ROME LABORATORY'S DRAFT FY98 SBIR TOPICS PART 5 OF 6. ROME LABORATORY'S DRAFT FY 98 SBIR TOPICS. ROME LABORATORY IS PLEASED TO MAKE AVAILABLE THIE FOLLOWING DRAFT SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATIVE RESEARCH (SBIR) PROGRAM TOPICS. THESE TOPICS ARE NOT APPROVED AS YET AND ALL MAY NOT APPEAR IN THE FINAL SOLICITATION: SBIR TOPIC #AF98-131. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Michael L. Hinman, RL/IRRP (315) 330-3175. TITLE: Adaptive Data Fusion Technology. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B07. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Development of innovative adaptive all-source data fusion technology. DESCRIPTION: Data Fusion has been defined (Joint Directors of Laboratories (JDL), Technology Panel on C3 (TPC3), Data Fusion SubPanel (DFSP)) as: "Information processing that deals with the association, correlation, and combination of data and information from single and multiple sources to achieve refined position and identity estimation, complete and timely assessments of situations and threats, and their significance inthe context of mission operation. The process is characterized by continuous refinement of its estimates and assessments, and by evaluation of the need for additional sources, or modification of the process itself, to achieve improved results." Current data fusion techniques beyond Level-1 (correlation) are mainly manual and cannot keep pace with the highly mobile, dynamic forces likely to be faced in the future. Current Level-1 fusion techniques only support limited sources, not all-source information. In addition, adaptive data fusion is currently not available. This topical area will address advanced computing technologies for adaptive data fusion. PHASE I: Phase I will investigate advanced computing techniques (e.g., statistical, artificial intelligence, artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic) applicable to adaptive data fusion. Phase I will result in a detailed plan and prototype software, which demonstrates the feasibility of a potential Phase II effort. PHASE II: Phase II will design and develop the advanced computing techniques applicable to adaptive data fusion as recommended in Phase I, and then prototype a subset of the design to demonstrate adaptive data fusion functionality. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Phase III will fully implement and demonstrate the advanced computing techniques applicable to adaptive all-source data fusion, as recommended in Phase II prototype. This topical area has dual-use potential wherever data from different (or even similar) sources are required for decision making, especially when various fusion parameters need to be adjusted for optimal results. Examples of potential industries include: drug enforcement/interdiction, medical, environmental, aerospace, automotive, and manufacturing. KEYWORDS: Data Fusion, Sensor Fusion, Adaptive Processing. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-132. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Maj Steve Matechik, RL/IRDS (315) 330-3638. TITLE: Automatic Video Scene Model Generation. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B07. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Develop techniques to automatically model source video features and integrate into an immersive Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS)/High Level Architecture (HLA)-compatible simulation. DESCRIPTION: An inherent data compression opportunity relative to video data employs representing objects depicted in a video data stream using polygonal models. This effort will research and develop a prototype capability that can extract 3D objects from video and automatically generate their associated polygonal representations that can be subsequently integrated into a virtual reality (VR) simulation. The image processing that is responsible for the object extraction shall be accomplished real-time, permitting a minimal processing latency. The DIS/HLA-compatible model insertion will be spatially correlated to the represented real-world terrain. Techniques that address multiple fidelity resolution depiction shall be addressed and employed in the demonstration. PHASE I: The proof-of-concept capability shall be targeted for the SGI UNIX environment and shall be demonstrated using the New World Vistas Global Awareness Virtual Testbed (NWV GA VTB). (The NWV GA VTB node resides in RL/IRDS, Bldg 240). PHASE II: The Phase I prototype capability will be refined and extended such that it can be demonstrated on a PC-based platform utilizing a Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)-based environment. COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: Aerial Surveys/Mapping; Architectural Engineering, Medical Imaging, VR Entertainment, as well as the aforementioned disciplines utilizing the Internet to interactively disseminate their information. KEYWORDS: Video Compression, Modeling, Distributed Interactive Simulation, Feature Extraction, Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). SBIR TOPIC #AF98-133. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Dan Ventimiglia, RL/IRDS (315) 330-3222. TITLE: Cross-Platform Collaboration. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B08. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Develop a prototype demonstration allowing for multi-media and desktop video across multiple platforms and Operating Systems. DESCRIPTION: Current desktop video collaboration is available for specific platforms such as PC's and UNIX machines with the same operating system. Users trying to collaborate with each other cannot do so if using different operating systems or platforms, such as with UNIX systems, Macintoshes and IBM compatible PC's. This effort will develop the initial translation software package to allow cross platform access. PHASE I: Initial translation functions will be developed for voice, text, video and graphics to be viewed, edited and discussed across several platforms. This tool should allow a user to collaborate with another user on a different operating system passing text, video, graphics and voice information. In Phase I, the amount of translation software may be limited due to the amount of handling translations among two different platforms and necessary hardware to show the feasibility of the technology being pursued. PHASE II: The Phase I prototype will be further developed to handle a much broader base of platforms such as Windows NT, Solaris 2.5, Mac OS, and Windows 95 OS. Additional algorithms and handling techniques will be addressed. Additionally, data retrieval among several data bases will be looked into. Also, a more complete graphical user interface will be developed to allow the users to collaborate more efficiently. