The Collier Report of U.S. Government Contracting

Sampling of Federal Government Funding Actions/Set Asides

In order by amount of set aside monies.

• $749,999 - Monday the 29th of June 2015
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  IGF::OT::IGF OTHER FUNCTION - SINCE MARS ROVERS HAVE LIMITED LIFE SPAN, NASA WANTS TO MAXIMIZE THE EXPLORATION ACTIVITIES DURING THIS PERIOD. ROCK SAMPLE ANALYSIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN TASKS OF ROVER MISSIONS. TRADITIONALLY, ROCK SELECTION IS DECIDED BY HUMAN OPERATORS. DUE TO LONG COMMUNICATION DELAY, MANUAL SELECTION PROCESS IS TIME-CONSUMING. THERE IS A STRONG NEED TO DEVELOP AN AUTOMATIC SOFTWARE SYSTEM TO AUTOMATE THE PROCESS. WE PROPOSE A NOVEL AND HIGH PERFORMANCE APPROACH TO ENHANCING ROCK SELECTION PROCESS. WE EXPLICITLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE AVAILABILITY OF LIBS INSTRUMENT IN THE NEW GENERATION OF MARS ROVER. FIRST, WE USE LIBS TO QUICKLY SAMPLE THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE ROVER. LIBS CAN COLLECT SAMPLES IN SECONDS. OUR SOFTWARE ALGORITHMS CAN QUICKLY ANALYZE THE LIBS DATA AND DETERMINE WHETHER THERE ARE ANY INTERESTING CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. IF YES, THE APXS INSTRUMENT WILL BE ACTIVATED. OTHERWISE, THE ROVER WILL MOVE TO A NEW LOCATION AND START THE PROCESS AGAIN. IN PHASE I, WE HAVE DEMONSTRATED THAT OUR SMART PROCESSING TOOLS USING ACTUAL MARS DATA AND OUR RESULTS ARE MORE CONSISTENT THAN A CURRENT METHOD. MOREOVER, OUR TOOLS CAN IMPLEMENTED IN A PARALLEL PROCESSING SYSTEM TO ACHIEVE REAL-TIME PERFORMANCE. OUR PARALLEL PROCESSING SYSTEM UTILIZES MULTI-CORE CPUS FOR DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING AND WE HAVE USED SUCH PROCESSING ARCHITECTURE FOR SPEECH AND GENOMIC PROCESSING.

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• $70,000 - Wednesday the 16th of November 2011
  Department Of Navy
  OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH
  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHYSICAL, ENGINEERING, AND LIFE SCIENCES (EXCEPT BIOTECHNOLOGY)

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• $70,000 - Friday the 2nd of December 2011
  Department Of Navy
  NAVAIR WARFARE CTR AIRCRAFT DIV LKE
  EXERCISE THE OPTION

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• $375,000 - Monday the 14th of May 2012
  Department Of Navy
  NAVAIR WARFARE CTR AIRCRAFT DIV LKE
  RESEARCH&DEVELOPMENT

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• $349,999 - Tuesday the 17th of July 2012
  Department Of Navy
  NAVAIR WARFARE CTR AIRCRAFT DIV LKE
  INCREMENTAL FUNDING

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• $250,000 - Tuesday the 7th of February 2012
  Department Of Navy
  OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH
  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHYSICAL, ENGINEERING, AND LIFE SCIENCES (EXCEPT BIOTECHNOLOGY)

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• $239,012 - Wednesday the 19th of September 2012
  Department Of Navy
  OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH
  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHYSICAL, ENGINEERING, AND LIFE SCIENCES (EXCEPT BIOTECHNOLOGY)

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• $149,999 - Thursday the 29th of March 2012
  Department Of Air Force
  FA8650 USAF AFMC AFRL/RQK
  A NOVEL APPROACH TO LISTENER PERFORMANCE MODELING FOR AIRCRAFT DETECTION IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

