Air force 16. 1 Small Business Innovation Research (sbir) Proposal Submission Instructions

PHASE I: Conduct a trade study to identify techniques/tools/technology for trustworthy microelectronics that when further developed can be implemented in a multi-tenancy, inter-organizational, collaborative, trusted microelectronics SCRM cloud computing infrastructure.

PHASE II: Develop and implement techniques in a candidate cloud environment. Validate a process to ensure microelectronic trustworthiness through a secure SCRM ecosystem.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The commercial IC design community is as affected as the military with counterfeit components in the supply chain. The hardware assurance techniques and metrics developed under the topic will be captured in such a way that the commercial community will be able to easily leverage the capabilities.

REFERENCES:

1. A. Sadeghi and D. Naccache (Eds). Towards Hardware-Intrinsic Security, Foundations and Practice. (Springer, Heidelberg, 2010).

2. GAO Report on Counterfeits. February 2012.

KEYWORDS: authentication, integrated circuits, cloud services

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Sensors

OBJECTIVE: Develop aerial sensor processing algorithms to create measurable 3D reconstructions of a scene assuming persistent aerial reconnaissance under high zoom level.

DESCRIPTION: The Air Force will often perform persistent aerial reconnaissance of an area of interest for long periods of time before sending in Special Forces to take action. The aerial reconnaissance is often completed with passive full motion video with the platform flying an orbit. High-fidelity 3D models automatically reconstructed using modern computer vision algorithms would greatly benefit analyst understanding of the scene. An operator-controllable zoom level creates problems and opportunities for such automated approaches. While the highest possible zoom level is desirable for reconstructing high-resolution detail, many frames of zoomed video will lack sufficient 3D diversity to reliably estimate camera positions (i.e, planar surfaces).

Understanding the tradeoff between high zoom and model output fidelity expressed in a performance model is a critical part of this effort. Input data will be provided by the government, each higher phase award will coincide with higher classification level or distribution level other than public domain issuance. The output of this algorithm should be a 3D model file in a standard format such as “ply,” readable by popular modeling tools such as Trimble's Sketchup. Standard computer 3D modeling tools should then be able to read the model file and allow analysts to make accurate measurements on walls, doors, and windows to provide valuable intelligence.

PHASE I: The expected product of Phase I is an experimental algorithm suite for 3D reconstruction which will be documented in a final report and the algorithms implemented in a proof-of-concept software deliverable.

PHASE II: The expected product of Phase II is an implementation of the Phase I 3D Reconstruction system, extended to a full prototype capable of ingesting and analyzing extensive imagery datasets.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Military Application: Intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance. Commercial Application: emergency response, damage assessment.

REFERENCES:

1. H. Hirschmuller, “Semi-global Matching-motivation, Developments and Applications,” hgpu.org, 11/4/2011.

2. J. Blackburn, T. Ross, A. Nolan, J. Mossing, J. Sherwood, D. Pikas, and E. Zelnio, ”Derived Operating Conditions for Classifier Performance Understanding,” SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2011.

KEYWORDS: 3D reconstruction, computer model, ISR

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Electronics

OBJECTIVE: Develop novel broadband laser beam steering technologies and concepts that will reduce cost, size, weight, and power consumption (C-SWAP) while improving effectiveness of future infrared countermeasure (IRCM) systems.

DESCRIPTION: Infrared countermeasure (IRCM) systems require technologies for fast steering the laser beams in the broadband region from 2 to 5 micron, but are not limited to this region depending on emerging threats. The typical beam steering solution today is mechanical gimbals, which significantly contribute to the overall weight of the system, have limited speed and random access capabilities, and require periodic maintenance. In order to improve the effectiveness and reduce the cost, size, weight, and power consumption (C-SWAP) of the IRCM systems, new beam steering technologies are needed.

Several potential solutions may replace gimbals, such as optical micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) based micromirror arrays, optical phased arrays, plasmonic devices, polarization gratings or other innovative solutions.

For example, there are several different types of optical MEMS. The difference is in the actuation technique. Each actuation method has its advantages and limitations depending on the required switching speed, beam steering angles, etc. Therefore, the chosen beam steering approach will require additional feasibility study.The conceptual design of IRCM system based on the selected technical approach must be also well articulated.