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: A fully functional product for collaboration of several users with textual information, graphics, voice, and desktop video on several major platforms and Operating Systems will be the end result of this SBIR. This technology has application to many areas including, publishing, analysis, information exchange, and virtual conferencing, in the medical community, financial domains, and education. KEYWORDS: Information Visualization, Data Representation, Collaboration, Groupware, Desktop Video Conferencing. SBIR TOPIC AF98-134. TECHNICAL POINTS OF CONTACT: John Feldman and Joe Giordano, RL/IWT (315) 330-7990. TITLE: Defensive Information Warfare Technology. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B07. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Develop state of the art Defensive Information Warfare technologies by providing innovative research in information systems recovery, and computer data forensics. DESCRIPTION: Information systems are used for a variety of reasons. In some cases, the reasons are to commit malicious acts. These acts result in damage to the information systems as well as intentional damage to the perpetrators own system upon arrest. The ability to recover, both from the damage caused the perpetrator and the perpetrators information systems is critical to stopping these activities. PHASE I: Define and propose the development of Defensive Information Warfare technologies and capabilities for use within existing and future information systems. Rudimentary proof of concept prototypes should be developed to demonstrate the ideas proposed.PHASE II: Design, develop and implement a prototype demonstrating the proposed concept or technology. This prototype should be consistent with the philosophy of the Air Force and focus primarily on COTS based information systems. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Technologies developed should have the widest global applicability to both AF and commercial information systems. The Air Force is quickly adopting COTS as the primary information system medium and therefore commercialization of the non-military specific portion of the Defensive Information Warfare technologies or concepts should be highly desirable. KEYWORDS: Defensive Information Warfare, Information System Recovery, Computer Data Forensics. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-135. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: James Perretta, RL/OCSA (315) 330-2632. TITLE: Adaptive Signal Processing Algorithm Development for Airborne Early Warning Radar. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B16. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Investigate and develop software solutions to the deficiencies of high Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) waveforms in terms of detection performance of low cross section/low velocity targets for pre-beamformed Airborne Early Warning (AEW) Radar data. DESCRIPTION: Returns from a high PRF Airborne Early Warning (AEW) Radar can contain a certain type of clutter return that can mask slow moving targets of interest such as helicopters and small private aircraft. This clutter phenomenon is known as J-hook clutter. Rome Laboratory has demonstrated the corruptive effects of near range clutter illuminated with a high PRF waveform from a multi-channel AEW radar. Such waveforms create a clutter ridge that forms across several range/Doppler cells producing what is referred to as the clutter hook. This hook can occupy the same range/Doppler space as a target of interest. PHASE I: Derive theory behind the J-hook clutter effect and define potential problems involving detection of low velocity/low radar cross section targets. Provide a report describing the proposed concept. PHASE II: Develop Signal processing solutions that accept pre-beamformed AEW data and detect low velocity/low radar cross section targets hidden in the J-hook clutter. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: This technology will be useful for drug enforcement, that utilize AEW type platforms, by providing the capability to detect small aircraft flying "low and slow" carrying contraband into the United States and Canada. KEYWORDS: Radar, Airborne Surveillance, Signal Processing, Electromagnetics, Surveillance, Detection. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-136. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Maj Steve Matechik, RL/IRDS (315) 330-3638. TITLE: Advanced Techniques for Video Indexing and Retrieval. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B07. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Develop techniques to efficiently index video for subsequent retrieval and exploitation by an analyst. DESCRIPTION: Video imagery collection, exploitation, and dissemination is becoming increasingly important in the intelligence community. Video data provides enhanced opportunities to detect and identify fixed and mobile targets, yet compounds the problem of automated indexing and retrieval of relevant data for intelligence analysts. This effort will develop efficient, real-time techniques for fully automated processing of video data. These techniques will allow analysts to quickly retrieve and analyze the segments of video that are relevant to the objectives of a particular mission. PHASE I: Develop techniques for automated indexing, retrieval, and efficient visualization of video clips for intelligence analysts. PHASE II: Develop a prototype application which will allow efficient access to medium to large set of video data, and can be integrated with existing information databases. COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: Techniques and tools developed under this effort have application to digital video libraries and image/video repositories. KEYWORDS: Video Indexing, Exploitation, Intelligence. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-137. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Albert Jamberdino, RL/IRAP (315) 330-2845. TITLE: Optical Memories. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B08. