The multiyear initiative will be led by LMI (NSF Award # 2530262), doing business as NobleReach Foundation, through its Science to Venture platform and will engage two NSF Innovation I-Corps (NSF I-Corps) Hubs. The Hubs will be structured around four pillars: commercialization assistance, local capability building, talent network development and capital catalyzation. NSF will invest in end-to-end support spanning rigorous portfolio analysis and tailored roadmaps for high-potential university technologies; train-the-trainer curricula and toolkits that institutionalize proven commercialization methods; pathways linking entrepreneurs, mentors and subject-matter experts to research teams; and a blended capital strategy that crowds in philanthropic, public and private investments to de-risk early translation stages.

Over two years, an estimated 12 to 20 research projects relevant to national security will be shepherded through milestone-based development plans, yielding replicable frameworks and artificial intelligence-enabled assets that can be extended across the lab-to-market ecosystem.

“With this effort, we can accelerate the translation of NSF’s investments in basic research to commercially-promising products that drive local economic growth and improve national security,” said Erwin Gianchandani, NSF assistant director for technology, innovation and partnerships.

The pilot will implement proven technology translation methodologies while building sustainable local capacity for innovation. It will apply tested frameworks for research commercialization, incorporating best practices, enabling consistent evaluation of commercialization potential while maintaining flexibility across technology types and regional contexts.

Source: NSF

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For nearly 20 years, Booz Allen has been providing support to NSF to modernize and digitally transform the organization through full systems development services for more than 20 mission-critical applications and provide core product lifecycle tasks and IT-related services. The award also leverages Booz Allen’s decades of experience in driving data-enabled missions for federal government agencies to better serve citizens.

As part of the work, Booz Allen will drive speed and scale to NSF’s mission-critical grants management systems through end-to-end modern software development utilizing scaled agile principles, DevSecOps automation, and cloud platform resiliency. In addition, as the leading provider of AI services to the federal government according to GovWin from Deltek, Booz Allen will leverage innovative technologies such as AI under this contract to positively impact everyday citizens and foster U.S. scientific advancement via NSF’s grants management system.

“Booz Allen is proud to be directly supporting core pillars of NSF to boost investment in critical research and the progression of science,” said Dan Tucker, senior vice president and a leader in Booz Allen’s citizen services business. “This work aligns with Booz Allen’s VoLT business strategy, focused on velocity, leadership, and technology, and further solidifies our position as a key enabler of innovation for ensuring NSF and the nation remain at the forefront of scientific discovery and technological advancements that change the world.”

Under this contract, Booz Allen will provide end-to-end systems development, operations, and maintenance for over 20 NSF mission-critical custom applications in support of NSF’s end-to-end grants lifecycle by acquiring, integrating, and scaling the platforms and technologies needed to power NSF’s critical mission. It is also a follow-on to the Information Technology Solution Integrated Services (ITSIS) contract.

“This recompete win speaks volumes to the collective ingenuity of a diverse and extremely talented team from across the firm, bolstered by our deep NSF mission knowledge and expertise aligned to NSF’s complex technical stack,” said Lane Blackmer, principal at Booz Allen and program manager on the project. “The win required a long history of high-quality delivery, continuous cultivation of new and existing client relationships, and strategic injection of new capabilities such as DevSecOps, CloudOps, and AI to ensure the U.S. is keeping pace in scientific advancement and novel innovation at home.”

Source: Booz Allen

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America’s Seed Fund is a competitive program that provides funding to small businesses for research and development projects that have the potential for commercialization. The Phase I award is a crucial first step in the process, providing funding for companies to conduct needed research and validate the technical merit and commercial potential of their ideas.

GuardianSat and The Aerospace Corporation will execute this Phase I project, Space Debris Awareness Spectrum Research, to investigate optimal methods for onboard satellite sensor systems to obtain full spherical space domain awareness. Huey Wyche, GuardianSat’s research lead, will serve as the principal investigator (PI), while Marlon Sorge, executive director of The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS), will assume the role of co-principal investigator (Co-PI). GuardianSat will use this research to mature the space-based multi-spectrum orbital object detection component of its space domain awareness and debris avoidance system.

With this support, GuardianSat will be able to accelerate the development of its Pathfinder project, a mission designed to test and confirm the multi-spectrum approach to identifying, mapping, cataloging space debris, then creating actionable data that can be used to identify, track and forecast debris deviations that could impact space assets.  Unlike other solutions that use ground-based systems to track and identify objects larger than 10cm diameter, this system will expand the protection of sub-10cm space debris which is more difficult to detect and has a higher probability to cause significant and long-term damage to space assets.

