Mind’s Eye – DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of machine-based visual intelligence. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. The Mind’s Eye program seeks to develop in machines a capability that currently exists only in animals: visual intelligence. In particular, this program pursues the capability to learn generally applicable and generative representations of action between objects in a scene, directly from visual inputs, and then reason over those learned representations. A key distinction between this research and the state of the art in machine vision is that the latter has made continual progress in recognizing a wide range of objects and their properties—what might be thought of as the nouns in the description of a scene. The focus of Mind’s Eye is to add the perceptual and cognitive underpinnings for recognizing and reasoning about the verbs in those scenes, enabling a more complete narrative of action in the visual experience. Multiple awards are anticipated. The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. Eligibility: All. Initial Closing: May 10, 2010; Final Closing: September 21, 2010.
Posted Date: March 25, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-53
—————————————————————————————
RFI – Enhancing Tactical Information Access – DARPA’s Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR) is a networked application for soldiers at the patrol level, allowing users to collect and share information to improve situational awareness and to facilitate collaboration and information analysis among junior officers. Details on local population, physical terrain, pattern of enemy and friendly activities are searchable and overlaid on high-resolution aerial maps for easy visualization and analysis. DARPA’s request for information invites the submission of white papers outlining ideas for enhancing tactical experience that leverage the existing TIGR system, infrastructure, and/or data. The enhancements will be supported, where appropriate, with modifications or creations of new API’s within TIGR, and be carefully evaluated for possible inclusion in future rollouts. DARPA is primarily interested in new capabilities that can: 1) help warfighters on the “Ops” side, 2) cost-effectively scale to multitudes of users, 3) remain robust while operating on disadvantaged networks, 4) operate without burdening low-bandwidth networks and, 5) integrate with TIGR and undergo initial evaluation within 4-6 months. Research ideas with a longer time horizon than 4-6 months (but with a potential to be of extraordinary value to ground soldiers) are also sought. Opening Date: April 7, 2010. Closing Date: April 14,2010.
Posted Date: March 24, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-SN-10-35
—————————————————————————————
Compact Mid-Ultraviolet Technology – DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of efficient middle ultraviolet (200–300 nm) emitter technology. The goal of the Compact Mid-Ultraviolet Technology program is to develop the essential heteroepitaxy, waveguides, cavities, and contacts to enable efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs) and chip-scale semiconductor lasers operating at wavelengths below 275nm. Other compact technologies resulting in mid-UV lasers will also be considered to the extent that an overall footprint and performance competitive with a semiconductor solution can be reasonably achieved. These ultraviolet devices will significantly improve the size, weight, power, and capability of chemical/biological-agent detectors, portable water purification illuminators, and numerous other UV-dependent applications with respect to existing systems. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. The government will conduct an industry day briefing in Arlington, VA on April 16, 2010 to discuss technical and contractual goals for the project. Specific information regarding the industry day will be available at the following web link: (https://www.enstg.com/Signup/default.cfm?ThisCode=COM79309). Total Funding: $30M-$35M. Eligibility: All. Industry day: April 16, 2010. Abstract Due Date: April 30, 2010. Proposal Due Date: June 15, 2010.
Posted Date: March 22, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-45
—————————————————————————————
MOIRE – Membrane Optic Imager Real-Time Exploitation Proposer’s Day – The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will host a Proposers’ Day in support of a planned Broad Agency Announcement (DARPA BAA 10-51) for a new program to develop a large, diffractive optics membrane and associated deployment and support structures, and communications equipment for use in a geosynchronous orbit-based telescope. The Proposers’ Day is will (a) Introduce the research community (industry, academia, and Government) to the program vision and objectives; (b) Explain the mechanics of a DARPA program and the milestones and metrics of this potential effort; and (c) Promote teaming arrangements among organizations having relevant expertise, facilities, and capabilities to execute an interdisciplinary research program responsive to the program goals. The objective of the MOIRE program is to provide persistent, real-time, tactical video to the war fighter. Development of diffractive membrane optics may facilitate low-cost geosynchronous imaging. A 10-meter diffractive membrane is currently envisioned for a Phase III flight demonstration. The MOIRE Proposer’s Day will be held April 8, 2010, at the Westfields Washington Dulles Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia. Registration deadline is 11am on April 5, 2010.