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. NARRATIVE: The advent of optoelectronic computing and highly parallel electronic processing necessitates storage systems with enormous capacity and bandwidth. Meeting this demand with current technologies results in storage systems that dominate processors in terms of overall cost, power consumption, volume and weight. Recognizing these and other problems inherent to high data rate, high density data storage and retrieval, Rome Laboratory is investigating erasable optical disk and multi-dimensional volumetric memory technologies. The approaches taken represent revolutionary rather than evolutionary concepts for mass storage and retrieval. OBJECTIVE: To identify and characterize candidate media, lens architectures, or beam steering concepts to provide storage capacities of at least 1 Gigabit/cm3 or at least 1 Megabit/cm. DESCRIPTION: This effort seeks to exploit the recent advances made in the field of nano-technology in order to increase bit storage density. Organic polymers, synthetic DNA, and covalent transition metal compounds all have shown the potential to increase storage densities by orders of magnitude. The challenge is to fabricate them on a nano-scale and then optically address (write/read) them at room temperature. The associated optical write/read system should also take advantage of the advances that industry has made in lasers, lens design, spatial light modulators and other components. PHASE I consists of concept definition with experimentation adequate for feasibility demonstration. PHASE II would consist of the design, fabrication and testing of a brassboard. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Phase III would involve the generation and implementation of marketing plans for commercializing the technology developed under Phase I and II. High density mass storage would impact every business from entertainment to medicine. Imagine 4000 hours of audio, or all the X-Ray films of a large metropolitan hospital, stored on a device the size of a sugar cube. The development of this technology would benefit users from the Library of Congress to the records department of insurance companies. KEYWORDS: Optical Memories, Organic Polymers, Nanotechnology, Recombinant DNA. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-138. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Bernard J. Clarke, RL/IRAP (315) 330-2106. TITLE: Electro-Optic Data Transport for Optical Memories. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B08. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1 NARRATIVE: Data storage and retrieval will continue to be a weakness in modern information technology systems. Three-dimensional, page oriented optical data storage technologies offer great promise due to their very high achievable data densities and their inherent parallelism in data recording and readout. To fully take advantage of the data parallelism, data transport systems must be designed to successfully integrate these mass storage systems with existing computer networks, while minimal data bottlenecking and latency. OBJECTIVE: To develop hardware, software and/or network protocols which will allow successful integration of various three-dimensional memories into existing single (or multiple) processor network architectures. DESCRIPTION: Emerging three-dimensional memories such as two-photon absorption and holographic memories read and record data in two-dimensional blocks (pages) of digital data. It is projected that these systems will yield aggregate data rates on the order of 1-10 Gb/s. One area of growing interest involves optimally utilizing these inherently parallel memory in traditional serial network scenarios. This should be done in a way that maximizes the net throughput rate to all users, while minimizing system complexity. The problem can be broken up into three different areas. First, hardware issues are of great interest. Traditional electronic transmission lines may not work well at these data rates. Fiber optics have shown a lot of promise in this area, as shown by the newly designed HIPPI-6400 standards. Free space optics may be a long term solution as well, not only for their very high data bandwidth, but also since they can be used for parallel processing applications. Second, software issues become critical in terms of manipulating these large pages of data. Tied closely to this are data protocol issues. This includes optimizing the parallel-to-serial conversion to minimize data bottlenecking, finding the optimal block size to perform error corrections, selecting optimal page sizes, etc. PHASE I would involve investigation of the problem using state of the are memory and network parameters as benchmarks. PHASE II would consist of expanding on the Phase I results by developing and fabricating the hardware and/or coding the software. This should result in a functional demonstration system. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Phase III would consist of taking the results of the Phase II effort and transitioning them into a fully commercial product. This technology is critical to the integration of large scale parallel access memories to existing single/multi-processor environments. In addition, it is expected that the results of any effort in this area will be applicable to the fields of optical computing and optical communications. KEYWORDS: Page-Oriented Optical Memories, Fiber Optics, Free-Space Optics, Parallel Processing, Network Protocols, Local Area Networks. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-139. TECHNICAL POINTS OF CONTACT: Robert Kaminski, RL/C3BC (315) 330-1865; Anthony Newton, RL/C3AB (315) 330-3097. TITLE: Monitoring and Management of Distributed Information Infrastructure. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B07. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this effort is to identify and develop monitoring and management techniques and mechanisms for DOD Distributed Information Infrastructure. DESCRIPTION: The advent of broadband communications deployed with fiber, wireless, fixed and mobile assets provides the capability to establish decentralized and distributed information systems that support millions of DOD, commercial, and academia users simultaneously. To effectively utilize the aggregate computational power represented by the sum of these resources, information and network management systems must provide functions and capabilities required to monitor and manage their processing, storage, and communication network resources. PHASE I: Investigate resource allocation and apportionment mechanisms to control execution of tasks in an object oriented distributed computing system as defined by the Object Management Group/Object Management Architecture (OMG/OMA) standards. Investigate, and identify multi-level Network Management Systems mechanisms that operate in a cooperative manner to provide hierarchical, peer-to-peer, summary level, and component level network management across multiple user domains. Mechanisms should consider available information system resources (processing, storage), available communication network resources (bandwidth) and user requirements (deadlines, level of effort, scope, security, etc.) PHASE II: Implement either all or a subse

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