The Defense Innovation Unit has issued an Area of Interest solicitation in search of technologies that use commercial or internet of things devices to track and locate a path in global positioning systems and environments without external networks.

The competitive solicitation, which ends on Oct. 25, is being conducted in accordance with the merit-based Commercial Solutions Opening process and may result in follow-on contract awards for the winning bidders, DIU said Thursday.

DIU is looking for companies that can develop an interoperable, multi-sensor device that requires low power and has low emission.

Offerings can be part of an IoT suite and designed for visual plotting in mapping systems. A proposed system must have an open architecture interface and user experience, and have security functions for extreme environmental conditions or adversarial countermeasures.

Interested parties may fill a submission form on the DIU website.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is soliciting public comments on its initial draft report that provides a technical description of stablecoins, which are a type of cryptocurrencies, to help the public understand how this technology is designed and implemented.

The draft NIST IR 8408 includes a descriptive definition of stablecoins, the technology’s properties, characteristics and taxonomies, among others, NIST said Thursday.

The document offers information on fiat currency-backed, cryptocurrency-backed and non-currency asset-backed, algorithmic non-collateralized, hybrid and private institutional stablecoins.

The report also explores security, trust and safety concerns associated with stablecoins with an analysis carried out from a technology perspective.

NIST will accept comments through Jan. 6, 2023.

The U.S. Army plans to kick off the competition to develop light robotic combat vehicles during the third quarter of 2023 and is considering new approaches to test and evaluate RCVs to facilitate the certification process, C4ISRNET reported Thursday.

“With the RCVs, we are looking at such new systems and new approaches,” Maj. Cory Wallace, robotic requirements lead with the Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team, told the publication in an interview. “A lot of the testing procedures that are currently employed are not the most efficient.”

He said the military branch could consider certifying the autonomous vehicles in a virtual environment and take lessons from companies when it comes to implementing testing and evaluation metrics for such vehicles.

The service’s programmers have “been very open to try new means of testing,” Wallace said. “We’re trying to draft [off] what we’ve done in the civilian world, as well, to see if we can gain efficiencies by implementing their testing standards.”

The Army intends to spend approximately $750 million on RCV development in the next five years, according to budget justification documents for fiscal year 2023.

Wallace noted that the service expects the first vehicle prototypes to be delivered by 2028.

In January 2020, the Army awarded QinetiQ North America and Textron other transaction agreements to build two RCV variants.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office is seeking proposals for a new program that aims to develop reconfigurable processors that can provide autonomous radio frequency signals.

In a broad agency announcement, DARPA said the Processor Reconfiguration for Wideband Sensor Systems program is looking to develop high-throughput, streaming-data processors capable of reconfiguring autonomously in 50 nanoseconds to detect and characterize RF signals in complex environments.

Radios that use artificial intelligence currently rely on field programmable gate arrays, which can be reprogrammed far slower than signal environments can change.

PROWESS builds on prior DARPA research programs including the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge.

John Davies, PROWESS program manager, said SC2 “demonstrated that autonomous RF systems deliver significant benefits over traditional fixed or rule-based approaches.”

DARPA will host a proposers day on Oct. 13 to discuss the PROWESS program.

The Technology Modernization Fund has made investments in the Office of Personnel Management, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Army to help improve user experience and cybersecurity.

“Through TMF investments, we are demonstrating what’s possible right now in modern government service delivery,” Clare Martorana, federal chief information officer and chair of the TMF Board, said in a statement published Thursday.

“The investments in OPM, HUD, and the Army will address immediate security needs and enhance customer experience and business operations by modernizing outdated systems – expectations we must be able to meet for our customers,” added Martorana, a 2022 Wash100 Award winner.

OPM will use $6 million in TMF funding to update its website by implementing a new content management system hosted on its cloud environment.

HUD secured a $14.8 million investment to enhance customer experience by replacing legacy systems with a cloud-based platform meant to integrate Federal Housing Administration Connection tools with Login.gov.

The Army will utilize the TMF investment for its Critical Infrastructure Cyber Protection Project, which seeks to implement a Security Operations as-a-Service framework meant to improve the service’s cybersecurity posture and facilitate operations of its Organic Industrial Base sites.