The two-year-old U.S. Space Force is growing its research and development community through partnership agreements with select U.S. institutions. Following the latest memorandum of understanding executed on Veterans Day with the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, the Space Force’s cadre of academia partners now stands at 11 universities.
The Space Force’s University Partnership Program includes:
Georgia Tech Research Corp., Atlanta, Georgia, is awarded an $11,510,337 36-month modification to exercise Option One to a previously awarded cost contract to develop a new breed of high performance computer (HPC), dubbed “Real-time HPC,” which balances computational throughput with extreme low latency to create a largescale virtual radiofrequency test range. This modification increases the value of the basic contract by $11,510,337; the new total value is $13,913,213. Work will be performed at contractor facilities in Atlanta, Georgia (50%); New York, New York (30%); and Aurora, Colorado (20%). The period of performance for option is from August 1, 2021, through July 31, 2024.
Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, Georgia, has been awarded $83,600,000 for technical risk reduction work efforts associated with the Defense Avionics System Sustainment Update (DSU) program. The location of performance will be a combination of the contractor’s facility and government facilities, and is expected to be completed by Aug. 16, 2024. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance appropriations funds in the amount of $38,955,222 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity (FA8523-21-C-0001).
In the future, anyone trying to figure out how to use limited resources may reap the benefits of computers that are a hybrid of quantum and classical systems.
Such hybrid computers might prove especially efficient and effective at solving certain kinds of problems, such as strategic asset deployment, global supply chains, battlefield logistics, package delivery, the best path for electronics on a computer chip and network node placement. Research also could impact machine learning and coding theory.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) awarded a $704,000 research-and-development (R&D) contract to Atlanta-based Georgia Tech Applied Research Center (GTARC) to support trustmark framework efforts to aid the public safety community’s information sharing and safeguarding capabilities, DHS reported. The GTARC R&D project will specifically address the lack of mature software tools to support the trustmark framework’s primary use-cases, such as emergency communications interoperability.
Monitoring global lightning strikes could help detect cyber attacks on the U.S. electrical grid, according to Georgia Institute of Technology researchers who have a patent pending to do just that.
Lightning strikes roughly 3.5 million times per day on average. Each and every strike creates an electrical path miles tall that emits a very low frequency radio signal. Those signals bounce off the upper atmosphere and can be detected virtually anywhere in the world, explains Morris Cohen, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a new type of tiny 3D-printed robot that moves by harnessing the vibration from piezoelectric actuators, ultrasound sources or even tiny speakers.
The size of the world’s smallest ant, these “micro-bristle-bots” could sense changes in the environment and swarm together to move materials—or perhaps one day repair injuries inside the human body.
In the coming months, researchers from Georgia Tech will reveal the results of testing on a robot called the HoneyBot, designed to help detect, monitor, misdirect or even identify illegal network intruders. The device is built to attract cyber criminals targeting factories or other critical infrastructure facilities, and the underlying technology can be adapted to other types of systems, including the electric grid.
The HoneyBot represents a convergence of robotics with the cyber realm. The diminutive robot on four wheels essentially acts as a honeypot, or a decoy to lure criminal hackers and keep them busy long enough for cybersecurity experts to learn more about them, which ultimately could unmask the hackers.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a one-step approach to fabricating complex origami structures whose lightweight, expandability and strength could offer a wide range of benefits, including biomedical devices and equipment used in space exploration. Until now, making such structures has involved multiple steps, more than one material and assembly from smaller parts.
Georgia Tech Applied Research Corp., Atlanta, Georgia, has been awarded a not-to-exceed $17,295,000 undefinitized contract action for reactivation of the band 8 transmitter associated with the AN/ALQ-161A defensive avionics system supporting the B-1B aircraft. This contract provides for band 8 reactivation prototypes and testing. Work will be performed in Atlanta, Georgia, and is expected to be complete by June 30, 2019. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Fiscal year 2018 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $8,645,771 are being obligated at the time of award. The Electronic Warfare Contracting Branch, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity.
Research funded through a $9.4 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) could develop a new technique for wirelessly monitoring Internet of Things (IoT) devices for malicious software without affecting the operation of the ubiquitous but low-power equipment, according to a Georgia Tech announcement.
Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, Georgia, is being awarded a $134,000,000 ceiling cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. Under this contract, the contractor will perform research; development; engineering; state of-the-art and proof-of-concept sensor systems; and basic and advanced technology research and development. No task orders are being issued at this time. The work will be performed in Atlanta, Georgia. The ordering period is from March 30, 2016 through March 29, 2021. One offer was solicited and one offer was received. Research, development, test and evaluation funds will be used, with no funds being obligated at the time of award.
Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), Atlanta, is being awarded an $84,538,427 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence and cyberspace technology research in GTRI’s capacity as a Department of Defense university affiliated research center. Work will be performed in San Diego (90 percent) and Atlanta (10 percent), and is expected to be completed by February 28, 2021. No funds are being obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated as individual delivery orders are issued. This contract was a sole-source acquisition not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S.
People may trust robots too much for their own safety, a new study suggests. In a mock building fire, test subjects followed instructions from an “Emergency Guide Robot” even after the machine had proven itself unreliable and after some participants were told the robot had broken down.
The research was designed to determine whether or not building occupants would trust a robot designed to help them evacuate a high-rise in case of fire or other emergency. But the researchers were surprised to find the test subjects followed the robot's instructions even when the machine’s behavior should not have inspired trust.
Heat is the enemy of sensitive electronic equipment, threatening performance and longevity. Now it could meet its match in an academic laboratory designed to find new ways of cooling delicate circuitry and devices. In January, Georgia Tech’s Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology, its Strategic Energy Institute and its Institute for Materials plan to open the Heat Lab, a unique center that is a collaboration between the Atlanta-based university and industry to develop innovative solutions to thermal problems.
Using nanometer-scale components, researchers have demonstrated the first optical rectenna, a device that combines the functions of an antenna and a rectifier diode to convert light directly into direct current electricity.
Based on multiwall carbon nanotubes and tiny rectifiers fabricated onto them, optical rectennas could provide a new technology for photodetectors that would operate without the need for cooling and energy harvesters that would convert waste heat to electricity. The technology also could ultimately result in a new way to efficiently capture solar energy.
Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, Georgia, has been awarded $32,800,000 ceiling modification (P0010) to previously awarded contract (HQ0147-10-D-0050) for research, development, engineering, state of-the-art and proof-of-concept sensor systems, and basic and advanced technology research and development. This is a cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $102,800,000 from $70,000,000. Work will be performed in Atlanta, Georgia, with an expected completion date of Sept.
