application of video-gaming to military training curricula would reduce training and improve field performance due to the rapid skill acquisition and other benefits associated with intrinsically-motivated learning (see Deci & Ryan). A system built upon gaming frameworks and novel analytic approaches could be developed to provide learning metrics that could be derived from undirected game play. Such a system could identify highly-effective instructional video games through an innovative statistical analysis of the high-volume game play data expected to accompany a high entertainment quotient. Of particular interest are approaches that encourage game submissions and permit games to compete for learning efficacy. One way to do this would be to develop or adapt a gaming framework (e.g., 3D Gamemaker, StageCast, etc.) that allows both programmers and non-programmers to develop gaming content. The games could be made available for public use and performance incentives (e.g., prizes for high scores) could be offered to promote participation. The framework would then track and analyze incremental learning across multiple players and games. In particular, multiple games would compete within the same topical domain. Using game score as an indicator of domain knowledge, games would be assessed by comparing pre and post-game performances on other games. Thus, the games themselves would provide a robust indicator of each other’s efficacy and associated retention. As new games were introduced and competed in the framework, some games would “bubble up” as high-impact instructional vehicles, while others would naturally drop out of the fold. Thus, players would be competing with other players for high scores, and games would be competing with other games for learning efficacy. Games that result in fastest learning and highest player retention would be earmarked for pedagogic use. In general, any approaches or combination of approaches that support the stated objective are welcome.
PHASE I: Investigate extensively the existing body of research in psychology and education to determine and support empirically the characteristics of a suitable gaming framework, focusing on motivation, engagement, and instructive value. Identify any existing frameworks that embody those characteristics. Define clearly the methodology and metrics that would be used to assess learning efficacy in Phase II.
PHASE II: Develop a prototype of the game development and assessment framework. Develop instructionally rich, engaging games and then assess game-specific learning efficacy by analyzing players’ performances across those games. Empirically demonstrate that the approach indeed selects for games with the highest learning value as suggested by the Phase I investigation.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The development of video game-based pedagogic tools that are as compelling as video games today could have a wide range of applications in both the federal and private sectors, including primary and secondary education, military training, corporate training, and self-improvement. In all cases, it is expected that learning time would be reduced, skill and content acquisition improved, and overall costs reduced.
REFERENCES: 1) The 3D Gamemaker, available online (2006): http://t3dgm.thegamecreators.com.
2) Bourge, C. & McGonigle, D. (2006), From Gaming to Training, Military Training Technology Online Edition, Vol. 11, Iss. 3, available online: http://www.military-training-technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=1722.
3) DARPA Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO), available online: http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/
4) Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. New York: Plenum.
5) Paul, R. (2006), Are player-driven games the future of digital gaming? ars technica, available online: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/player-driven.ars.
6) Stagecast, available online (2006): http://www.stagecast.com/creator.html
KEYWORDS: Simulation, Electronic Training, Gaming Framework, Genetic Algorithm, Education, Video Game
SB072-013 TITLE: Validating Large Scale Simulations of Socio-Political Phenomena
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems
OBJECTIVE: Research, develop, and demonstrate new technologies for validating and verifying large-scale, socio-political simulations to assure reliability, understandability, and usability as analysis, planning, and monitoring tools for national security applications.
DESCRIPTION: Technology to assess and evaluate large-scale software systems is required to validate and verify large-scale socio-political simulations. This technology must examine the semantic structure and dynamic operation of the system, assist users in seeing not only how the system makes decisions, but what decisions it has made for a particular input configuration, and correlate the simulation results with real world data.
The technology should support semi-automatic extraction of the meta model from the source code, and comparison and evaluation of the meta model with the designer’s model representation. Metrics assessing the ‘goodness of fit’ of the implementation to the model are required.
Validation is the process of determining if the simulation produces results that correlate with real world events. It is usually achieved through calibration of the system and comparing simulation results to known real world data. For large scale simulations, it is impossible to test every input parameter scenario. Moreover, stochastic influences can yield an exponentially large set of alternatives at critical decision points. Tools are required to semi-automate the process of testing a system given its meta model. Working backwards from an output configuration, these tools should determine a test suite that provides the greatest coverage in testing the decision paths through the system and determine what input parameter configurations induce the greatest sensitivity in the output configurations.