“We are pleased to have been awarded this STTR Phase I grant from America’s Seed Fund, which will enable us to advance the development of our space domain awareness and avoidance systems,” said GuardianSat’s CEO Christopher Rohe. “This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team led by Huey Wyche (PI), and we are excited to take the next steps in and continue advancing new and transformative solutions to keep space open.”

Source: GuardianSat

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“NSF is pleased to further synergize the research and innovation communities with end-users in this critical technology and mission space,” said TIP Assistant Director Erwin Gianchandani. “Together, the teams in which we are investing today will boost tangible solutions and long-lasting outcomes for the U.S. military, federal government and critical infrastructure sectors utilizing 5G networks.”

The goal of the Convergence Accelerator Track G is to enable enhancements to end devices — such as smartphones and tablets — and augmentations to 5G wireless infrastructure, providing capabilities to military, government and critical infrastructure operators to operate through public 5G networks while meeting security and resilience requirements. The convergent track supports the development of technologies to secure 5G and permit the secure use of non-secure networks.

In September 2022, NSF selected 16 teams for Phase 1 of Track G. At the end of Phase 1, five Phase 2 awardees were selected after a formal proposal and pitch. Over the next two years, the Phase 2 teams will take part in an innovation and entrepreneurial curriculum that includes technology development, intellectual property, financial management and planning, sustainability planning and communications and outreach.

“High-impact deliverables or solutions are the priority focus for the NSF Convergence Accelerator program and the teams in which we invest,” said Douglas Maughan, head of the Convergence Accelerator. “When we talk with teams interested in participating in our program, we always ask, what can you build and deliver to the customer or end-user within three years? During the next 24 months, these Phase 2 teams will develop their prototypes, but will also be challenged to create sustainability plans to ensure their continued success beyond the NSF Convergence Accelerator program.”

Phase 2 awardees include:

Automated Verification of Internet Data-paths (AVOID):Led by Johns Hopkins University, AVOID secures 5G communications by restructuring communication paths to avoid adversary-controlled base stations, networks and locations, ensuring that critical 5G communications remain invisible to even the most sophisticated adversaries.
5G Hidden Operations through Securing Traffic (GHOST): Led by the University of Colorado Boulder, the GHOST team proposes a solution to operate securely through untrusted 5G networks by securing user devices, preventing pattern-of-life analyses, impeding traffic analyses and injecting false information to confuse or mislead an adversary about an organization’s operations and intentions.
Intelligent 5G Networks Designed and Integrated for Globalized Operations (INDIGO): Led by AT&T Corporation, the INDIGO project ensures secure, resilient and quality 5G communications for warfighters and first responders by employing human-centered artificial intelligence, integrating several zero trust capabilities, and leveraging the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architecture.
Security-Enhanced Radio Access Network (SE-RAN): Led by SRI International, SE-RAN is developing a multi-layered sensor and enforcement platform for managing security services for O-RAN-compliant 5G+ mobile infrastructure.
Zero Trust X (ZTX): Led by the University of Kansas, the ZTX team proposes an end-to-end software solution, the Zero Trust Chain, designed to securely share situational awareness through 5G networks for military operations.

Source: NSF

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Under this agreement, the NRO modified its existing Electro-Optical Commercial Layer contract with Maxar to allow the company to provide the U.S. Government with long-term access to this regional imagery with the express purpose to create DEMs, which are used to quantify characteristics of a land surface. The Arctic and Antarctic DEMs cover most everything from 60 degrees north and south latitude, except Alaska.

The agreement also allows NGA to share the imagery with NSF-funded university partners in order to update NSF’s ArcticDEM and Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica projects for the full 10-year duration of the contract, currently scheduled to end in 2032.

The DEMs will also be publicly available on NGA’s website through ESRI’s ArcGIS platform and via NSF’s Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota, enabling a wide variety of GIS, remote sensing, climate and mapping research use cases across the polar science community.

A digital elevation model is a 3-D representation of a terrain’s surface, created from terrain elevation data. Analysis can be done on DEMs to determine or detect changes in topography over time, including the effects of climate change, which are amplified at the poles.

DEMs are critical to informing not only scientific research on climate change, such as waterflow and land mass movement, but also helping the U.S. government understand the geopolitical dimensions of the region as five countries lay claim to overlapping areas.

