The Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology (DHS S&T) Directorate has selected 25 U.S. small businesses to develop homeland security technologies with $4.2 million of total funding. 

DHS said Wednesday it awarded a total of 29 contracts to the winners, under phase one of the department's Small Business Innovation Research program. Each project will receive a maximum of $150,000 in SBIR funds for five months of concept feasibility research.

“Investing in private sector innovation is a key factor in helping DHS keep pace with emerging threats and security challenges facing our nation,” said Kathryn Coulter Mitchell, who serves as the department's undersecretary for S&T on an acting basis.

Tackled research topics include virus detection, 5G connectivity, vehicle infectious diseases protection, luggage screening sensors and amphibious ice rescue vehicles.

Qualifying entrants will be able to apply for SBIR's second phase, where participants will develop prototypes of their concepts.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has met all three goals of a flight test that aimed to demonstrate networked, collaborative and autonomous weapons. 

Two F-16 aircraft deployed Collaborative Small Diameter Bombs (CSDB) on Tuesday at White Sands Missile Range, under the service branch's Golden Horde program, AFRL said Wednesday. 

CSDB is a modified version of the Boeing-made Small Diameter Bomb I. The test demonstrated that L3Harris Technologies' Banshee 2 radio network can expand its nodes to meet mission requirements.

The demonstration also exhibited how a ground station would transmit an in-flight target update to flying weapons upon the appearance of a new, higher-priority threat. Lastly, two SDB units synchronized to strike a single target together.

Golden Horde supports the military's larger Joint All-Domain Command and Control approach, which seeks to establish a network of situational awareness sensors on the battlefield.

Moving forward, AFRL will work with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and Eglin Air Force Base’s 96th Test Wing to further develop NCA weapon systems via digital engineering, unmanned aircraft testing and other approaches.

Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., introduced a bill to establish an office to manage the federal government’s non-defense blockchain efforts, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

The Blockchain Technology Coordination Act of 2021 would create the National Blockchain Technology Coordination Office, which would operate from the Department of Commerce.

The office would coordinate all blockchain-related efforts pursued by federal agencies, except those led by the military. The secretary of commerce would appoint a director-level executive who would lead the office. Gina Raimondo has been the country's commerce secretary since March 3rd.

Blockchain technology stores information across a distributed ledger of multiple computers for applications such as cryptocurrency.

Cobham Mission Systems announced on Thursday the company has signed a long-term agreement to provide air separation modules (ASM) for a major U.S. airline operating Boeing 737s (B737). An aircraft’s ASM prevents the build-up of explosive conditions in fuel tanks by generating nitrogen-enriched air to help lower the amount of oxygen in the fuel tank. 

Cobham has delivered 885 B737 ASM model NC1211 units, which have achieved over 5,000,000 flight hours with no failures since 2015. The units have supplied airline partners with substantial savings in ownership and maintenance costs.

“Cobham Mission Systems is delighted to partner with another major US airline,” Our air separation modules are the most reliable in the world, with 2,100 delivered and more than 17,600,000 flight hours on commercial aircraft worldwide,” commented Jason Apelquist, senior VP of business development and strategy. 

“We are proud to contribute to our airline customers’ aircraft operation and maintenance cost reduction efforts through the outstanding performance, reliability and life on-wing Cobham ASMs provide,” added Apelquist. 

Cobham is exceptionally experienced in gas separation and has been developing and delivering fuel tank inerting systems and subsystems for three decades. The company has worked on 6,700 systems on commercial flights, including B737, A320, A321, B787 and military aircraft with a total of over 52,000,000 flight hours.

Cobham possesses a unique technical ability to design an optimally sized and configured fuel tank inerting system using Hollow Fiber Membrane technology. The company’s fuel tank inerting systems are designed for both military and commercial applications.

About Cobham Mission Systems

Cobham Mission Systems helps customers increase the safety and mission capabilities of personnel and equipment in extreme environments. Proven and trusted solutions include air-to-air refueling, fuel tank inerting, life support, space propulsion, weapons carriage and missile actuation that enable customers to achieve mission success.

Thomas Kenney, chief data officer of U.S. Special Operations Command, said military branches should develop standards to manage system interoperability and data access as the Department of Defense works to complete its joint all domain command and control strategy.

“If we’re going to democratize the data and democratize our systems, having a common way to secure that data, where systems talk in like ways to each other, will really accelerate our ability to have interoperability,” Kenney told C4ISRNET during a webcast.

The Pentagon’s JADC2 concept envisions a single network linking military sensors and processing information meant to help commanders make decisions in a cloud-like platform. Kenney said DOD should also explore tools to manage digital identities and credentials across the military.

