The Collier Report of U.S. Government Contracting

Sampling of Federal Government Funding Actions/Set Asides

In order by amount of set aside monies.

• $750,000 - Monday the 13th of July 2015
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  IGF::OT::IGF OTHER FUNCTION - NASA IS DEVELOPING ALGORITHMS AND METHODOLOGIES FOR EFFICIENT AIR-TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT. SEVERAL RESEARCHERS HAVE ADOPTED AN OPTIMIZATION FRAMEWORK FOR SOLVING PROBLEMS SUCH AS FLIGHT SCHEDULING, ROUTE ASSIGNMENT, FLIGHT REROUTING, NATIONWIDE TRAFFIC FLOW MANAGEMENT (TFM) AND DYNAMIC AIRSPACE CONFIGURATION. COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY OF THESE PROBLEMS HAVE LED INVESTIGATORS TO CONCLUDE THAT IN MANY INSTANCES, REAL TIME SOLUTIONS ARE COMPUTATIONALLY INFEASIBLE, FORCING THE USE OF RELAXED VERSIONS OF THE PROBLEM TO MANAGE COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY. THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH IS TO ACCELERATE OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHMS THAT PLAY CENTRAL ROLES IN NASA'S ATM RESEARCH, BY PARALLEL IMPLEMENTATION ON EMERGING HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING (HPC) HARDWARE. THE PHASE I R&D EFFORT IMPLEMENTED A SIMPLEX-BASED DANTZIG-WOLFE (DW) DECOMPOSITION SOLVER THAT EXPLOITS BOTH COARSE-GRAIN AND FINE-GRAIN PARALLELISM IN THE SUB-PROBLEM AND MASTER ITERATIONS OF THE DW DECOMPOSITION. THE IMPLEMENTATION ALSO EXPLOITS THE SPARSITY IN THE PROBLEMS, TO MANAGE BOTH MEMORY REQUIREMENTS AND RUN-TIMES FOR LARGE-SCALE OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS. THIS PARALLEL IMPLEMENTATION WAS USED TO SOLVE A TRAFFIC FLOW MANAGEMENT (TFM) PROBLEM WITH 17,000 AIRCRAFT (LINEAR PROGRAM WITH 7 MILLION CONSTRAINTS), IN 15 SECONDS. THE IMPLEMENTATION IS 30? FASTER THAN THE EXACT SAME CODE RUNNING ON THE CPU. IT IS ALSO 16? FASTER THAN THE NASA'S CURRENT SOLUTION THAT IMPLEMENTS PARALLEL DW DECOMPOSITION USING THE GNU LINEAR PROGRAMMING KIT (GLPK) ON AN 8-CORE COMPUTER WITH HYPER-THREADING. BASED ON THE PROMISING PHASE I RESULTS, THE PHASE II R&D EFFORT WILL EXPLORE MIXED INTEGER LINEAR PROGRAMMING (MILP) METHODS TO SOLVE OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS ARISING IN THE TERMINAL AREA AND ON THE AIRPORT SURFACE, IN ADDITION TO DW DECOMPOSITION FOR THE NATIONWIDE TFM PROBLEM. PHASE II WORK WILL DEVELOP OPERATIONAL PROTOTYPES OF THE ALGORITHM IMPLEMENTATIONS ON HPC HARDWARE, AND DELIVER THEM TO NASA FOR FURTHER EVALUATION.

