The Collier Report of U.S. Government Contracting

Sampling of Federal Government Funding Actions/Set Asides

In order by amount of set aside monies.

• $99,745 - Tuesday the 28th of February 2012
  Department Of Air Force
  FA9550 AFRL AFOSR
  (STTR PH. 1) MODELING TOOLS FOR PLASMAS IN THE STRONGLY-COUPLED STATE

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• $99,741 - Wednesday the 17th of October 2012
  Department Of Air Force
  FA8750 AFRL RIK
  DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF MULTI-CORE SOFTWARE

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• $99,670 - Tuesday the 28th of February 2012
  Department Of Air Force
  FA9550 AFRL AFOSR
  (STTR PHASE 1) VERSATILE AND ROBUST THREE-DIMENSIONAL SOFTWARE FOR MULTI-FLUID PLASMA MODELING

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• $79,890 - Monday the 2nd of April 2012
  Department Of Navy
  NAVAIR WARFARE CTR AIRCRAFT DIV LKE
  SBIR TOPIC N121-015 AWD

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• $7,720 - Tuesday the 28th of August 2012
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
  VORPAL SOFTWARE LICENSE

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• $749,704 - Thursday the 19th of June 2014
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  IGF::OT::IGF OTHER FUNCTION - AN INTEGRAL COMPONENT OF MANY NASA MISSIONS INVOLVES REMOTE SENSING OF THE ENVIRONMENT, BOTH TERRESTRIAL AND CELESTIAL. THIS IS A CHALLENGING PROBLEM, SINCE QUANTITIES OF INTEREST TYPICALLY CAN NOT BE DIRECTLY MEASURED BUT INSTEAD MUST BE INFERRED. THESE INFERENCES ARE MADE BY SOLVING INVERSE PROBLEMS, WHERE COMPLEX FORWARD MODELS ARE INVERTED TO ESTIMATE PARAMETERS OF THE MODEL. THESE PARAMETERS CORRESPOND TO PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE ENVIRONMENT. BECAUSE OF THE COMPLEXITY OF MANY FORWARD MODELS, INVERSION IS USUALLY ACCOMPLISHED BY MINIMIZING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OBSERVATIONS AND MODEL PREDICTIONS THROUGH ADJUSTMENT OF MODEL PARAMETERS. THIS MINIMIZATION PROCESS IS COMPUTATIONALLY DEMANDING, SINCE IT REQUIRES EVALUATING THE FORWARD MODEL MANY TIMES AND MINIMIZING A FUNCTION OF MANY VARIABLES. IN THIS PROJECT, WE PROPOSE TO DEVELOP, USING LOW-COST HIGH PERFORMANCE HARDWARE ACCELERATORS, A FAST GENERAL-PURPOSE PARAMETER FITTING SOFTWARE TOOL SUITE FOR FITTING MODEL PARAMETERS TO OBSERVED DATA. THE TOOL SUITE WILL ALLOW NASA SCIENTISTS TO USE STATE OF THE ART HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING RESOURCES TO SPEED THEIR WORK. IN THE PHASE I OF THIS PROJECT WE HAVE SHOWN THAT THE THREE KEY COMPONENTS OF MODEL FITTING, NAMELY MODEL EVALUATION, GRADIENT CALCULATION AND COST FUNCTIONAL MINIMIZATION, CAN BE ACCELERATED USING GRAPHICAL PROCESSING UNIT (GPU) TECHNOLOGY. THE PHASE I WORK HAS LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR PHASE II OF THE PROJECT, WHERE THE COMPONENTS INVESTIGATED AND DEVELOPED WILL BE INTEGRATED INTO A PARAMETER FITTING TOOL SUITE. DURING PHASE II, WE WILL WORK CLOSELY WITH NASA SCIENTISTS FROM THE STRATOSPHERIC AEROSOL AND GAS EXPERIMENT (SAGE) III MISSION, THE SOLAR DYNAMICS OBSERVATORY (SDO) AND OTHER MISSIONS TO DEVELOP FURTHER CAPABILITIES OF THE TOOL SUITE.

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• $50,000 - Friday the 24th of October 2014
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  COMPUTATIONAL TOOLS THAT ACCURATELY PREDICT THE PERFORMANCE OF ELECTRIC PROPULSION DEVICES ARE HIGHLY DESIRABLE AND BENEFICIAL TO NASA AND THE BROADER ELECTRIC PROPULSION COMMUNITY. THE CURRENT STATE-OF-THE-ART IN ELECTRIC PROPULSION MODELING RELIES HEAVILY ON EMPIRICAL DATA AND ON NUMEROUS COMPUTATIONAL "KNOBS". IN PHASE I OF THIS PROJECT, WE DEVELOPED THE MOST DETAILED ION ENGINE DISCHARGE CHAMBER MODEL THAT CURRENTLY EXISTS. THIS IS A KINETIC MODEL THAT SIMULATES ALL PARTICLES IN THE DISCHARGE CHAMBER ALONG WITH A PHYSICALLY CORRECT SIMULATION OF THE ELECTRIC FIELDS. IN ADDITION, KINETIC EROSION MODELS ARE INCLUDED FOR MODELING THE ION-IMPINGEMENT EFFECTS ON THRUSTER COMPONENT EROSION. FOR PHASE II OF THIS PROJECT, THE GOAL IS TO MAKE THIS SOPHISTICATED COMPUTER PROGRAM A USER FRIENDLY PROGRAM THAT NASA AND OTHER GOVERNMENTAL AND INDUSTRIAL CUSTOMERS ARE ABLE TO UTILIZE. IN PHASE II WE WILL IMPLEMENT A NUMBER OF ADVANCED NUMERICAL ROUTINES TO BRING THE COMPUTATIONAL TIME DOWN TO A COMMERCIALLY ACCEPTABLE LEVEL. AT THE END OF PHASE II, NASA WILL HAVE A HIGHLY SOPHISTICATED, USER FRIENDLY ION ENGINE DISCHARGE CHAMBER MODELING TOOL THAT WILL SAVE TIME AND EXPENSE IN DESIGNING NEW AND DIFFERENT SIZE ION ENGINES, AS WELL AS ANALYZING EXISTING ION ENGINE PERFORMANCE.