Posted Date: March 19, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-SN-10-39
—————————————————————————————
Tactical Expandable Maritime Platform (TEMP) Industry Day – DARPA/TTO will host an unclassified industry day conference in support of an anticipated, yet-to-be released DARPA Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the Tactical Expandable Maritime Platform (TEMP) program (DARPA-BAA-10-57) on March 30, 2010. The ACTUV Industry Day will be held at the Liberty Conference Center, 4075 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 350, Arlington, Virginia, 22203 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. and the conference will start promptly at 8:00 a.m. The purpose of this conference is to provide information on the TEMP program, address questions from potential proposers, and to provide a forum for potential proposers to present their capabilities for teaming opportunities. Any questions related to this announcement should be sent to [email protected].
Posted Date: March 16, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-SN-10-38
—————————————————————————————
DARPA Mind’s Eye Program – DARPA will conduct a briefing to Industry, on April 20, 2010, in support of the anticipated Mind’s Eye program BAA. The Mind’s Eye program seeks to develop in machines a capability that currently exists only in animals: visual intelligence. Humans in particular perform a wide range of visual tasks with ease, which no current artificial intelligence can do in a robust way. Humans have inherently strong spatial judgment and are able to learn new spatiotemporal concepts directly from the visual experience. Humans can visualize scenes and objects, as well as the actions involving those objects. Humans possess a powerful ability to manipulate those imagined scenes mentally to solve problems. A machine‐based implementation of such abilities would be broadly applicable to a wide range of applications. This program pursues the capability to learn generally applicable and generative representations of action between objects in a scene directly from visual inputs, and then reason over those learned representations. A key distinction between this research and the state of the art in machine vision is that the latter has made continual progress in recognizing a wide range of objects and their properties—what might be thought of as the nouns in the description of a scene. The focus of Mind’s Eye is to add the perceptual and cognitive underpinnings for recognizing and reasoning about the verbs in those scenes, enabling a more complete narrative of action in the visual experience. Registration deadline is April 16, 2010 via http://tinyurl.com/MindsEyeIndustryDay. The Industry Day will be held on April 20, 2010, at the Washington Marriott at Metro Center, located at 775 12th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005.
Posted Date: March 15, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-SN-10-34
—————————————————————————————
Quantum Effects in Biological Environments (QuBE) – DAPRA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of quantum effects in a biological environment. Proposed research should establish beyond any doubt that manifestly quantum effects focus in biology, and demonstrate through simulation proof-of concept experiments that devices that exploit these effects could be developed into biomimetic sensors. DARPA seeks innovative proposals in three areas of interest: a) Theory – develop a comprehensive quantitative quantum mechanical model of a biological sensor postulated to utilize “manifestly” quantum effects; b) Experimental Verification – Determine and perform the set of experiments required to provide definitive evidence that “manifestly” quantum effects are exploited by biological sensors at room temperature; or c) Sensor Development – design and fabricate a non-biological sensor that exploits the demonstrated quantum effect to enhance its performance. Eligibility: All. Abstracts Due Date: April 8, 2010. Full Proposal Due Date: May 3, 2010.
Posted Date: March 9, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-40
—————————————————————————————
Proposer’s Day for Sferics-Based Underground Geopositioning (S-BUG) – DARPA will host a Proposers’ Day Workshop in support of the S-BUG program on March 16, 2010. The purpose of this conference is to provide information on the S-BUG program, promote additional discussion on this topic, address questions from potential proposers, and provide a forum for potential proposers to present their capabilities for teaming opportunities. The objective of the S-BUG program is to develop and demonstrate a mapping and navigation system that provides Global Positioning System (GPS) equivalent accuracy in underground environments. The program will investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary and fundamental advances in the use of natural and manmade signals-of-opportunity as the basis for geopositioning. The conference will be held at Schafer Corporation, 3811 Fairfax Drive, Ste. 400, Arlington, VA 22203 from 10:00 to 5:00. Due to space limitations of the conference facility, attendance will be limited to the first 40 registrants, and no more than 2 representatives per organization. Participants must register no later than March 12, 2010 at http://www.schafertmd.com/SBUG.
Posted Date: March 8, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-SN-10-33
—————————————————————————————
Non-Volatile Logic (NV Logic) – DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of Non-Volatile Logic technologies. The goal of this program is to develop a complete library of logic elements/building blocks that perform logical functions by exploiting new computational state variables such as magnetization and which can retain their state when power is removed. The NV Logic program is expected to enable a new computational paradigm based on the technologies developed in this program. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state-of-practice. The objective of the NV Logic Program is to develop the science and engineering and thereby mitigate the risks for viable new technologies based on new computational variables such as magnetic moments, including the design and fabrication methodology, and the demonstration of circuits that utilize magnetic moments instead of charge to perform computation. Eligibility: All. Proposal Due Date: April 21, 2010.