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• $75,000 - Monday the 6th of January 2014
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  NASA HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN EXTENSIVE RESEARCH EFFORTS TO DEVELOP ADVANCED CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES, FOR THE NEXT GENERATION AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM (NEXTGEN) UNDER DIFFERENT RESEARCH FOCUS AREAS (RFAS). THE AIRSPACE SUPER DENSITY OPERATIONS (ASDO) RFA SEEKS TO DEVELOP EFFICIENT TERMINAL AREA OPERATIONS. IT IS EXPECTED THAT MULTIPLE ASDO CONCEPTS WILL BE INTERACTING WITH ONE ANOTHER IN A COMPLEX NON-DETERMINISTIC MANNER. THEREFORE, THE OVERALL TERMINAL SYSTEM PERFORMANCE MAY NOT BE A STRAIGHTFORWARD COMBINATION OF INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE INDICES. IT IS ALSO CRUCIAL THAT THE OVERALL SYSTEM PERFORMANCE BE ROBUST TO WIND AND OPERATIONAL UNCERTAINTIES. THE PROPOSED RESEARCH EFFORT SEEKS TO DEVELOP A FAST-TIME, STOCHASTIC ANALYSIS TOOL BASED ON QUEUING THEORY THAT CAN BE USED TO EVALUATE THE INTERACTION AND COMBINED PERFORMANCE OF MULTIPLE ASDO CONCEPTS. THE UTILITY OF THE APPROACH WAS DEMONSTRATED UNDER PHASE I RESEARCH. PHASE II RESEARCH SEEKS TO ACHIEVE THE FOLLOWING: (I) MAKE ENHANCEMENTS TO THE MODELING AND SIMULATION ASPECTS OF THE APPROACH, (II) ACCELERATE THE STOCHASTIC SIMULATION EXECUTION TIME USING HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING SOLUTIONS, (III) CREATE SOFTWARE PLUG-INS FOR EXISTING NASA RESEARCH TOOLS, (IV) CONDUCT STUDIES OF NEXTGEN TERMINAL AREA CONCEPTS USING THE QUEUING SIMULATION, AND (V) DEVELOP A CONFLICT FREE SCHEDULING ALGORITHM BASED ON THE QUEUING SIMULATION.

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• $514,899 - Friday the 10th of July 2015
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  AMES RESEARCH CENTER
  STOCHASTIC MODELS OF ARRIVAL TIME ACCURACY AND TRANSIT TIME RANGE FOR NEXTGEN OPERATIONS IN SUPER-DENSE AIRSPACE. SUPPORTS NASA RESEARCH IN THE AERONAUTICS RESEARCH MISSION DIRECTORATE AND THE CONCEPTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT OF THE AIRSPACE SYSTEMS PROGRAM SPECIFICALLY, ITS SUPER DENSITY OPERATIONS RESEARCH AREA BY INVESTIGATING THE TIME-BASED SCHEDULING PERFORMANCE OF NEXTGEN CAPABILITIES. PROJECT OBJECTIVES FOR THIS RESEARCH ARE TWO-FOLD: DEVELOP A RANGE OF STOCHASTIC MODELS OF ARRIVAL TIME ACCURACY AND FEASIBLE TRANSIT TIME RANGE FOR MIXED-EQUIPAGE NEXTGEN OPERATIONS IN THE TERMINAL AREA. INVESTIGATE THE EFFECT OF THE FIDELITY OF THESE UNCERTAINTY MODELS ON TIME-BASED SCHEDULING PERFORMANCE. THE PURPOSE OF THIS RESEARCH ACTIVITY IS TO DEVELOP AND ASSESS SDO CONCEPTS AND ALGORITHMS INVOLVING: NEXTGEN GROUND-BASED AND AIRBORNE CAPABILITIES THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-FIDELITY FMS MODELS OF NEXTGEN CAPABILITIES PRINCIPAL FACTORS RELATING TO ARRIVAL TIME AND ALONG-TRACK UNCERTAINTY THE EFFECTS OF NEXTGEN CAPABILITIES ON TIME-BASED SCHEDULING

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• $50,000 - Thursday the 13th of February 2014
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  THE FEASIBILITY OF DEVELOPING A STATISTICAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR TRAFFIC FLOW MANAGEMENT IN THE TERMINAL AREA AND RUNWAY LOAD BALANCING WAS DEMONSTRATED IN THE PHASE I RESEARCH. THE METHODOLOGY EMPLOYED AN ADVANCED ESTIMATION ALGORITHM BASED ON A QUEUING NETWORK MODEL OF THE RUNWAY AND THE TERMINAL AREA, AND STATISTICAL DECISION THEORY TO FORMULATE TRAFFIC FLOW DECISIONS. RADAR DATA FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO TERMINAL AREA WAS USED IN THE FEASIBILITY DEMONSTRATION. COMPONENT TECHNOLOGIES DEVELOPED IN PHASE I WORK CAN BE USED FOR SYNTHESIZING REAL-TIME STATISTICAL DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS FOR RUNWAY CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT AND ARRIVAL/DEPARTURE SCHEDULING. PHASE II WORK WILL USE THE PHASE I ALGORITHMS FOR DEVELOPING DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS FOR NASA'S SYSTEM-ORIENTED RUNWAY MANAGEMENT PROGRAM ELEMENTS. QUEUING NETWORKS OF RUNWAYS, TAXIWAYS, GATES, AND TERMINAL AIRSPACE WILL FORM THE FOUNDATION OF THE DECISION SUPPORT TOOL. PREDICTED DEMAND, HISTORIC TRAFFIC DATA AND REAL-TIME MEASUREMENTS WILL BE COMBINED IN AN ESTIMATOR TO GENERATE THE STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE QUEUING NETWORK PARAMETERS. THESE WILL THEN BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH METHODS FROM STATISTICAL DECISION THEORY TO GENERATE ACTIONABLE DECISIONS. PHASE II RESEARCH WILL DEVELOP A SOFTWARE PACKAGE IMPLEMENTING THESE ALGORITHMS, WHICH CAN BE EVALUATED IN HUMAN-IN-THE-LOOP AND OPERATIONAL SETTINGS DURING THE PHASE III WORK.

