DHS_ST_LRBAA_24-01_Announcement_20240618.pdf

DHS S&T LRBAA 24-01

United States Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate

Long Range Broad Agency Announcement 24-01

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION LINKED TITLE

1 LRBAA INTRODUCTION

2 PROCESS OVERVIEW

3 ELIGIBILTY

4 RESEARCH TOPICS

5 PROCESS DETAIL

6 OTHER INFORMATION

7 CONTACTS

8 LRBAA ATTACHMENTS

1 LRBAA Introduction

The United States Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS), Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announces a modernized Long Range Broad Agency Announcement (LRBAA) featuring improved communications, transparent needs, submission options, and a faster response to your submissions. The LRBAA’s purpose is to fund scientific and technical projects across a spectrum of science and engineering disciplines that significantly improve or increase a capability to the Department’s operational environment and the Homeland Security Enterprise (HSE).

S&T is interested in receiving research concept material(s) that meet one of the following three

(3) types (see “Topic Research Sought” field under Section 4 Research Topics for each specific Topic):

• Type I (Near-Term Component): Includes projects/activities that focus on gaps or needs that have been identified by DHS components;

• Type II (Foundational Science): Enduring research that results in better and more actionable data sets, knowledge products, standards, and peer-reviewed publications to support scientific endeavors; and

• Type III (Future Needs and Emerging Threats): Exploring solutions to problems presented by emerging science and technology areas and their potential threat or application to future DHS missions.

LRBAA awards may consist of research and development contracts, grants, cooperative agreements and/or other transactions agreements (OTAs), to include technology development and demonstration. This LRBAA will NOT pursue the following solutions:

• Technical, engineering, or other types of support services, inclusive of “contracting”- type services;

• Evaluation of another contractor’s performance/program;

• Research consortia, association, partnership or a combination, as of businesses or investors, for the purpose of engaging in a joint research and development venture in a general area;

and

• Mature products.

The DHS S&T LRBAA 24-01 is a five (5) year announcement and will remain open until May 31, 2029 at 11:59 PM, Eastern Time (ET). This announcement may also contain topics with a limited open submission period. Industry Engagement material(s) are to be submitted via the DHS S&T Office of Industry Partnerships (OIP) portal to be further considered for an invitation to participate in the LRBAA’s Virtual Pitch and Written Proposal steps.

Please be advised that the response dates associated with the Virtual Pitch and Written Proposal steps will be the date and time specified in the notification letter provided to you and not the LRBAA response closing date of May 31, 2029 at 11:59 PM, ET as referenced above.

Technical and cost proposal (or any other material) development costs will not be reimbursed.

Technical and cost proposals (or any other material) submitted in response to this LRBAA will not be returned; however, depending on the markings on the materials, DHS S&T will adhere to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) policy on handling source selection and proprietary information.

It is the policy of DHS to treat all materials as proprietary information and to disclose their contents only for the purposes of evaluation.

Please note only unclassified materials may be submitted. Classified information must not be transmitted.

Awards under the LRBAA will depend on the quality of proposals received and the availability of funds. The Government reserves the right to select all, some, one or none of the invited proposals received, and/or to accept proposals in their entirety or to select only portions of proposals for award.

The Government reserves the right to award without exchanges or discussions. Award decisions will result from technical and scientific merit and the contribution to the technical and scientific needs of DHS as further detailed in this announcement.

The applicable laws and regulations governing a particular award will depend on the selected award type as referenced in the paragraph above. In many cases, other elements of the U.S.

Government are pursuing related technologies. In such cases, DHS S&T will leverage those technology development efforts wherever practicable and efficient.

Also, if appropriate, DHS S&T may also facilitate access to laboratory and operationally relevant test and evaluation facilities, where reasonably available and in the Government’s interest. If an offeror or offeror’s subcontractor is a Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC), Department of Energy National Laboratory, or other Federal entity, DHS S&T may work with the appropriate sponsoring agency to issue an interagency agreement.

