ROME LABORATORY'S DRAFT FY98 SBIR TOPICS PART 5 OF 10. ROME LABORATORY'S DRAFT FY 98 SBIR TOPICS. ROME LABORATORY IS PLEASED TO MAKE AVAILABLE THE 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 #AF98-122. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Richard Fedors, RL/OCPC (315) 330-3608. TITLE: Mutual Input/Output Photonic Sensors. CATEGORY: Applied Research. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B16. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Develop a photonic output for sensor detector elements operating in the ultraviolet/visible/infrared wavelengths. DESCRIPTION: Key limiting factors in sensor performance are noise and delay in getting a signal off the detector and into a signal processor. Current practice is to accomplish this with various electronic signal conditioning, analog-to-digital conversion, and amplification steps. Some type of storage, display, or transmission operation would follow to complete the sensing process. All of these steps can be severely affected by electronic noise; particularly in military environments where radiation, interference, and jamming are common. Incorporating photonics technology into sensor system front-ends offers the opportunity to solve many of these problems. By using light to carry information as early as possible from a detector array, the signal becomes almost impervious to electromagnetic interference. Besides the inherent noise reduction possible with this method, it provides the opportunity for efficient optical pre-processing of target data. In cooled infrared sensors it would also slash the thermal loss that comes from carrying an electrical signal from a cryogenic dewar to an ambient environment. This approach would substantially reduce the weight and power requirements for forward looking infrared sensors, and extend the operation of satellite sensors where consumable cryogenics strictly limit system lifetime. Even more significant is the ability of such sensors to directly interface with the coming light-based digital network. Combined with advances in parallel processing and optical correlation, near real time automatic target recognition will become practicable. This would help bring about a tremendous improvement in battlefield surveillance and global intelligence gathering capabilities. Commercial applications would benefit as well from this technology. The low noise and high speed characteristics of purely optical detector outputs would translate into higher system data throughput. This would be a boon to medical diagnostics, law enforcement operations, and environment monitoring. Huge markets for the mutual input/output sensors would be found in intelligent highway vehicle systems and mass communication networks. Dual-use applications are likely anywhere an optical sensor is now used, from industrial process control to mail sorting, to virtual reality entertainment products. PHASE I: Develop preliminary designs for a digital photonic output, directly from a detector array. Provide a limited demonstration to show feasibility of approach. PHASE II: Design, build, and demonstrate a photonic output system for (an Air Force designated) advanced sensor(s). Develop plans required for airborne and satellite demonstration. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: The photonic output sensor technology developed under this contract will have application in a variety of military and civilian terrestrial and aerospace sensor systems. KEYWORDS: Photonic, Sensors, Mutual Input/Output, A/D Conversion, Jamming, Light Based Digital Network. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-123. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: John J. Crowther, RL/C3CA (315) 330-2073. TITLE: Complex Modeling of Software Components. CATEGORY: Exploratory Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B19. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate a model-based synthesis technique to support complex software composition from a collection of architectural components using inter-linked knowledge models. DESCRIPTION: Recent improvements in software development techniques have led to the creation of very large scale architectures as a collection of software components and commercial off the shelf (COTS) products. For example, the current constructive simulation community creates unique simulation exercises using a collection of simulations and simulators that interface in a varying number of ways. Many of the components represented in the simulation are funded and developed by different organizations. Many COTS products are used. This complexity of relationships has led to large scale configuration problems that require costly testing and integration efforts, as well as costly deployments and use. In fact, recent experience has shown that inconsistent applications are often built and not discovered until after a commitment has been made for their use. In recent years, modeling techniques and knowledged-based software have matured enough to be able to represent the specification of software architectures as well as capture collateral information and rationale. This collection of inter-linked knowledge can be used to automatically synthesize the composition of correct applications in particular domains, such as constructive simulation. Using inter-linked knowledge models, greater automatic synthesis should be achievable over past efforts using similar techniques. Previous efforts in synthesis have produced very narrow and limited applications from very specific domains. These knowledged-based applications should be able to support broad-based applications in what has traditionally been very labor intensive areas, and should be generalizable to multiple large domains. Typical applications that might be synthesized from inter-linked knowledge models include:Support of architectural testing and integration through the use of inter-linked models to create domain specific testing and integration requirements. Support for deployment of an architecture, where the architectural components are distributed and supplied by many organizations. Through the use of collateral material and rationale, these applications can be provide "best fit" configurations, as well as identify constraints and restrictions on combining components of varying levels of architectural compliance provided by different suppliers. Examples are different version of COTS product and different implementations of interfaces, etc. Provide the ability to extract