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• $401,866 - Thursday the 27th of September 2012
  Department Of Army
  W6QK ACC-APG ADELPHI
  SBIR PHASE II, TOPIC #A07-057

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• $302,965 - Friday the 10th of July 2015
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS PLAY A CRUCIAL ROLE IN NASA S RESEARCH IN WEATHER FORECASTING, GLOBAL CLIMATE MODELS AND PREDICTIVE MODELS OF COMPLEX INTERCONNECTED SOLID-EARTH PROCESSES. THE INCREASED RESOLUTION AND COMPLEXITY OF THE SIMULATION MODELS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED ASSIMILATION SYSTEMS IS DRIVING THE REQUIREMENTS FOR NASA S HIGH-END COMPUTING (HEC) RESOURCES. HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING (HPC) CAN NO LONGER RELY ON THE UPWARD-SPIRALING PROCESSOR CLOCK SPEEDS, AND EXPLOITING PARALLELISM ACROSS INCREASING NUMBER OF PROCESSOR CORES IS THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO EXTRACT ADDITIONAL COMPUTATIONAL PERFORMANCE. THE CENTRAL OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EFFORT IS TO MAKE THE COMPUTATIONAL MODELS AND THE ASSOCIATED ANALYSIS ALGORITHMS MORE EFFICIENT IN A DISTRIBUTED PARALLEL COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT, AND TO DEMONSTRATE THEIR OPERATION ON EMERGING GENERAL-PURPOSE GRAPHICS PROCESSING UNITS (GPGPU). UNDER THE RESEARCH DISCIPLINE OF SOLID EARTH AND NATURAL HAZARDS, NASA HAS SUPPORTED THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUAL CALIFORNIA (VC), WHICH IS A TOPOLOGICALLY REALISTIC NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF EARTHQUAKES OCCURRING ON THE FAULT SYSTEMS OF CALIFORNIA. ONE OF THE DEMANDS PLACED UPON SIMULATIONS IS THE ACCURATE REPRODUCTION OF THE OBSERVED EARTHQUAKE STATISTICS (GUTENBERG-RICHTER AND OMORI STATISTICS) OVER 3-4 DECADES. THIS REQUIRES THE USE OF A FINER-RESOLUTION FAULT MODEL WHICH GREATLY INCREASES THE COMPUTATIONAL REQUIREMENTS. CONVENTIONAL, LOW-COST COMPUTER ARCHITECTURES CANNOT MEET THESE REQUIREMENTS. HOWEVER, RECENT REVOLUTIONARY ADVANCES IN GENERAL PURPOSE GRAPHIC PROCESSING UNITS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO ADDRESS PROBLEMS SUCH AS THESE AT MODERATE COST INCREMENT. UNDER MULTIPLE RESEARCH INITIATIVES WITH NASA, OSI HAS DEMONSTRATED THE APPLICATION OF THESE MACHINES FOR TACKLING COMPLEX COMPUTATIONAL TASKS. USING THIS BACKGROUND EXPERIENCE, OPTIMAL SYNTHESIS INC. IN COLLABORATION WITH UC DAVIS, PROPOSES TO LEVERAGE THE EMERGING COMPUTATIONAL POWER OF GPUS FOR ACCELERATING EARTHQUAKE SIMULATION USING VIRTUAL CALIFORNIA. THE PROPOSED R&D EFFORT WILL ANALYZE THE FUNCTIONAL DECOMPOSITION OF VC CODE AND IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPLOIT PARALLELISM ON THE GPU ARCHITECTURE, IN ORDER TO INCREASE THE RUN-TIME PERFORMANCE. SINGLE-GPU, MULTI-GPU AND GPU-CLUSTER IMPLEMENTATIONS OF VIRTUAL CALIFORNIA WILL BE DEVELOPED TO SPEED UP RUN-TIMES AND TO ENABLE USE OF HIGHER RESOLUTION FAULT MODELS. FINALLY THE BENEFITS IN EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION MADE POSSIBLE DUE TO GPU IMPLEMENTATION OF VC WILL BE DEMONSTRATED BY PERFORMING VC SIMULATIONS WITH A HIGH-RESOLUTION FAULT MODEL OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