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• $50,000 - Wednesday the 30th of April 2014
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  TRADITIONAL APPROACHES FOR ACTIVE FLOW SEPARATION CONTROL USING DIELECTRIC BARRIER DISCHARGE (DBD) PLASMA ACTUATORS ARE LIMITED TO RELATIVELY LOW-SPEED FLOWS AND ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS. IT RESULTS IN LOW FEASIBILITY OF THE DBDS FOR AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS, SUCH AS ACTIVE FLOW CONTROL AT TURBINE BLADES, FIXED WINGS, ROTARY WINGS AND HYPERSONIC VEHICLES, WHICH REQUIRE A SATISFACTORY PERFORMANCE OF THE DBD PLASMA ACTUATORS AT WIDE RANGE OF CONDITIONS, INCLUDING RARIFIED FLOWS AND COMBUSTION MIXTURES. AN OPTIMIZATION OF THE DBD PLASMA ACTUATORS SHOULD BE ACHIEVED USING EFFICIENT, COMPREHENSIVE, PHYSICALLY-BASED DBD SIMULATION TOOL FOR DIFFERENT OPERATION CONDITIONS. WE PROPOSE TO DEVELOP A DBD PLASMA ACTUATOR SIMULATION TOOL FOR A WIDE RANGE OF AMBIENT GAS PRESSURES. THE PROPOSED TOOL WILL TREAT DBD USING EITHER KINETIC, FLUID OR HYBRID MODEL, DEPENDING ON THE DBD OPERATIONAL CONDITION. THE PROPOSED TOOL WILL BE VALIDATED BY COMPARISON WITH THE EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL DATA ON THE DBD INVESTIGATIONS.

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• $374,686 - Monday the 5th of December 2011
  Department Of Air Force
  FA9550 AFRL AFOSR
  "(STTR PHASE 2) SIMULATION TOOL FOR MODELING WEAKLY IONIZED PLASMA"

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• $250,000 - Monday the 7th of July 2014
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  TECH-X PROPOSES TO DEVELOP A COMPREHENSIVE FORTRAN TESTING AND REFACTORING INFRASTRUCTURE THAT ALLOWS DEVELOPERS AND SCIENTISTS TO LEVERAGE THE BENEFITS OF COMPREHENSIVE INTEGRATED DEVELOPER ENVIRONMENT (IDE) TOOLS. AN INTRIGUING ASPECT OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE IS THE INTEGRATION OF PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT, UNIT TESTING, AND REFACTORING TOOLS WITH THE MANY OTHER FEATURES OF AN IDE, WHICH WILL ALLOW DEVELOPERS TO GET IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK ABOUT THE OVERALL APPLICATION AND REDUCE THEIR DEVELOPMENT CYCLE TIME. OUR GOAL IS TO PROMOTE MODERN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING METHODOLOGY TO A BROAD SPECTRUM OF FORTRAN USERS. THE INFRASTRUCTURE WILL FACILITATE REFACTORING NEWLY DEVELOPED AND LEGACY CODES CORRECTLY AND ACCURATELY FOR SINGLE AND MULTI-PROCESSOR APPLICATIONS. MAJOR BENEFITS TO REFACTORING INCLUDE CREATING ROBUST CODES THAT ARE MORE EASILY PORTED TO DIFFERENT HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE PLATFORMS, PROMOTING EXTENSIBILITY, FACILITATING BETTER COLLABORATION, AND ENCOURAGING BEST SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PRACTICES. FOR EXAMPLE, REFACTORING CODE TO REMOVE COMMON BLOCKS ALLOWS PORTING TO MULTI-CORE ARCHITECTURES WITH INCREASED THREAD SAFETY. BY PACKAGING PFUNIT (FORTRAN UNIT TEST TOOL) INTO THE ECLIPSE, COMBINING WITH IMPROVED VERSIONS OF PHOTRAN IDE AND THE PARALLEL TOOLS PLATFORM PLUGINS, THE PROPOSED INTEGRATION WE WILL BE ABLE TO QUICKLY CONTRIBUTE TO THE FORTRAN DEVELOPER COMMUNITY, WHOSE FEEDBACK WE HOPE TO USE TO GUIDE OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.

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