DHS S&T OIP portal: http://oip.dhs.gov/baa/public http://oip.dhs.gov/baa/public

2 Process Overview

The LRBAA is a 3-step submission and evaluation process that begins with an Industry Engagement submission. During the Industry Engagement step, Scientific/Component Subject Matter Experts (SME) and Program Managers (PM) evaluate submissions to the DHS S&T OIP portal from interested sources in the scientific and industrial community to identify a broad range of qualified offerors. When merited, submitters may be invited by DHS S&T to participate in future steps of the proposal process consisting of a Virtual Pitch step and a Written Proposal step. Submission requirements and details will be provided in the invitation and are generally described below.

The second step of the LRBAA process consists of a Virtual Pitch for each submitters invited after the Industry Engagement Step. Only those submitters which are invited will be eligible to continue through the last step. Submissions will not be accepted from any offeror that has not been invited to submit.

Offerors that submit to and participate in the Virtual Pitch step may be invited by DHS S&T to participate in the Third Step, i.e., the Written Proposal step. Importantly, understand that the selection process will be affected by the availability of funds. Submissions to the Virtual Pitch step may have merit, but would exceed available funding. In such cases, those submitters may not be immediately invited to participate in the Written Proposal step. Also, understand that Written Proposal submissions will not be accepted from an offeror that has not been invited to submit a written proposal.

The chart below maps the DHS S&T LRBAA proposal process from the initial submission to award. The three primary submission and evaluation steps in the process are indicated in orange.

Long Range Broad Agency Announcement Process Flow Chart

Submission and Evaluation Timeframes

The following timeframes represent a “best guess” regarding the time from receipt of proposal and any initial awards; however, those timeframes are subject to significant change. DHS S&T will provide updates as appropriate to inform participants of their submission and assessment status.

Process Timeframe Industry Engagement Assessment Response and follow-up by DHS S&T within 10 business days

Virtual Pitch material(s) Must be submitted to the DHS S&T OIP portal within 14 business days of written notification

Virtual Pitch and Evaluation Completed by DHS S&T within 21 business days of the presentation material’s due date

Written Proposal material(s) Must be submitted to the DHS S&T OIP portal within 45 business days of written notification

Written Proposal Evaluation Completed by DHS S&T within 21 business days of the written proposals due date

Note: The Government may obtain support from both Federal subject matter experts and support contractors when completing LRBAA proposal evaluations. Support contractors may be used to provide administrative assistance to federal employees who are involved in the evaluation of full proposals. Administrative assistance would include tracking the proposals through the review process and assigning proposals by system assigned number or proposal title.

As the activities typically carried out under the LRBAA do not involve Advisory and Assistance Services (A&AS) contractors evaluating or analyzing proposals, the limitation in FAR 37.203(d) will not apply. If the conflict described in FAR 9.505-4 is found to exist, DHS S&T will ensure that the contractors have executed the necessary Non-Disclosure Agreements before proprietary information is shared.

3 Eligibility

Foreign or foreign-owned sources are advised that their participation is subject to foreign disclosure review procedures, applicable export control laws, and other applicable federal laws, regulations, and policies pertaining to U.S. Government business with foreign entities. Potential sources may include independent organizations, single entities, or teams from private sector organizations, Government laboratories, airport authorities, FFRDCs, and academic institutions.

FFRDCs, including the Department of Energy National Laboratories and Centers, are eligible to respond to this LRBAA individually or as team members with eligible principal sources, if they are permitted to respond to such announcements by their sponsoring agency.

DHS S&T particularly encourages submissions from small businesses; however, no set aside of any kind will be made. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Minority Institutions (MIs), small businesses, small-disadvantaged businesses, women-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran owned small businesses, and HUBZone small businesses are encouraged to participate in the process or to join other entities as team members.

4 Research Topics

Protecting our nation can be complex – from rapidly evolving threats to longer-term efforts that require our attention. The current six key mission areas are:

1. Counter Terrorism and Homeland Security Threats; (CTHOM)

2. Secure U.S. Borders and Approaches (BORAP);

3. Secure Cyberspace and Critical Infrastructure (CYBCI);

4. Preserve and Uphold the Nation’s Prosperity and Economic Security (PROES);

5. Strengthen Preparedness and Resilience (PRRES); and

6. Champion the DHS Workforce and Strengthen the Department (WORDT).

To fully understand the needs of our operational Components, DHS S&T routinely identifies priority needs that require Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) solutions.