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• $125,000 - Thursday the 4th of October 2012
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  NASA HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN DEVELOPING ADVANCED AUTOMATION SYSTEMS FOR IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY OF AIR-TRAFFIC OPERATIONS, REDUCING CONTROLLER WORKLOAD AND ENHANCING THE SAFETY IN THE NATIONAL AIRSPACE SYSTEM. THE RECENT ACCIDENT AT JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN NEW YORK INVOLVING AN A380 AND CRJ700 HIGHLIGHTS AN IMPORTANT SAFETY CONCERN ON AIRPORT SURFACE WHERE AIRCRAFT OPERATE VERY CLOSELY. EVEN OVER THE AIRPORT SURFACE THE RAMP AREA IS AN AREA OF SIGNIFICANT SAFETY CONCERN. THE FLIGHT SAFETY FOUNDATION ESTIMATES THAT 27,000 ACCIDENTS OCCUR ON AIRPORT RAMPS WORLDWIDE EACH YEAR, AND 243,000 PEOPLE ARE INJURED. THE OBJECTIVE OF THE CURRENT RESEARCH IS TO DEVELOP SAFETY ENHANCEMENT TECHNOLOGIES SPECIFICALLY FOR THE RAMP AREA LEVERAGING STATE OF THE ART SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES, IMAGE PROCESSING ALGORITHMS, NONLINEAR STATE ESTIMATION ALGORITHMS, AND COMPUTATIONALLY EFFICIENT COLLISION DETECTION ALGORITHMS. OPTIMAL SYNTHESIS INC (OSI) HAS AN EXTENSIVE RECORD IN MODELING AND DESIGNING NEXT GENERATIONAL AIRPORT SURFACE OPERATIONS. OSI'S IS ALSO PARTNERING WITH PROF. JASON RIFE FROM TUFTS UNIVERSITY TO SEEK HIS EXPERTISE IN MODELING SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS. PHASE I RESEARCH WILL DEMONSTRATE COLLISION DETECTION USING SAMPLE IMAGE PROCESSING ALGORITHMS AND INTER-AIRCRAFT SEPARATION COMPUTATION ALGORITHMS. PHASE II RESEARCH WILL DEVELOP MORE SOPHISTICATED TOOLS TO SPECIALIZE THE TECHNOLOGIES FOR SPECIFIC AIRPORT GEOMETRIES.

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• $125,000 - Friday the 28th of September 2012
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  AS CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES BEING DEVELOPED FOR THE NEXT-GENERATION AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM (NEXTGEN) MATURE, THE NATURAL PROGRESSION IS TO STUDY THEIR INTEGRATION AND EVALUATION IN THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT. BEFORE THEY CAN BE INTEGRATED INTO THE NATIONAL AIRSPACE SYSTEM (NAS) FOR EVALUATION IN THE FIELD, THEY TYPICALLY HAVE TO UNDERGO EXTENSIVE HUMAN-IN-THE-LOOP (HITL) TESTING IN A CONTROLLED LABORATORY ENVIRONMENT TO IDENTIFY AND WORK OUT THE ISSUES. DEPENDING ON THE PARTICULAR CONCEPT/TECHNOLOGY, THE HITL EXPERIMENTS MAY INVOLVE SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS (SMES) INCLUDING AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS (ATC) AND PILOTS. THE LABORATORY ENVIRONMENT WOULD INCLUDE REALISTIC OPERATIONAL EQUIPMENT SUCH AS APPROPRIATE ATC STATIONS AND FLIGHT-DECK EQUIPMENT. ONE IMPORTANT SYSTEM IN THIS ENVIRONMENT IS A REALISTIC COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR SIMULATING RADIO COMMUNICATIONS AMONG THE CONTROLLERS AND PILOTS. IN CURRENT-DAY OPERATIONS, CONTROLLERS AND PILOTS COMMUNICATE BY VOICE OVER VHF RADIO. IN THE LABORATORY ENVIRONMENT, THIS COMMUNICATIONS CAPABILITY IS TYPICALLY PROVIDED BY A DEDICATED COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, WHICH REPRESENTS A COST LIABILITY IN ADDITION TO THE CONTROLLER STATIONS AND FLIGHT-DECK EQUIPMENT. IN ADDITION TO THE ACQUISITION COST, THERE IS LIFE-CYCLE COST ASSOCIATED WITH MAINTENANCE OF THE HARDWARE AS WELL AS SPACE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE SPECIAL HARDWARE. THE PROPOSED RESEARCH CONSIDERS THE DEVELOPMENT OF TWO TECHNOLOGIES TO EASE THE COST OF PROVIDING THE NECESSARY COMMUNICATIONS CAPABILITY AS WELL AS THE COST AND INCONVENIENCE IN HIRING SECONDARY SMES TO SUPPORT THE EXPERIMENTS: (I) A SOFTWARE-BASED NETWORKED COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM BASED ON VOICE-OVER-IP (VOIP) TECHNOLOGY THAT OBVIATES THE NEED OF SPECIAL HARDWARE, AND (II) AN AUTOMATED SPEECH AGENT THAT CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF THE SECONDARY SMES IN COMMUNICATING WITH THE PRIMARY SMES AND INTERACTING WITH THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT.