Posted Date: March 5, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-42
—————————————————————————————
Histology for Interface Stability over Time (HIST) – DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of neural-recording interface failure analysis. The HIST program seeks to develop the technology needed to reliably extract information from the nervous system, and to do so at a scale and rate necessary to control many degree-of-freedom (DOF) machines, such as high-performance prosthetic limbs. Technologies and techniques emerging from this program will enable the construction of reliable neural-recording interfaces, which will be suitable for clinical use over the lifetime of an injured soldier (~70 years). Additionally, an objective understanding of the failure mechanisms will lead to high-throughput biological testing, due to the discovery of predictive markers linked to a high probability of failure and other accelerated-testing techniques. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. Eligibility: All. Abstract Due: April 6, 2010. Full Proposal Due Date: June 4, 2010.
Posted Date: March 3, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-32
—————————————————————————————
Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) – DARPA’s Information Processing Techniques Office is issuing this BAA, which describes IPTO’s areas of interest, to allow continuous submission of proposals that do not address individual program requirements covered by other DARPA/IPTO solicitations. Submission of abstracts is STRONGLY encouraged in advance of full proposals, in order to provide potential offerors with an indication of the relevance and acceptability of their technical ideas under this BAA. Offerors are also encouraged to monitor the IPTO solicitation web page (www.darpa.mil/ipto/solicit/solicit_open.asp) for information on program specific solicitations, which may be better aligned with their research, and for special focus areas, which may be amended to this solicitation at any time. This BAA is open for one year. Abstracts and proposals may be submitted at any time until this expires on March 1, 2011.
Posted Date:
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-08
—————————————————————————————
Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) – DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of computer system research and development. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. The UHPC program will pursue, but will not be limited to: 1) development and optimization of ExtremeScale architectures, technologies, execution models, and the critical co-design of hardware and software; 2) low-energy architectures and protocols for logic, memory, data access, and data transport; 3) dynamic systems that adapt to achieve optimal application execution goals; 4) dependable10 computer systems including resiliency and security at all system levels; 5) concurrency management and the efficient use of massively parallel resources; 6) locality-aware architectures to reduce data movement; 7) self-aware OS that manages real-time performance, dependability and system resources. The UHPC program will develop solutions for radically new computer systems that overcome energy efficiency, dependability, and programmability challenges. The UHPC vision includes: a) Efficiency; b) Programmability; c) Dependability. These goals could include performance, time to solution, energy efficiency or power consumption. Eligibility: All. Closing Date: April 15, 2010.
Posted Date: March 2, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-37
—————————————————————————————
ASW Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) Phase 1 – The Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program seeks to develop and demonstrate an independently deploying unmanned surface vessel optimized to provide continuous overt trail of threat submarines. The program is designed to achieve three primary objectives. The first program objective is to design, build, and demonstrate an X-ship based on clean sheet design approaches founded on the assumption that no person steps aboard at any point in its operating cycle, enabling beyond state-of-the-art platform performance characteristics. The second program objective is to demonstrate the technical viability of an independently deploying unmanned naval vessel under sparse remote supervisory control to enable a new class of maritime system. The third program objective is to leverage the unique platform performance and unmanned system characteristics of ACTUV, combined with a novel suite of sensors capable of robustly tracking quiet modern diesel electric submarines, to demonstrate a game changing ASW operational capability and to facilitate rapid transition of that capability to the Navy in response to critical operational demands Total Funding: $500K-$2M. Eligibility: All. Deadline for Questions: April 2, 2010. Proposal Due Date: April 30, 2010.
Posted Date: March 1, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-43
—————————————————————————————
Office-Wide Broad Agency Announcement Microsystems Technology Office – The Microsystems Technology Office’s (MTO) mission is to exploit breakthroughs in materials, devices, circuits, and mathematics to develop beyond leading edge Microsystems components with revolutionary performance and functionality to enable new platform capability for the Department of Defense. To execute this mission, MTO supports revolutionary research in electronics, photonics, MEMS, algorithms, and combined Microsystems technology to deliver new capabilities to sense, communicate, energize, actuate, and process data and information for the war fighter. MTO regularly publishes Broad Agency Announcements requesting responses to specific program topics. This announcement seeks revolutionary research ideas for topics not being addressed by ongoing MTO programs or other published BAA solicitations. This BAA is primarily, but not solely, intended for early stage research (Studies) that may lead to larger, focused, MTO programs in the future. Studies are defined as single phase efforts of short duration (< 12 months) costing less than $1,000,000. Abstracts and proposals will be submitted on a rolling basis until March 1, 2011.
Posted Date: March 2, 2010
Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-10-35