These priority needs drive DHS’s RDT&E investments. DHS S&T and Components look for the following Types of solutions:

Type I: Projects/activities that focus on gaps or needs that have been identified by DHS components;

Type II: Enduring research that results in better and more actionable data sets, knowledge products, standards, and peer-reviewed publications to support scientific endeavors; and

Type III: Exploring emerging science and technology areas and their potential threat or application to future DHS missions.

For more information about how DHS compiles these needs, visit our website at https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/our-needs and https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/publication/st-partnership-guide to download our DHS S&T Partnership Guide that lays out DHS technology needs and describes DHS S&T’s technical focus areas in further detail.

Learn more about the Department’s research challenge areas, specific to DHS S&T’s LRBAA topics, and how to use the LRBAA to work with DHS S&T by viewing our videos from the LRBAA Today webinar series at https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/lrbaa-today-webinar-series.

Note: Additional details for each topic listed below can be found on the DHS S&T OIP portal located at https://oip.dhs.gov/baa/public.

Counter Terrorism and Homeland Security Threats (CTHOM)

DHS S&T works to identify individuals or groups that intend to conduct terrorist attacks and/or illicitly move weapons, dangerous goods, and contraband. It also provides assessments of high-consequence attack methods such as CBE threats that terrorists may use to attack the United States.

https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/our-needs https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/publication/st-partnership-guide https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/publication/st-partnership-guide https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/lrbaa-today-webinar-series https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/lrbaa-today-webinar-series https://oip.dhs.gov/baa/public

Priority RDT&E needs and topics are:

CTHOM 01: Development of Tools for Test and Evaluation of Machine Learning Algorithms

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: DHS S&T seeks development of cost-effective methodologies and tools for training and testing of Machine Learning-based (ML-based) algorithms for detecting explosives and contraband in Computed Tomography (CT) and Millimeter Wave (MMW) images. This includes methods to synthesize training and testing data, methods to perturb empirical data in order to explore and explain algorithm performance characteristics, and tools to assess the completeness and diversity of training and test data sets. Methods and tools should be capable of acting upon CT x-ray images or images produced by current or emerging MMW passenger inspection systems. (A small number of such images will be provided on request.)

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I and Type II

END OBJECTIVE: The objective of this task is to develop user-friendly software tools for verifying ML-based algorithms for explosives and contraband detection. These tools should allow the user (tester) to explore potential vulnerabilities of the ML-based algorithm with regard to threat features, concealment features, or sensor degradation (system noise).

CTHOM 02: Threat Prevention

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The ability to prevent public safety threats and malign actors through the application of social science methods can include:

1. Research and development to improve the detection, analysis, understanding, and mitigation of the threats posed by terrorism and targeted violence, human trafficking, child exploitation and online disinformation;

2. Knowledge, tools and technologies to determine when individuals, groups, and movements are likely to engage in violence or illegal activity;

3. What ideological, organizational, and contextual factors may influence acts of violence, illegal activity, the spread of online disinformation, and target selection; and

4. How to build community resilience to public safety threats.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I

END OBJECTIVE: DHS S&T seeks to ensure rigorous, high-quality data to understand the nature of threats in the United States; provide independent, objective assessment of activities to ensure that DHS can continually improve and understand the outcomes, impacts, and unintended consequences of investments in threat prevention; and ensure the most up-to-date scientific information from around the world is readily available to DHS and DHS enterprise decision-makers for science- informed policy and practice.

CTHOM 03: Novel Approaches and Locations for Explosive Performance Characterization and Testing

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: Enabling research for the characterization and testing of explosives poses a unique challenge for threat characterization. Innovative tools and methods are needed to provide improvements in evaluating legacy approaches to characterization, adapting state of the art technologies in related disciplines, and integrating emerging innovations.

These innovations will improve both the safety and efficacy of equipment and procedures considered by the Department. This research topic will likely include novel experimental design approaches, development of innovative test articles, development of new technologies for modeling or physical measurement of explosives performance, new research analyses appropriate for test and evaluation, and new testing site locations suitable for conducting explosives performance testing.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type II and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The desired technology solutions should improve on DHS S&T's existing capabilities to gather explosives performance data and provide higher fidelity metrics for risk assessments and analysis by adapting and/or developing innovative technologies in related disciplines. Outcomes may include procedures, technologies, or standards.