SOCOM aims to incorporate application programming interfaces into a data fabric to help special operations forces communicate with personnel from another military service.

Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall, chief information officer of the Joint Staff and 2021 Wash100 Award recipient, indicated at a virtual conference in April that the JADC2 strategy was nearing completion.

A Congressional Research Service report noted that DOD is managing different communications platforms that use various radio frequencies and standards, posing a threat to the interoperability under the JADC2 plan.

An analysis from Censeo Consulting Group says an increase in the minimum wage for federal contract workers as directed by an executive order will have a minor impact on government contract spending but will likely result in agencies reviewing and modifying 30,520 contracts.

“We project that analyzing and modifying these contracts will add 450,000 additional hours to the workload of contracting offices, which is the equivalent of over 240 additional full-time roles,” the Censeo report states.

In late April, President Biden signed an executive order that will require government contractors to raise the minimum wage of employees working on federal contracts from $10.95 to $15 per hour by 2022.

The departments of Defense (DOD), Veterans Affairs (VA), Agriculture (USDA) and State are among the agencies that will be the most impacted by the executive order.

The report estimates the new policy’s impact on federal spending to be between $1 billion and $2 billion and recommends that agencies take several measures to prepare for the EO, including segmenting contract portfolio by delivery location and spend category to determine contracts most likely to be impacted, developing a policy and process for addressing such contracts and analyzing vendor price structures to identify contracts that will need modifications.

The University of Maryland and the U.S. Army have signed a five-year cooperative agreement that will focus on exploring artificial intelligence systems and approaches to implement autonomy across different operating domains.

Academic research teams at University of Maryland campuses in College Park and Baltimore County will participate in 18 initial projects with the Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory to help the service branch develop AI and autonomous technology platforms, ARL said Wednesday.

Researchers will work to build common development and testing infrastructure that features a virtual environment to demonstrate collaborative autonomy.

They also aim to formulate methods for human-machine coordination in battlegrounds and to advance self-driving vehicles that apply computer vision, remote sensing and modern robotics tools for terrain navigation. 

“No matter how autonomous we think a system is, a human operator will interface with it at some level," said Derek Paley, a UMD professor and director of the Maryland Robotics Center. 

"The goal is to migrate the dangerous, dirty, and dull work to the autonomous platform,” added Paley, who serves as lead researcher on the agreement.

Under the agreement, the Army will give collaborators access to the service branch's Robotics Research Collaborative Campus located near Middle River, Maryland, to conduct demonstrations.

Join GovCon Wire’s AI: Innovation in National Security Forum to hear from public and private sector representatives as they discuss the use of emerging technology to stay ahead of global adversaries. Visit the events page on GovCon Wire to register for this virtual forum.

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) office of inspector general (OIG) called on DHS to improve data collection and management activities after it found that persistent data quality issues hamper the department’s daily use of some of the diverse and largest databases to support decision-making processes and mission operations.

OIG assessed 135 reports between fiscal years 2017 and 2019 and identified 70 data quality issues classified into four categories: data access, data accuracy, data completeness and relevance and data availability, according to a summary report released Monday.

The inspector general’s office also identified 82 internal control deficiencies that hindered the accuracy, confidentiality and availability of the department’s data. Those deficiencies were grouped into five categories: security and technical controls; program and operational oversight; guidelines and processes; system design and functionality; and training and resources.

According to the report, the department has enhanced its information security program and come up with strategies and plans to improve data quality and management but needs continued improvement to address internal control deficiencies associated with data quality issues.

“Only then can the Department be assured it captures reliable and accurate data to accomplish its mission responsibilities,” the report states.

Darlene Costello, acting assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, said the Department of Defense (DOD) and space companies “have their best people” working to counter China’s attempts to steal and compromise intellectual property data, SpaceNews reported Wednesday.

She told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s subpanel on strategic forces Wednesday that the Air Force is working with the space industry to implement security measures against potential breaches.

“We have gotten much better, and continue to challenge our industry partners and work with them on our cybersecurity and our intellectual property,” Costello added.

Costello noted that companies offer incentives to protect their intellectual property.

“Industry doesn’t want that going out the door either, so that’s a shared interest on our part and they are actively working it,” she said.

If you want to know more about the latest updates about the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, then check out Potomac Officers Club’s CMMC Forum coming up on June 16th.

CMMC Accreditation Body Chairman Karlton Johnson will serve as the keynote speaker for the Forum to provide his overview and vision of the CMMC Rollout as well as the top priorities for the board and how industry feedback will help to improve the vision behind how the organization develops for the first 100 days.

To register for this virtual forum and view other upcoming events, visit the POC Events page.