It is insufficient for a model to just predict a pattern of events or behaviors from its input; it must also explain how it derived this pattern. Validation of a simulation must be in terms of the sequence of decisions (and computations) that it made to arrive at the answer. Often, variations in predictions are dependent on second and third order effects. Output is derived from lengthy, complex chains of inferences and computations. Tools are required to assist users in visualizing these chains and the intermediate states that a system traverses to produce an output and to generate explanations (using meta models) that describe how the system achieved the resulting output configuration. Given real world event data, the tools should be able to “walk back through” the model to determine what input configurations could generate those results, characterize the differences between the simulation’s results and the real world data, and assess the sensitivity of the simulation to variations in the input data configurations.
PHASE I: The contractor shall develop novel approaches for (1) extracting a meta model from existing simulation code that is expressible in a formal representation to be used in automatically developing test suites, and (2) augmenting existing simulation code to visualize control and decision flow through the simulation. Feasibility must be clearly demonstrated during this phase.
PHASE II: The contractor will implement tools based on the concepts developed in Phase I to (1) extract meta models and generate automated test suites for large-scale socio-political simulations, and (2) augment large-scale software systems to provide the user with better insight and understanding of the control and decision flow within the system. The contractor shall demonstrate the technology using an existing large-scale simulation such as Simulex’s SEAS, Sentia’s SENTURION, or Silverman’s PMFServ, but is not restricted to these systems. The contractor must justify the choice of a particular simulation as to its applicability and utilization by the DoD.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Many of these simulations can have dual-use capability: to support analysis and planning, but also to act as real-time monitoring/forecasting capability given appropriate data feeds. In either case, continuous assessment and evaluation of the simulations is necessary as they execute using different sets of parameters. The technology developed in this effort can support the continuous assessment of a system employed as a real-time monitoring/forecasting system. This technology will also have wide applicability in assessing and evaluating software systems other than simulations.
REFERENCES: 1) DoD 5000.61, DoD Modeling and Simulation (M&S) Verification, Validation, and Accreditation (VV&A), dated May 15, 2003
2) Chaturvedi, A.R., M. Gupta, S. Raj Mehta, W.T. Yue. 2000. Agent-based Simulation Approach to Information Warfare in the SEAS Environment, Proceedings Hawaii Int’l Conference on System Sciences, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6709/20043/00926647.pdf
3) Abdollahian, M., M. Baranek, B. Efird, and J. Kugler. 2006. SENTURION: A Predictive Political Simulation Model, http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/Def_Tech/DTP%2032%20Senturion.pdf
4) Silverman, B. (181 page tech report abstracting the PMF/HBM literature and assessing its validity for reuse in simulations), http://www.seas.upenn.edu/%7Ebarryg/HBMR.html
KEYWORDS: Applied Simulation, Validation, Verification, Computational Social Science, Explanation, Visualization.
SB072-014 TITLE: Handheld Transcription Device for the Hearing Impaired
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems
OBJECTIVE: Design, validate, integrate, and demonstrate a prototype handheld device providing speaker-identified speech-to-text transcription of multiple English-language speakers in noisy environments.
DESCRIPTION: Hearing impaired individuals, even if they have some hearing and/or can read lips, may have significant difficulty following multiple English speakers in noisy environments. A handheld device that would display on a screen, the words of “Speaker1:<TRANSCRIBED TEXT>", “Speaker2:<TRANSCRIBED TEXT>”, “SpeakerN:<TRANSCRIBED TEXT>”, would be of great benefit for such individuals. In providing this capability it is very important to meet certain performance goals:
a) Latency: Speech must be transcribed and displayed with minimum delay, ideally no more than 100 milliseconds after utterance.
b) Speaker Identification: Speech must be identified with the correct speaker (previously identified or new) with as high a probability as possible, ideally with 95% accuracy.
c) Speech Transcription: Individual words must be transcribed correctly with as high a probability as possible, ideally with 95% accuracy.
Note that these goals are for common conversational English sentences in environments with low background noise levels, e.g., an office conference room meeting. Performance is expected to suffer if more specialized vocabularies are allowed and in environments with higher levels of background noise.
PHASE I: The contractor shall identify algorithmic approaches, simulate these using standard commercial simulation tools and realistic speech inputs, and generate performance predictions for an integrated system that provides (1) speaker identification in noisy environments; and (2) speaker-identified transcription of English speech to English text in noisy environments. The contractor shall further assess the computational feasibility for these algorithms, when implemented in optimized software, to execute in real time on commodity processor hardware. The algorithms identified, results of the performance predictions for these algorithms, and the associated computational feasibility assessment will be described in the study delivered at the end of Phase 1.