Physical testing solutions should demonstrate comparable or improved characteristics, such as resolution, repeatability, reliability, and affordability, relative to existing instrumentation, or offer novel approaches to obtaining the desired data.

Testing sites should expand DHS S&T's available options for conducting explosives performance testing across a variety of scales. The site must provide adequate flexibility to accommodate experimental setups that produce resultant data which is comparable to data obtained from experiments conducted at other locations.

CTHOM 04: Public Safety Tools for Lithium-Ion Battery Incidents

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: Identify, study, and develop tools, strategies, guidance, techniques, and/or technologies that improve first responder and public safety agencies abilities to prepare for, and respond to, incidents involving lithium-ion batteries. Incidents involving lithium-ion batteries pose tremendous challenges to first responder organizations because physical, thermal, and/or electrical damage to these batteries can cause thermal runaway reactions that may lead to explosions and fire that happens quickly and are often difficult to extinguish.

New tools, strategies, guidance, training, handling, techniques, and related technologies may include, but are not limited to, supporting public safety in:

• Improving base knowledge of the scope and scale of lithium-ion batteries and associated risks in the response environment;

• Improving early recognition and response times to these types of battery fires that reduce loss of life and injury to responders and minimize damage to property;

• Suppressing and extinguishing battery fires with novel technologies and solutions that are safe to use and easy to implement;

• Understanding off gases from battery fires and impacts to personal protective equipment;

• Knowing whether fire damaged batteries are free of any remaining charge;

• Expanding methods for de-energizing, packaging, storage and/or disposal of damaged batteries that may still carry charge; and

• Planning for and understanding hazards and risks associated with larger scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) in high-rise residential and commercial buildings and other larger applications.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I, Type II, and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: Provide scientifically based, tested and evaluated tools, strategies, guidance, techniques and/or related technologies to the nation's first responders and public safety agencies that increase their ability to save lives and protect property from lithium-ion battery fires, improves the health and safety of responders who respond to incidents of this nature, and ensure communities understand safety and security requirements for expanded battery usage across residential, commercial, and other properties.

Secure U.S. Borders and Approaches (BORAP)

DHS secures U.S. borders, territorial waters, ports, terminals, waterways, and air, land, and sea transportation systems. DHS S&T invests in border security research and development for technologies and solutions to prevent illicit movement and the illegal entry or exit of people, weapons, dangerous goods, and contraband; and provides solutions that help manage risks posed by people and goods in transit.

Priority RDT&E needs and topics are:

BORAP 01: Screening at Speed

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: Screening at Speed seeks to mature transformative technologies that increase aviation security effectiveness from curb-to-gate while dramatically reducing wait times and improving passenger experiences.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type II

END OBJECTIVE: The end objective is a prototype solution capable of improving the security, throughput, and/or passenger experience at the airport checkpoint or similar environments.

Capabilities of particular interest include accessible property (carry-on baggage) screening systems, components, and algorithms; on-person screening systems, components, and algorithms; curb-to-gate screening capabilities and integration architectures; cyber secure architecture and capabilities; and passenger facing technologies to improve the overall user experience.

BORAP 02: Noninvasive, Minimally Disruptive Sensors and Systems

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: DHS S&T seeks innovative, noninvasive, minimally disruptive sensors and systems that can detect and locate clandestine, unknown subterranean threats, subterranean tunneling activities (tunnels and other objects of interest to law enforcement) within varied geologies of the southwest border. Modalities sought by this announcement will consider both persistent and mobile technologies.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type II

END OBJECTIVE: The end objective of this effort is to transfer the advancement of tunnel detection technologies to enhance the mission capability of DHS Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to disrupt, mitigate, and investigate clandestine criminal subterranean cross-border activity. The solutions must be operationally relevant, measurable, beneficial, and consistent with the documented priorities and needs of the DHS Component customer.

BORAP 03: Air Based Technologies

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The Air Based Technologies (ABT) program advances manned and unmanned aircraft technology to improve the mission capability of the DHS operational components as well as the extended HSE.