Source: NGA

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The programs built through these partnerships will seek innovations to enhance the various aspects of next generation communications, sensing, networking, and computing systems. The programs are expected to fund collaborative fundamental research that transcends the traditional boundaries of individual disciplines to achieve the program goals. These teams may consist of investigators from Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) – Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited, and having a campus located in the US.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has invested in a range of programs, including public and private partnerships, to advance the state-of-the-art in advanced networking systems research. In particular, NSF-funded research has greatly contributed to modern communication networks and systems through technologies like software-defined networking, programmable networks, disaggregation, computing and networking in the cloud, cognitive radios, spectrum sharing, massive MIMO antennas, millimeter-wave (mm-wave) transceiver devices, and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML). The far-reaching impact of innovation in networking systems has been remarkable, as shown by the critical role that broadband communication networks played in keeping people connected and businesses operational during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent NSF public-private partnerships with industry and other government agencies, e.g., direct partnerships with VMware and Intel, and consortia partnerships like Resilient and Intelligent NextG Systems (RINGS) and Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR), have had fundamental impacts and paved the way for network research at scale, on topics including resilient network design, open-source wireless network software, and the application of machine learning to wired/wireless networking.

However, the demand for faster communications, increased functionality, broader availability, reduced resource consumption including size, weight, power and RF spectrum, lower latency, and service-aware networking requires research and innovation at unprecedented levels to meet the needs of our always-connected world. More effective integration between wired and wireless research communities and an increased focus on built-in security, as well as computing and machine learning advances into the next generation of networking technologies and management are needed.

Three NSF directorates (Computer and information Science and Engineering; Engineering; and Technology, Innovation and Partnerships) plan to build on past successes and provide the networking research and education community with the opportunity to pursue ambitious, fundamental research agendas that promise to define the future of advanced networking systems. Outcomes from the research projects and their products supported by these partnerships will fuel economic growth, improve national security, and result in products and services that will transform the everyday lives of people across the nation and around the world.

Source: NSF

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The Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation are issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to inform the work of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force (“Task Force”). The Task Force has been directed by Congress to develop an implementation roadmap for a shared research infrastructure that would provide Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers and students across scientific disciplines with access to computational resources, high-quality data, educational tools, and user support.

Background

Congress directed the National Science Foundation (NSF), in coordination with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), to establish the NAIRR Task Force in the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, Public Law 116-283 § 5106, and in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The mandate of the Task Force is to investigate the feasibility and advisability of establishing and sustaining a NAIRR and propose a roadmap detailing how such a resource should be established and sustained.

The NAIRR is envisioned as a shared computing and data infrastructure that would provide AI researchers and students across scientific fields with access to a holistic advanced computing ecosystem. This would include secure, privacy-preserving frameworks; high-quality, representative datasets; and appropriate educational tools and user support mechanisms. The goal for such a national resource is to democratize access to the cyberinfrastructure that fuels AI research and development, enabling all of America’s diverse AI researchers to fully participate in Start Printed Page 39082exploring innovative ideas for advancing AI, including communities, institutions, and regions that have been traditionally underserved—especially with regard to AI research and related education opportunities.

Composed of members from government, academia, and the private sector, the NAIRR Task Force is required to submit an interim report to Congress and the President by May 2022, with a final report to be issued in November 2022. Find more information on the Task Force members and upcoming meetings at AI.gov.

Review the full RFI from OSTP and NSF.

Source: Federal Register

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Under a new four-year, $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the cloud computing testbed will further broaden its scope, adding new features for reproducibility, IoT and networking experimentation, and GPU computation to its core mission. This multi-institutional initiative is led by the University of Chicago (UChicago) in collaboration with the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), and Northwestern University, RENCI announced August 17.

“Chameleon is a scientific instrument for computer science systems research,” said Kate Keahey, senior computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and the Consortium for Advanced Science and Engineering (CASE) of the University of Chicago, and principal investigator of the Chameleon project. “Astronomers have telescopes, biologists have microscopes, and computer scientists have Chameleon.”

In its first five years, Chameleon has attracted more than 4,000 users from over 100 institutions, working on more than 500 different research and education projects. Scientists have used the testbed to study power management, operating systems, virtualization, high performance computing, distributed computing, networking, security, machine learning, and more. Educators have used Chameleon for cloud computing courses, allowing college and high school students to build their own cloud and learn the inner workings of the technology.

The upcoming phase of Chameleon will further develop work already begun such as the popular CHameleon Infrastructure (CHI) that provides enhanced capabilities with the open source OpenStack project.

The team will also broaden connections to other mission-specific testbeds, which will allow experimenters to implement core contributions of testbeds beyond Chameleon into their work. For example, Chameleon will expand capabilities for connecting IoT technologies by integrating with testbeds such as SAGE.

RENCI’s contributions to Chameleon in the third phase of funding will support this cross-testbed capability by further enabling experimentation with advanced programmable networking devices and accelerators. The RENCI team will also develop new options for software-defined networking that will allow compatibility with FABRIC, a currently-developing “everywhere programmable” nationwide instrument with large amounts of compute and storage, interconnected by high speed, dedicated optical links.