PHASE II: The contractor will implement the approaches shown feasible in one or more operational prototypes for assessment by hearing-impaired users and iterative refinement.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The technology developed under this SBIR can be commercialized by industry (including the medical device manufacturers and the electronics industry) for use by both military veterans and civilian individuals who are hearing impaired whether it be as a result of military operations, accident, or birth defect.
REFERENCES: 1) “Hearing loss is a growing problem for veterans”, Steve Liewer, San Diego Union-Tribune, January 9, 2006. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20060109-9999-1n9hear.html
2) “Noise and Military Service: Implications for Hearing Loss and Tinnitus”, Larry E. Humes, Lois M. Joellenbeck, and Jane S. Durch, Editors, Committee on Noise-Induced Hearing Loss and Tinnitus Associated with Military Service from World War II to the Present, National Academies Press, 2005. http://newton.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11443&page=R1
KEYWORDS: English, Speech-To-Text, Transcription, Multiple Speakers, Hearing Impaired, Handheld Device, Noise.
SB072-015 TITLE: Simulation Center in a Box
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Human Systems
OBJECTIVE: Create the capability to train a maneuver battalion, using their organic battle command systems that can fit into a suitcase portable enough to be carried on a commercial airliner.
DESCRIPTION: Today, most battle simulation centers involve dozens of computers at fixed facilities and require a great deal of contractor support to maintain and operate the center. The Army and Marine Corps are deployed to hundreds of countries around the world, in many cases in small units. These forces deployed at remote locations do not have access to simulation capabilities, either for training or mission planning or rehearsal.
The goal is to address this deficit with a "Simulation Center in a Box". Responders need to propose a complete system, consisting of compact computing platforms, appropriate display and user input/output (I/O) solutions, communications, and software that can run a validated simulation system (such as the Joint Semi-Automated Forces (JSAF) or OneSAF Objective System) to simulate a battalion and an appropriately-sized opposing force that could fit into a case small enough to carry onto a commercial airliner. Operationally, the concept is that the simulation center operator (perhaps a single person) would arrive with the “simulation center in a box,” set it up in a conference room, mess tent, or other facility, and be ready to conduct training within an hour. This does not include the time necessary to build the training scenario, which could be done in advance.
The simulation chosen must support both “conventional” warfare and the asymmetric warfare that characterizes much of the contemporary operating environment. The simulation must also interact with the battle command systems typically found at ground maneuver battalions: Maneuver Control System (MCS), All Source Analyis System (ASAS), Air Missile Defense Workstation (AMDWS), Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS), Future Battalion Command Brigade and Below/Blue Force Tracking (FBCB2/BFT), and Command and Control Personal Computer (C2PC). (Time needed to reconfigure battle command systems is also not included in the desired “one hour” setup time, but bidders must show how they would estimate the time needed to do so and how their solution would minimize that time.) Finally, the simulation chosen must minimize the number of operators ("pucksters") needed to operate the simulation once deployed.
While development of the training scenario could be done in advance, the desire is for the “simulation center in a box” to be capable of beginning training within one hour of arrival. As a result, DARPA envisions that the system will use commercial wireless networking capabilities to link the devices. The study must address the security implications.
Besides the primary training function, the “simulation center in a box” must include support for evaluating the training exercise, including training logs, transcripts, after-action reports, and other appropriate take-away material. In addition, evaluation information should be complete enough to provide feedback to improve the exercise and training scenario itself.
The proposed capability must be capable of running from Army power generators or commercial 110 V. or 220 V. AC power. It must also be capable of running for one hour without external power to be robust against vagaries of local power generation. Ideally, if the system requires periodic battery recharge, the system's carrying case should act as a cradle for the entire system, so that a single power cord from the case could be plugged into the wall to recharge all system components at the same time.
PHASE I: Conduct a feasibility study, including recommendations on hardware, software, bandwidth and security requirements. The study must describe the analysis of what simulation would be most applicable, addressing issues of contemporary operating environment representation capability, validation and verification, operator overhead, training requirements, and evaluation requirements.
PHASE II: Build the prototype "Sim Center in a Box" and conduct a battalion training event using this device.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: It is envisioned that this capability could also be used to bring simulation capabilities to smaller police and fire departments that cannot afford organic training capabilities.
REFERENCES: 1) Surdu, J.R., One Semi-Automated Force (OneSAF) Objective System (OOS): Program Overview
www.amso.army.mil/smart/conf/2006/4may06/Breakout%201-M&S%20Tools/OOS,Small_Common_v10.ppt
KEYWORDS: Training Simulation, Deployable, Portable
SB072-016 TITLE: Hierarchical Situation Visualization