Liquid crystal optical phased arrays may be considered, but this approach has several limitations for IRCM applications.

The potential solutions are not limited to those technologies listed above, so other types of electro-optical devices may be considered, as long as they satisfy the requirements to be used in IRCM systems. The suggested requirements are:

The primary focus of this technology is IRCM applications. The conceptual design must consider bi-directional capabilities. It means that the proposed system must be capable of transmitting optical signals and also receiving and detecting optical return signals. This would be necessary for the next generation IRCM systems, and to support various other active sensing missions. There will be no need for government materials, equipment, data, or facilities in the Phase I of this research.

PHASE I: Develop innovative beam steering concepts that may be utilized for IRCM applications and conduct feasibility study of the proposed technology. Present a conceptual design of IRCM system based on the selected technology, and define its technical specifications.

PHASE II: Based on the results of Phase I, develop and demonstrate a prototype beam steering system.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Design, build, and test a beam steering module for an IRCM system. Propose commercial products based on this technology.

REFERENCES:

1. Paul F. McManamon et.al., "A Review of Phased Array Steering for Narrow-Band Electrooptical Systems," Proc. Of IEEE 97(6), 2009.

2. Lei Wu et.al., "A Tip-Tilt-Piston Micromirror Array for Optical Phased Array Applications," J. of MEMS, 19(6), 2010.

3. Kemiao Jia et.al., "Single Wafer Solution and Optical Phased Array Application of Micro-Mirror Arrays with High Fill Factor and Large Sub-Apertures," IEEE MEMS 2010.

4. Jihwan Kim et.al., Wide-Angle, Nonmechanical Beam Steering Using Thin Liquid Crystal Polarization Gratings, Proc. Of SPIE 709302, 2008.

KEYWORDS: laser, beamsteering, MEMS, infrared, countermeasures

AF161-153

TITLE: Fusion of Kinematic and Identification (ID) Information

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Sensors

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 5.4.c.(8) of the solicitation and within the AF Component-specific instructions. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws. Please direct questions to the AF SBIR/STTR Contracting Officer, Ms. Gail Nyikon, gail.nyikon@us.af.mil.

OBJECTIVE: Develop tools to enable integration of multi-INT sources for contested and permissive environments. Emphasis on integration of kinematic, feature, and classification information to improve detection, tracking, and assessment of targets and networks.

DESCRIPTION: Military intelligence analysts have access to large quantities of multi-intelligence (multi-INT) data from which they can extract relevant information. For example, an analyst performing threat network analysis may have access to kinematic track information, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) reports, and imagery from areas of interest. While there are now effective means to process each data stream individually, there are currently no effective means to fuse large quantities of disparate data sources, resulting in a highly manual process to correlate data streams. As a specific use case, an analyst may identify a high value target in an image, and then observe that same high value target at another location in imagery a day later. Currently, there are no effective means to connect these observations to kinematic tracks to determine one or more likely trajectories that occurred between observations.

The current state-of-the-art for combining identity and track information relies on feature-aided tracking (FAT)[1]. Typical algorithms reason over the large quantity of kinematic data using technologies such as multiple-hypothesis tracking (MHT)[2] in which the identity information is incorporated in the calculation of the likelihood of different association hypotheses. This approach fails when the identity information is temporally sparse because the algorithms need to make hard data association decisions in order to avoid a combinatorial explosion in the number of hypotheses. Another recent paradigm for reasoning over very large quantities of track information is based on the minimum-cost-flow algorithm[3]. However, due to certain conditional-independence assumptions, that methodology cannot exploit non-dynamic identity information in data-association processing[4]. One promising avenue for research is to use a sampling-based algorithm to identify likely hypotheses[5]; however, this approach is relatively new, and its effectiveness for large-scale multi-sensor problems is unclear.

The Air Force is looking for new methods for fusion of disparate data, in particular in situations in which there are large quantities of kinematic data coupled with temporally sparse but highly informative target ID or fingerprinting information, such as provided by SIGINT, or analyst input. Relevant scenarios include (i) ones in which a high-value target is out of view for large periods of time, (ii) using multi-sensor data to track targets to sites of interest or to discover such sites, and (iii) using multi-sensor data to learn and to exploit "patterns of life."