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• $124,999 - Thursday the 4th of October 2012
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  VOLCANIC ASH AND OTHER ATMOSPHERIC HAZARDS IMPACT AIR TRANSPORTATION BY INTRODUCING UNCERTAINTY IN THE NATIONAL AIRSPACE SYSTEM (NAS) CAPACITY. DETERMINISTIC TRAFFIC FLOW MANAGEMENT (TFM) ALGORITHMS ARE OFTEN UNABLE TO PERFORM EFFICIENTLY IN THESE CONDITIONS, MOTIVATING THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROBABILISTIC TFM ALGORITHMS. IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THAT THESE ALGORITHMS RESULT IN A STOCHASTIC LINEAR PROGRAM (SLP), WHOSE STRUCTURE IS RELATIVELY SIMPLE DUE TO ELEGANT THEORY, BUT WHICH CAN BE HARD TO SOLVE IN REALISTIC TIME FRAMES DUE TO COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY. THIS PROPOSAL HAS THREE OBJECTIVES. THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE IS TO TRANSLATE THE VOLCANIC ASH PHENOMENON INTO AIRSPACE CAPACITY UNCERTAINTY DISTRIBUTIONS. THE SECOND OBJECTIVE IS TO DESIGN PROBABILISTIC TFM ALGORITHMS USING AN SLP SOLVER ON A GRAPHICS PROCESSING UNIT (GPU) TO TAME THE COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY OF THE PROBLEM. THE THIRD OBJECTIVE ADDRESSES THE FACT THAT CURRENT PROBABILISTIC TFM FORMULATIONS LEAVE THE VARIANCE IN THE SYSTEM UNCHANGED. CONSEQUENTLY, THE SYSTEM MAY EXHIBIT UNINTENDED VARIANCE, CAUSING DELAYS AND CONGESTION IN THE NAS. VARIANCE IN DELAYS AND THE MEAN DELAY CANNOT BE MINIMIZED TOGETHER BECAUSE THE EXACT TRADEOFF IS NOT KNOWN A PRIORI. CONCEPTS FROM MODERN PORTFOLIO THEORY (MPT) ARE INTRODUCED, THAT CAN FORMULATE AND SOLVE A MULTI-OBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM IN THE MEAN AS WELL AS VARIANCE OF THE SYSTEM DELAY. USING MPT AND SLP, RISK-HEDGED STRATEGIES FOR AIRCRAFT SCHEDULING ARE OBTAINED TO MITIGATE THE EFFECTS OF ATMOSPHERIC HAZARDS. IN PHASE I, VOLCANIC ASH MODELS WILL BE RESEARCHED, AND A FRAMEWORK FOR OBTAINING CAPACITY UNCERTAINTY DISTRIBUTIONS DUE TO VOLCANIC ACTIVITY WILL BE DEVELOPED. THE SLP SOLVER WILL BE IMPLEMENTED ON THE GPU. FINALLY, A PORTFOLIO-THEORETIC APPROACH TO RISK-HEDGED TRAJECTORIES WILL BE RESEARCHED. PHASE II WORK WILL EXTEND RESULTS TO A LARGE SCALE NAS SIMULATION, WITH MORE ADVANCED VOLCANIC ASH AND ATMOSPHERIC DISRUPTION MODELS.

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