information from inter-linked knowledge models to estimate cost drivers for use and deployment of the architecture. Enable trade-off analysis between functional capability and domain user requirements or goals, and identify potential risk areas. Individually and collectively these types of applications have the potential to greatly reduce the costs involved in using architectures, while increasing the overall quality of the applications produced from the architecture. PHASE I: Design and demonstrate the feasibility of a modeling technique to represent the complex configurations of the constructive simulation community and supporting collateral information. Specifically, the modeling technique and technology should be able to represent semantically rich information knowledge models that can be inter-linked with other models and supporting information. The representation should support the synthesis of applications from the software architectures, as well as creating entirely new applications that can support the architecture in various ways. The approach should be able to be distributed among various geographically dispersed locations, as well as be embedded in applications that end-users in the constructive simulation community can use to support simulations. The approach taken should be general enough to apply to other large-scale architectures, such as C3I, etc. Document an approach for modeling this information and identification of supporting technology. PHASE II: Using the results of Phase I, implement a tool or technique that can represent the arbitrarily complex and inter-linked information about software architectures. Although the tool or technique should be general enough to apply to any software architecture and domain, the particular area of interest should be the constructive simulation community. Demonstrate the technology by building inter-linked knowledge models of the software used during constructive simulations, and synthesize several applications that use the inter-linked knowledge to support constructive simulation exercises. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: This approach and possible application have applicability to both the government and commercial marketplace. Large-scale architectures are being constructed in industry, particularly in the financial and telecommunications market, that are requiring greater need for automated configuration support. In addition, government procurements for large-scale object-oriented systems will produce architectures premised on composable components to create unique applications. These applications require sophisticated composition techniques and technology similar to the results expected inPhase II. KEY WORDS: Modeling, Simulation, Model-Based Synthesis, Inter-Linked Knowledge, Constructive Simulation, Automated Synthesis, Knowledge-Based Software, Software Architecture. SBIR TOPIC #AF98-124. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Peter A. Jedrysik, RL/C3AB (315) 330-2158. TITLE: Generic Intelligent User Interface Agent . CATEGORY: Exploratory Development. DOD CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: B08. SERVICE CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA: AF1. OBJECTIVE: Develop a generic intelligent interface agent architecture and working agent. DESCRIPTION: Computer systems are becoming increasingly complex, so complex that the average is user is often overwhelmed. The recent research push for interface intelligence attempts to solve the problem by providing complexity abstraction and intelligent assistance in a self-contained software agent that communicates with the user through the user interface. This agent can learn individual user preferences and tendencies to provide automated assistance, thereby acting as an "intelligent assistant" or a "smart instrument." A complete intelligent interface agent would be collaboratively adaptive to individual users by observing user behavior and collecting behavior metrics such as keystrokes, device utilization, task performance, and application execution. The agent would then store the behavior using a dynamic knowledge representation that recognizes relationships between behaviors and captures uncertainty into a cognitive model of the user. Finally, the agent would act on observed behavior according to user defined levels of assistance through collaborative, multimodal dialogue. Actions can include reorganization of menus and dialogues, streamlining task procedures, performing complex, repetitive tasks, and a myriad of other possible assistance opportunities. Adaptive user interfaces such as GESIA and EDWARD begin to address the usefulness of intelligent interfaces but fail to realize the full scope of possibilities, particularly the importance of developing a generic intelligent interface agent architecture. A generic architecture can serve as a roadmap to widespread adoption into all computer system user interfaces. This quickly emerging technology shows great promise and is a national priority. In fact, the subcommittee tasked by the President for planning United States technology development places emphasis on intelligent interfaces as one of a three part technology base vital for meeting National Challenges. PHASE I: Investigate the feasibility of developing a generic intelligent interface agent architecture and working agent that can operate as part of the USAF Defense Information Architecture (DII) Common Operating Environment (COE). Provide a preliminary design of such an architecture which is compliant with DII COE requirements and can perform complexity abstraction and intelligent assistance for applications residing in the COE. PHASE II: Develop the architecture and implement a DII COE compliant generic intelligent interface agent that provides complexity abstraction and intelligent assistance to COE applications. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Intelligent interface capabilities can be used in a wide range of military systems, from desktop to cockpit. These capabilities can also be used in all types of commercial application user interfaces, to include business, engineering, and medical. KEYWORDS: Intelligent User Interface, Agent, Intelligent Assistant, Human-Computer Interaction, Adaptive User Interface, Collaborative Intelligence, Cognitive Modeling. Margot Ashcroft, SBIR Program Manager, RL/XPD, 315-330-1793, Joetta A. Bernhard, Contracting Officer, RL/PKPX, 315-330-2308.

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