A program managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) uses miniaturized chip components to generate optical frequencies in small, compressed forms. DARPA said Thursday it launched the Direct On-Chip Digital Optical Synthesizer or DODOS effort in 2014 to propagate the use of optical frequency synthesizers, a technology that generates frequency-precise lasers.

The program aims to reduce the size, power and cost requirements of optical frequency synthesizers so that scientists may use the technology outside of a laboratory setting. Scientists use optical frequency synthesizers for space exploration, light detection and ranging, quantum control and other pursuits.

DODOS employed microresonators that store light to produce small, compact packages of optical frequency combs. The resulting frequency takes a comb-shaped form, hence the name. The University of California at Santa Barbara demonstrated a link between two microchips via a microresonator and a laser.

“The UCSB team’s accomplishment could have broad-reaching implications for a number of commercial and defense photonics applications – from navigation systems to optical clocks to coherent communications,” said Gordon Keeler, DARPA's program manager for DODOS.

The Department of Energy has earmarked over $65M in funds to support 93 nuclear technology projects from 28 various states.

DOE said Thursday it will provide more than $38.6M to back university-led nuclear research and development projects in 24 states through the Nuclear Energy University Program.

The department has allotted $5.7M to finance 21 research reactor and infrastructure modernization efforts, while $10.8M will be awarded to three projects that will work to address technical gaps that affect the Office of Nuclear Energy's mission objectives.

DOE will award over $2.4M to three national laboratories, one industry partner and three university-led projects that will explore material and nuclear fuel applications, while two of the projects will receive $1M in research funds.

Five national laboratory-led R&D projects will also secure $5M to explore and address crosscutting nuclear energy gaps in efforts to build instruments, sensors and production approaches for nuclear reactor plant and fuel applications.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the U.S. Air Force needs to improve its monitoring and reporting of financial data related to its mission-critical programs.

In a report released Thursday, GAO said the Air Force failed to fully execute its enterprise risk management (ERM) approach as mandated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in handling its fiscal 2019 mission-critical assets valued at $398 billion.

The service branch also failed to establish comprehensive procedures for analyzing internal controls, which must evaluate all key areas crucial to meeting mission objectives, GAO said.

In addition, the agency noted that the Air Force was unable to implement results of the reviews for mission-critical assets in its analyses of internal controls.

“As a result, the Air Force is not fully managing its challenges and opportunities from an enterprise-wide view,” GAO said. “Until it fully incorporates ERM—planned for some time after 2023—the Air Force will continue to leverage its current governance and reporting structures as well as its existing internal control reviews.”

Army Research Laboratory, part of the service's Combat Capabilities Development Command, has created a platform that helps autonomous systems analyze and rationalize real-world scenarios. The platform, named Rich Event Ontology, uses data-driven semantic schemas to serve as a resource for computational recognition, the Army said Thursday.

“This research supports the state-of-the art in event detection, which is truly pivotal for autonomous systems to be able to understand what is going on, who is doing it, where is it happening, how and why,” said Claire Bonial, a social scientist at ARL.

REO also applies information on basic logic to explain events and build context for the understanding of autonomous systems. The technology also aligns with the Army's priority to modernize soldier lethality.

Cambridge University Press will release a publication, titled "Computational Analysis of Storylines: Making Sense of Events," that will contain a chapter on Bonial's work.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of AWS Snowcone, a new small, ultra-portable, rugged, and secure edge computing and data transfer device, the company reported on Thursday.

“Thousands of our customers have found AWS Snowball devices to be ideal for collecting data and running applications in remote and harsh environments. Since 2015, customer use of Snowball devices has greatly increased, as has their need for an even smaller device with even greater portability,” said Bill Vass, VP of Storage, Automation and Management Services, AWS.

AWS Snowcone has been built to withstand harsh conditions and is designed for a variety of use cases in environments outside of the traditional data center that lack consistent network connectivity or require portability, including healthcare, industrial IoT, drones, tactical edge computing, content distribution, data migration, video content creation and transportation.

The solution will enable customers to collect and process data, run local computing applications, and move large volumes of data from log files, digital media, genomic data and sensor data from connected devices to AWS.

AWS Snowcone will also provide maximum flexibility for edge computing environments, offering a small, ultra-portable, rugged, and military grade secure device to run applications and migrate data to AWS.

Snowcone will integrate anti-tamper and tamper-evident features to help ensure data on the device stays secure during transit. AWS’ solution has complied with ruggedization standards such as ISTA-3A, ASTM D4169 and MIL-STD-810G standards.

“With more applications running at the edge for an expanding range of use cases, like analyzing IoT sensor data and machine learning inference, AWS Snowcone makes it easier to collect, store, pre-process, and transfer data from harsh environments with limited space to AWS for more intensive processing,” added Vass.

AWS Snowcone will enable customers to move data to AWS offline by shipping the device and online using Ethernet or Wi-Fi with AWS DataSync, which are integrated into the device. The solution will feature 2 CPUs, 4 GB of memory, 8 TB of storage, and USB-C power.

The company’s offering will be able to operate in extreme environments or disconnected remote sites, including oil rigs, first responder vehicles, military operations, factory floors, remote offices, hospitals, or movie theaters, for long periods of time without traditional data center conditions.

Novetta has integrated AWS Snowcone in the advanced analytics solutions. The company has focused on mission success for its customers in the public sector, defense, intelligence, and federal law enforcement communities.

“Snowcone gives us a rugged, secure, and portable edge computing platform that we can use in disaster zones and austere edge locations. In our recent field exercises, Snowcone performed admirably as a sensor hub at the edge to track people and assets in a disaster zone,” said Rob Sheen, Senior Vice President, Client Operations at Novetta.

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