PHASE I: Simulate representative data including kinematic and identity sensors. Develop & demonstrate algorithms for fusing such data in relevant scenarios. Evaluate the performance using metrics based on guidance obtained from the COMPASE Tracker Evaluation Software Suite (CTESS) which will be provided as government-furnished data (GFD). Evaluate the scalability of the algorithms to very large scenarios.

PHASE II: Extend the algorithms from Phase I to address more challenging scenarios, including scenarios in which the system modifies the flow estimates to be consistent with analyst input. Evaluate performance on relevant data sets. Demonstrate advanced applications such as threat network analysis. Deliver software (source code) and technical reports.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Refine and harden the tracking software based on application to operational needs. Commercial applications include search and rescue.

REFERENCES:

1. C.-Y. Chong, G. Castanon, N. Cooprider, S. Mori, R. Ravichandran, and R. Macior, "Efficient Multiple Hypothesis Tracking by Track Segment Graph," in Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Information Fusion, Seattle WA, USA, July 2009

2. S. Blackman and R. Popoli, Design and Analysis of Modern Tracking Systems, Artech House, 199.

3. G. Castanon and L. Finn, "Multi-Target Tracklet Stitching through Network Flows," in Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky MT, USA, March 2011.

4. C. Martell, L. Finn Smith, M. Pravia, and A. Bigelow, “Track Labeling Adds Situational Awareness to a Graph-Based Fused Track Picture,” in Proceedings of the National Symposium on Sensor and Data Fusion, Springfield VA, USA, October 2014.

5. S. Oh, S. Russell, and S. Sastry, “Markov Chain Monte Carlo Data Association for Multi-Target Tracking,” in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 481-497, March 2009.

KEYWORDS: multi-INT fusion, multi-target tracking

AF161-224 Hypersonic Weapon Airframe Simulator for Thermal Loading and Structural Vibration

Past attempts to capture these effects in HWIL simulations have only met with partial success. Current capability is represented by the KHILS facility’s Image STAbilization Test-bed (ISTAT), which has the capability to deterministically drive a test article in six degrees of freedom with a bandwidth near 500Hz. The original intent of this test-bed was to achieve controlled motion replication out to 1000Hz in order to capture the most significant vibration modes of the structure. The ISTAT did not meet the original bandwidth requirements and it has been affected by metal fatigue in critical joints connecting the actuators to the payload mounting plate.

The intent of this topic is to investigate innovative new solutions to address deficiencies in current High-Frequency Motion Simulator (HFMS) technology, providing a new capability with accurate hypersonic airframe motion replication and low susceptibility to mechanical failure. It is not intended to produce a thermal environment. In practice, an HFMS will be driven by a deterministic structural effects model that will provide 6DOF position and angular motion at the mounting location of the test article. The center of rotation of the test article must be software programmable. While the amplitude of motion replication is important throughout the 0-1000 Hz simulation range, phase of the response is primarily important below 500Hz. Payloads of less than 10 lbs and a mounting plate on the order 1 ft diameter can be used for sizing purposes. Displacements of up to +/- 0.5 inch and +/- 3 degrees are required at the low end of the response spectrum, while peak amplitudes of 10’s of microns and 10’s of microradians are expected at the high end. The HFMS will be driven by models of the effects resulting from closed-loop thermal and structural deformation in the form of 6 degree of freedom motion commands. More detailed information can be provided after contract award.
PHASE I: The HFMS concept proposed will be demonstrated using modeling and simulation to establish feasibility for guidance component testing. At the end of Phase I, a design will be documented, including electro-mechanical design, control approach, and feedback sensor requirements. High risk items will be identified.
PHASE II: During Phase 2, risks will be mitigated through experimental demonstration at the component level. A detailed design will be developed. A prototype HFMS will be demonstrated in simulation and hardware. The technology will be provided to the government and interface demonstrated with government weapon flight dynamic simulators.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The technology will be transitioned to a commercial product based on lessons learned during the Phase II program. Manufacturability issues will be addressed and production systems will be provided to Air Force and Missile Defense facilities.
REFERENCES:

1. 2001 Apr R. Peterson, J. Hobson SPIE http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.438074 High Frequency Motion Simulator.