“The planned additions to Chameleon will allow academic researchers to experiment with advanced programmable networks in a large-scale cloud environment,” said Paul Ruth, assistant director of network research and infrastructure at RENCI and co-PI on the Chameleon project. “We are excited to extend Chameleon’s cloud experiments into RENCI’s FABRIC testbed, which will facilitate larger, more diverse networking experiments.”

Finally, the Chameleon team will also add expanded tools for reproducible research, and they will add new hardware and storage resources at the project’s two primary sites, UChicago and TACC, as well as at a supplemental Northwestern University site.

“Chameleon is a great example of how shared infrastructure with over 4,000 users can save the academic community time and money while catalyzing new research results,” said Deepankar Medhi, program director in the Computer & Information Sciences & Engineering Directorate (CISE) at the National Science Foundation. “NSF is pleased to fund Chameleon for four more years in order to extend the platform with new capabilities, thus allowing researchers to conduct new lines of research and students to learn newer technologies.”

Source: RENCI

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) announced the launch of integrated operations of all of NSF’s nighttime astronomical facilities under NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NSF’s OIR Lab). This new organization is the preeminent US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, enabling breakthrough discoveries in astrophysics by developing and operating state-of-the-art ground-based observatories and providing data products and services for a diverse and inclusive community.

Patrick McCarthy New Director

NSF and AURA also announced the appointment of Patrick McCarthy as the Director of NSF’s OIR Lab. McCarthy was most recently Vice President of the Giant Magellan Telescope project and Astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science. McCarthy said of the new organization, “Integrating these facilities into one multi-mission center brings together diverse pathways for astronomical exploration, facilitates community coordination, and enables the discoveries of the future. The integrated center will also stimulate new domestic and international collaborations and provide additional opportunities for staff while expanding scientific capabilities and improving the experience for users.”

Over 60 Years of Optical-Infrared Astronomy

Since 1958, NSF has sponsored ground-based optical-infrared astronomical research facilities in the US and Chile managed by AURA. The first site developed was Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona, followed soon after by Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. In 2000 the Gemini Observatory in Hawai‘i and Chile began operations, funded by NSF and an international consortium. The most recent addition, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), currently under construction in Chile, is a cutting-edge observatory sponsored by NSF and the US Department of Energy.

All of these NSF facilities are managed by AURA but were previously structured as separate organizations. The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) operated the telescopes on Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo and the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC). Separately, AURA first managed Gemini Observatory as well as the LSST construction project. On 1 October, NOAO, Gemini Observatory, and LSST’s operations component transitioned to a single management structure, and the NOAO name was retired. As LSST finishes construction, the ramped-up operations will become an integral component within NSF’s OIR Lab with full operations beginning in 2022.

Source: NSF

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The letter of intent initiates a strategic partnership focused on research in four areas of common interest: space operations and geosciences, advanced material sciences, information and data sciences, and workforce and processes.

“We are looking forward to deepening our ties with the National Science Foundation,” Wilson said. “We will simultaneously benefit from the research done together with a focus on the areas most vital to the future of the U.S. Air Force and the security of our nation.”

The partnership is designed to create a pathway between the basic research supported by NSF and the technologies needed to support the Air Force of tomorrow. Common areas of interest will drive cooperation at every level of research, including basic research, applied research and advanced technology development.

“Ensuring national security through innovation in science and engineering was part of the National Science Foundation’s founding mission nearly seven decades ago, and it remains one of our highest priorities today,” Córdova said. “We look forward to partnering with the Air Force on this collaborative venture and using our combined resources to innovate for the benefit of the nation.”

This partnership reflects White House priorities including strong national security and efficient government operations.

“Rebuilding America’s defense capabilities has been a top priority of the Trump Administration since inauguration. A big part of that is translating fundamental discoveries into breakthroughs that make the country safer and drive the U.S. economy,” said Michael Kratsios, deputy assistant to the President for technology policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “This partnership between two of America’s R&D powerhouses — the Air Force and the National Science Foundation — will ensure that taxpayer funding of basic research is made more efficient, accelerates the development of advanced technologies for both civilian and military use, and fosters job creation and economic growth into the future.”

The letter states that “The Air Force will benefit from greater access to NSF’s considerably larger basic research program and community of researchers. The NSF will benefit with a direct pathway for the technical maturation of many of its research efforts and products, with increased relevance afforded by its direct support of the Nation’s defense posture.”

In anticipation of the signing, the two organizations have already had initial discussions on topics ranging from the convergence of artificial intelligence, data and materials, to placements for fellows from NSF’s Graduate Research Intern Program.

The letter is available online.

Source: NSF

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