Within the ABT program, there are three focus areas:

1. ISR Sensors;

2. Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS) Technology; and

3. C4 Operations (Command, Control, Communications, and Computers).

The focus area of ISR Sensors seeks solutions, processes, and means to advance the development and transition of ISR sensor technology applicable for HSE operational scenarios.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The end objective of any ABT project is to transfer the advancement of aircraft technology (manned and/or unmanned) to enhance the mission capability of the DHS Operational Components and the extended HSE. The enhancement must be operationally relevant, measurable, beneficial, and consistent with the documented priorities and needs of the mission partner.

BORAP 04: Countering Unmanned Aircraft Systems

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The primary objective of this LRBAA is to develop enhanced technologies and methods that allow for the detection, tracking, identification, and mitigation of unmanned aircraft systems under varied terrains and environmental conditions such as, but not limited to:

• Dense urban environments;

• Mass Gatherings (i.e. sporting events);

• Critical Infrastructure (i.e. bridges, power plants, reservoirs);

• Mobile platforms (i.e. moving vehicles, boats, aircraft); and

• Remote desert and mountainous terrain.

New technologies and enhanced methods should be able to detect, track, identify and mitigate an array of unmanned aircraft threats and flight modalities that include, but are not limited to:

• Remote manual flight control using radio frequency-based transmissions;

• Remote flight control using commercial networks (i.e. cellular, satellite), particularly 5G;

• Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) supported pre-programmed flights; and

• Autonomously pre-programmed flights that are unsupported by GNSS:

• Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) not emitting or receiving RF signals (operating autonomously via alternative navigation); and

• Detect, Track and ID of multiple, simultaneous UAS with selective mitigation and low or no collateral effects.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type II and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The end objective is to transfer the advancement of Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) technologies to enhance the mission capability of the DHS Operational Components and the extended HSE.

The enhancement must be operationally relevant, measurable, beneficial, and consistent with the documented priorities and needs of the mission partner.

BORAP 05: Maritime Domain Awareness Technologies

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The Maritime Safety and Security Program develops and transitions technical capabilities that enhance U.S. maritime border security by safeguarding lawful trade and travel and helps to prevent illegal use of the maritime environment to transport illicit goods or people.

Within the MSSP, DHS S&T seeks technologies for the enhancement of Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) and maritime surveillance capabilities for US ports and coastlines. DHS S&T is seeking new and emerging sensor, system, and data technologies suitable for the full spectrum of maritime operations that will improve vessel detection, tracking, and interdiction capabilities to mitigate threats to American citizens and their coastlines, including drug and human traffic smuggling, piracy, and illegal fishing, and to optimize search and rescue efforts.

These technologies may be tested anywhere within U.S. territorial waters, the U.S. Economic Enforcement Zone, or other areas of interest to the United States Coast Guard (USCG), CBP, or ICE. The technologies are expected to be scalable or adaptable to multiple geographic regions of the United States.

The end users for these technologies will be the USCG, CBP, and ICE, and their maritime partners.

Potential technologies may include but are not limited to: surface or subsurface systems, platforms, sensors, radar, or optics; air or space-based systems and platforms; communications systems; and data analytics systems.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type II and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The Maritime Safety and Security Program develops and transitions technical capabilities that enhance U.S. maritime border security by safeguarding lawful trade and travel and helps to prevent illegal use of the maritime environment to transport illicit goods or people.

The capabilities developed through the MDA Technologies research activity will provide DHS and components with new maritime surveillance capabilities as part of a system-of-systems approach to improving MDA. Once technologies are transitioned, DHS will have enhanced, unique maritime surveillance capabilities that can be applied on a broader scale.

BORAP 06: Immigration Services Program

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: DHS administers and protects the nations lawful immigration system.

The Department manages a range of programs and processes more than 50 different types of benefit requests, ensuring accurate, timely, and lawful distribution of immigration benefits. DHS is responsible for adjudicating requests and petitions for citizenship and naturalization; family-based immigration; employment; adoptions; and temporary visas for work, study, business, recreation, and cultural exchange. In addition, DHS administers several humanitarian and workforce programs; promotes the lawful assimilation of immigrants into American society; and detects, deters, and mitigates threats to the immigration system. DHS's role in administering and protecting the immigration system is essential in promoting and preserving America's values.

