ROME LABORATORY'S DRAFT FY98 SBIR TOPICS PART 9 OF 10. 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: 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 subset of the proposed services into a selected OMG/OMA environment. Construct monitoring and management mechanisms at the information system and communication network layers that interpret the current environment state and execute changes to the information system and network to accommodate given user tasks and requirements. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The developed mechanisms will provide monitoring and management for Distributed Information Infrastructure(s) and provide a common operating picture, with reduced manning and logistics for deployed military Command and Control resources. This technology also has broad application to the telephony and data communications industries who provide information system and communication network services. KEYWORDS: Distributed Systems, Information Systems, Network Management. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-140. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Melvin G. Manor, RL/IRAE (315) 330-4517. TITLE: Advanced Tools for Information Warfare. CATEGORY: Research and Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B07. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. NARRATIVE: Information combined with modern information technology has become a domain of operations for future warfare, in the same vein that land, sea, air and space are domains. This new outlook opens enormous vistas for using emerging information technology in new and creative warfare applications within the new realm. OBJECTIVE: To identify, organize and develop emerging information technologies for the denial, exploitation, corruption or destruction of an adversary's information and its functions. To protect the integrity of and to enhance the use of our own information operations. DESCRIPTION: This effort spans a number of enabling technologies for attacking, protecting, modeling, and communicating information. This effort has the potential for diverse products ranging from innovative hardware or software systems and devices for achieving a new information function to software tools for accomplishing a structured information function to a system of signs and symbols to enable a commander to absorb and react to volumes of information which are today beyond human capability. PHASE I consists of defining and structuring the proposed development in terms of its ultimate military and civilian end products. Rudimentary modeling of the capability in a form suitable for use in wargaming and DIS (Distributed Interactive Simulation) environments is planned. PHASE II would consist of the design, fabrication, coding and testing of a prototype implementation of the proposed capability in context of and operational exercise. COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: Phase III would involve the generation of the implementation and marketing plans for commercializing the technology developed under Phases I and II. This technology is a double edged sword that could be used both for attacking and protecting information. It is expected that the NII (National Information Infrastructure) will be a burgeoning marketplace for Information Protection technology at the time this development is mature. KEYWORDS: Counterinformation, Direct Information Warfare, Indirect Information Warfare, Technical Operations, Information Operations, Natural Language Understanding, Semiotics, Information Consistency Assessment. Margot Ashcroft, SBIR Program Manager, RL/XPD, 315-330-1793, Joetta A. Bernhard, Contracting Officer, RL/PKPX, 315-330-2308.

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