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• $124,999 - Tuesday the 12th of March 2013
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  DAMAGE DETECTION BASED ON ULTRASONIC WAVES IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR INSPECTION SCHEMES EMPLOYED BY MANY STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING (SHM) SYSTEMS. WE PROPOSE A NOVEL UNPOWERED WIRELESS ULTRASOUND GENERATION AND SENSING SYSTEM FOR SHM. SINCE ULTRASONIC SIGNALS GENERALLY HAVE A FREQUENCY OF A FEW TENS OF KILOHERTZ TO A FEW MEGAHERTZ, THEY CANNOT BE EASILY TRANSMITTED USING A WIRELESS MEANS BECAUSE OF HIGH SAMPLING AND HIGH BANDWIDTH REQUIREMENTS. OUR SYSTEM USES A FREQUENCY MIXER TO UP-CONVERT THE ULTRASONIC SIGNAL TO MICROWAVE FREQUENCY SO THAT IT CAN BE TRANSMITTED WIRELESSLY USING A SMALL ANTENNA AND DOWN-CONVERT THE ULTRASONIC SIGNAL BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL FREQUENCY ONCE THE WIRELESS SIGNAL IS RECEIVED. BECAUSE THE MIXING OF THE ULTRASOUND AND THE MICROWAVE SIGNAL IS PERFORMED USING A PASSIVE MICROWAVE COMPONENT, I.E. A FREQUENCY MIXER, THE WIRELESS SENSOR NODES DO NOT NEED ANY LOCAL POWER. FOR ULTRASOUND GENERATION, AN ULTRASOUND-MODULATED SIGNAL IS TRANSMITTED TO A REMOTE ULTRASOUND GENERATOR, THE GENERATOR RECOVERS THE ULTRASOUND EXCITATION SIGNAL USING DOWN CONVERSION AND SUPPLY IT TO A PIEZOELECTRIC ACTUATOR. SINCE THE SENSING AND GENERATING NODES HAVE THE SAME CONFIGURATION, EACH NODE CAN EITHER ACT AS A GENERATOR OR A SENSOR. SENSOR ARRAY CAN ALSO BE IMPLEMENTED. COMPARED TO SAW SENSOR, OUR APPROACH REQUIRES SMALLER ANTENNA AND ACHIEVES LONGER DISTANCE BETWEEN INTERROGATION UNIT AND THE SENSOR. ANOTHER KEY DIFFERENCE IS THAT SAW SENSOR REQUIRES SPECIAL PIEZOELECTRIC SUBSTRATE WHEREAS OUR APPROACH CAN USE ANY PIEZOELECTRIC SENSOR. FINALLY, THE PROPOSED APPROACH IS COMPATIBLE WITH PREVIOUS WORKS ON ULTRASOUND-BASED TECHNOLOGY. PREVIOUSLY DEVELOPED KNOWLEDGE ON DATA PROCESSING AND FEATURE EXTRACTION CAN BE EASILY ADOPTED.

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• $124,999 - Tuesday the 20th of November 2012
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  WE PROPOSE NOVEL AND HIGH PERFORMANCE CHANGE DETECTION ALGORITHMS TO PROCESS HYSPIRI DATA, WHICH HAVE BEEN USED FOR MONITORING CHANGES IN VEGETATION, CLIMATE, COASTAL AND OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS, URBAN AREAS, ETC. FIRST, WE PROPOSE A NOVEL HYBRID IN-SCENE ATMOSPHERIC CORRECTION (H-ISAC) ALGORITHM, WHICH CAN COMPENSATE FOR DISTORTION OF HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGE CHARACTERISTICS DUE TO ATMOSPHERE. CONVENTIONAL ISAC IS APPLICABLE ONLY TO IMAGERS WITH WAVELENGTHS LARGER THAN 1 MICRO-METER AND HENCE IT IS NOT APPLICABLE TO HYSPIRI IMAGER WHICH HAS A WAVELENGTH RANGE OF 0.38 TO 2.5 MICRO-METERS. OUR ALGORITHM IS SIMPLE TO IMPLEMENT AND DOES NOT REQUIRE ANY DARK PIXELS IN THE IMAGES. SECOND, AFTER IMAGES ARE ATMOSPHERICALLY COMPENSATED FOR, WE PROPOSE A NOVEL CHANGE DETECTION ALGORITHM KNOWN AS MRCD (MULTIPLE REFERENCE CHANGE DETECTION) USING MULTIPLE IMAGES COLLECTED IN THE PAST. OUR ALGORITHM CAN HANDLE MISREGISTRATION AND PARALLAX ISSUES AND HENCE THE CHANGE DETECTION RESULTS WILL BE MORE ACCURATE. THIRD, WE PROPOSE HIGH PERFORMANCE ALGORITHMS TO DETERMINE THE CONTENT OF THE CHANGES. FOR EXAMPLE, WHAT MATERIALS ARE IN THE CHANGES AND WHERE THESE MATERIALS ARE DISTRIBUTED. WE WILL ALSO DETERMINE IF THERE ARE ANY NEW AND UNSEEN MATERIALS IN THE CHANGES. TO DETERMINE KNOWN MATERIALS WITH KNOWN SIGNATURES IN THE CHANGES, WE PROPOSE A FAST MATCHED SIGNATURE IDENTIFICATION ALGORITHM CALLED ADAPTIVE SUBSPACE DETECTOR (ASD). WE COMPARED ASD WITH SEVERAL OTHER TOOLS AND FOUND THAT ASD OUTPERFORMED OTHER METHODS. TO DETERMINE ANY ANOMALIES, WE PROPOSE A HIGH PERFORMANCE ANOMALY DETECTION TOOL CALLED CLUSTERED KERNEL REED-XIAOLI (CKRX) ALGORITHM. THIS TOOL WAS RECENTLY DEVELOPED BY US, IS FAST, AND CAN ACHIEVE VERY HIGH ANOMALY DETECTION RATE IN HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGES FROM THE AIR FORCE. FOURTH, THE ABOVE TOOLS CAN BE IMPLEMENTED IN A PARALLEL PROCESSING ARCHITECTURE, IN WHICH THE COMPUTATIONS ARE DISTRIBUTED TO MULTIPLE PROCESSING CORES.

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