DHS S&T Immigration Services Program (henceforth referred to as the Program) aims to enhance DHS's ability to efficiently adjudicate immigration benefits applications, improve efficiency through data-driven immigration policy decisions, combat immigration fraud and abuse, increase the technological capabilities and integration of immigration enforcement, and share immigration data across the HSE.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The objectives of the Program are the development and integration of innovative solutions to safeguard the Homeland, enhance data sharing, and strengthen DHS's ability to administer the immigration system. The Program aims to identify vulnerabilities, develop analytical tools, evaluate, and transition technology solutions to:

• Enhance the accuracy and completeness of immigration, employment, and identity services, enabling confident, timely, and lawful decision making;

• Enhance customer focused services; and provide fair, consistent, and timely decision making on immigration benefit applications, petitions, and requests;

• Improve the ability to identify, deter, and mitigate known and unknown risks to the lawful immigration system;

• Enhance the ability to generate and utilize reliable and comprehensive data to inform decision making at strategic and operational levels;

• Enhance immigration policy making process through the development of improved immigration data collection, sharing, analysis capabilities, and continuous improvement;

• Enhance efficient and effective immigration enforcement;

• Identify root causes of migration and support migration management, including improving migrant processing through appropriate channels and enhancing the ability of the Department to respond effectively to migrant surges; and

• Increase capabilities of virtual and fully electronic immigration processing.

BORAP 07: Detection Canine Technologies

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: Detection Canine's development interests are focused on three areas:

1. Canine Research and Development (R&D) Structure and Function - understanding of canine behavior, genetics, olfaction, and cognition to improve operational efficiencies and training methods;

2. Development and Testing of Canine Training Aids - targeting the creation of low cost, non- hazardous emerging threat and conventional explosive training aids, with state-of-the-art laboratory technology for odor validation to the level of canine detection and odor generalization analysis studies to reduce requisite numbers of trained odors:

• Revisiting and further evaluating explosives detection canine generalization capability.

This includes focusing on three areas1: (1) "canine factors," (2) "contaminated" explosives vs "clean" training aids, (3) and the number of training aids required for ideal generalization; and

3. Independent Operational Test and Evaluation - Technologies and methodologies that advance detection canine performance in controlled and operational environments representative of the HSE at the Federal, state, and local level, that facilitate scientifically

(1) The canine factors area is similar to human factors in which the time between training aid exposures, number of blanks, impact on performance of hits in training scenarios versus operational scenarios, and target density are evaluated.

(2) Evaluation of contaminated explosives versus clean training aids focuses on the crux of canine generalization, is there a point (or range) at which the canine no longer detects the explosive due to contamination. Unlike traditional definition, in this sense, contamination is any compound (wrappings, fuels, shrapnel, etc.) that imparts an odor on the bomb.

(3) The last area is an optimization of the number of training aids with a similar base explosive required for the canine to generalize to potential finds in operations. Historical generalization work has shown that training on a single compound is insufficient for proper generalization, but research into determining the ideal number of training aids for generalization has not been completed.

significant data capture through independent operational test and evaluation.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I

END OBJECTIVE: The goal of this effort it to provide greater insight to detection canine's capabilities through sound scientific evaluation of training and deployment. By conducting research in the above areas, optimizations in training can be discovered and employed to augment DHS components detection canine programs for improved detection efficiency and effectiveness.

• The goal of canine factors is to produce scientifically validated guidance to improve the detection canine capability;

• The goal of the contaminated versus clean area is to determine if there is a point or range in which the detection canine will no longer detect the explosive having only been exposed to their training aid inventory. Once this point or range is known, a follow-on would be to determine how to mitigate this point; and

• The goal of the optimization of the number of training aids for generalization is to provide guidance on the minimum number of different forms of the same base explosive to have a canine that can detect any range of explosives they would be exposed to in an operational setting.

The canine factors area is similar to human factors in which the time between training aid exposures, number of blanks, impact on performance of hits in training scenarios versus operational scenarios, and target density are evaluated. Evaluation of contaminated explosives versus clean training aids focuses on the crux of canine generalization, is there a point (or range) at which the canine no longer detects the explosive due to contamination. Unlike traditional definition, in this sense, contamination is any compound (wrappings, fuels, shrapnel, etc.) that imparts an odor on the bomb. The last area is an optimization of the number of training aids with a similar base explosive required for the canine to generalize to potential finds in operations.

Historical generalization work has shown that training on a single compound is insufficient for proper generalization, but research into determining the ideal number of training aids for generalization has not been completed.

BORAP 08: Maritime Environment and Climate and Coastal, Port, and Waterway Security

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The Maritime Environment and Climate and Coastal, Port, and Waterway Security develops and transitions technology to protect waterways, ports, and maritime borders. Monitoring and ensuring the health of U.S. environment, coastal lines, and inland waterways ensures that maritime commerce flows freely and interdicts illegal activities attempting to utilize the maritime environment. These technologies will assist with various aspects of waterway management including maintaining infrastructure, monitoring waterway conditions, maintaining aids to navigation, ensuring free flow of commercial goods, identifying and efficiently responding to oil spills, developing alternatives to fossil fuels, offshore windfarms, disabling maritime threats, countering unmanned systems, identifying and boarding non-compliant vessels, etc.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type II and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The end objective is to keep U.S. waters safe, healthy, and efficient for travel, trade, and commerce while preventing criminal activities. At project completion, technologies will DHS component customers to be utilized to monitor security and health of ports, coast, and waterways and secure infrastructure and health of these environments.

BORAP 09: Forensics and Criminal Investigations

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: DHS’s diverse mission set includes countering terrorism and homeland security threats, securing borders and approaches to the United States, securing cyberspace and critical infrastructure, and preserving and upholding the nations prosperity and economic security. Criminal actors across the globe attempt to compromise the Nation's financial systems;

commit cybercrimes; attack critical infrastructure; smuggle drugs, weapons, contraband, people, and counterfeit goods in to and out of the United States; and exploit children and other vulnerable populations.

DHS S&T Forensics and Criminal Investigations Program (henceforth referred to as the Program) aims to provide enduring science support to DHS and other law enforcement partners through the identification, development, evaluation, and transition of technology targeted at improving the ability to collect, preserve, process, analyze, and share information to investigate and prosecute criminal actors.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I and Type II

END OBJECTIVE: The objectives of the Program are to provide enduring science support to DHS Components with forensics and criminal investigation capabilities. The Program aims to identify, develop, test & evaluate, and transition technology to:

• Recognize, preserve, collect, analyze, store, and share crime scene evidence with enhanced capabilities for faster, more accurate, and less error-prone comparisons with advanced tools, techniques, training, and systems that emphasize automation and human factors;

• Recognize, preserve, collect/extract, analyze, store, and share digital evidence with enhanced capabilities for full system/device access using faster, automated, and more accessible tools, techniques, training, and systems;

• Increase the capacity of DHS investigators to rapidly adjudicate and correlate evidence across DHS investigations; and

• Enhance DHS's technical investigation capabilities.

Secure Cyberspace and Critical Infrastructure (CYBCI)

The increasing reliance on complex data, technology, communication, and interconnectivity has expanded arenas of potential vulnerabilities and increased potential risk to governmental, citizen services, and critical infrastructure continuity. Protecting individuals and organizations from cyber attacks requires RDT&E, test and evaluation, and the technology transition of advanced cybersecurity and information assurance technology solutions to secure current and future critical cyber infrastructure.

Priority RDT&E needs and topics are:

CYBCI 01: Predictive Analytics

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: Predictive analytics, as applied to cybersecurity and critical infrastructure, is the ability to identify potential threat vectors and determine the probable course of action for each threat. This area develops novel methods and capabilities to identify, prevent, and respond to threats in information technology and operations technology networks that can have cascading impacts across multiple critical infrastructure sectors. These capabilities provide insight and situational awareness to analysts and decision makers to address rapidly evolving threats.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I, Type II, and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The objective is to deliver methods and capabilities that increase DHS's ability to identify, prevent, and respond to rapidly evolving cyber and infrastructure security threats.

CYBCI 02: Countering Identity Threats

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: Identity threats are rapidly evolving and DHS needs to stay ahead of them effectively enable trust across omni-channel experiences and within critical systems and facilities. Zero trust extends well beyond applications and requires innovation to address. This requires being able to identify natural persons, organizations and machines as well as the relationships, behavior and communication between them. This topic area is focused in two areas: Prevention & Mitigation and Detect and Understand.

New techniques, methods and technologies that prevent or mitigate:

• Novel identity theft and fraud problems: phishing, deepfakes including theft of biometric patterns across different communication channels (in-person, telephonic, remote online unsupervised, kiosk, supervised remote, etc.);

• Allow for exchange of anti-fraud or threat information in ways that doesn't compromise privacy and provide actionable information to mitigate threats;

• Ability to verify identity or other claims across multiple presentations securely across multiple channels and communication interfaces;

• Utilize digital signatures to verify the integrity of the information and identity of signer;

and

• Issue novel verified claims attested to by an organization, individual or machine that can provide new forms of trust.

New techniques, methodologies and technologies that enable detection and understanding of previously hidden or obfuscated identity threats:

• Discover relationships, types of relationships, query types, queries and identifiers using network science or other methods that enable novel understanding of identity threats;

• Detect vulnerabilities of identity credentials through entire supply chain, manufacturing, application, issuance and presentation processes;

• Ways to monitor information flows of bad actors that is not attributable by bad actors to the Government and allows an understanding of the changing illicit marketplaces;

• Methodologies that allow for modeling, understanding of detected threats and assigning scores to them to allow for risk weighting and prioritization of addressing;

• Ways to effectively test and evaluate identity threats in laboratory settings and operational settings; and

• Analyze the sensors, microelectronics, software, hardware, communication protocols for exploits of smart devices or systems that verified claims rely upon.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I, Type II, and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The objective of these efforts is to proactively adopt new capabilities that prevent or mitigate large swathes of existing threats while concurrently effectively detecting and understanding the changing threat landscape so DHS is not caught unawares by emerging problems. This will impact DHS and federal partners through: 1. enabling better detection, understanding and remediation of identity threats; and 2. reduction in existing vulnerabilities through increased adoption of more secure alternatives.

CYBCI 03: Shared Cyber Resilience

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The research and development of improved models of resilience across networked hardware and software systems and organizations through automated technical and social collaboration mechanisms. The research includes concepts of data-centric security, software and hardware assurance, security of cyber physical systems and human aspects of secure computing. Areas of interest include: automated cyber attack design and mitigation technologies; automated mechanisms for sharing mitigation policies and technical solutions across systems and organizational boundaries; resilient machine learning approaches; privacy preservation techniques; secure multi-party computing; distributed learning techniques and human-machine teaming for cybersecurity; cyber insurance technologies; and integration with traditional cyber technologies.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I

END OBJECTIVE: Secure federal civilian networks and critical infrastructure/cyber physical systems by incentivizing and enabling increased sharing of techniques to identify, prevent, mitigate, and remediate cyber attacks without sharing underlying sensitive data across agencies and partners. Increased ability to independently and collaboratively assess, prevent, and counter cybersecurity risks by automating solution sharing capabilities across systems and organizations.

Solution space may address one or more of the following domains: traditional fixed and mobile

IT; cloud environments; and Operational Technologies (OT).

CYBCI 04: Mobile Security and Resiliency R&D

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The research and development of creating or enhancing technologies to enable the secure and/or resilient use of mobile ecosystem technologies in support of the DHS mission. Areas of interest include: 5G; mobile supply chain; security analysis; mobile infrastructure resilience; emergency communications; mobile vulnerability analysis; mobile communication security protocol analysis; and security.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I

END OBJECTIVE: The development of technologies that secure and add resilience to the mobile ecosystem that support DHS use cases.

CYBCI 05: Software and Hardware Supply Chain Assurance

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The research and development of tools and techniques to ensure the resilience of the data, software, and hardware used to execute homeland security mission functions. Areas of interest include: novel applications of post quantum cryptography;

homomorphic encryption, augmented/virtual/cross reality technologies, and secure-by-design programming languages and architectures; secure implementations of sensors and Internet of Things (IoT), Operational Technologies (OT), Cyber Physical Systems (CPS); High Performance Computers (HPC); microelectronics; edge, cloud, fog, mobile, and quantum computing; civil space systems; and supply chain assurance techniques such as software and hardware bill of materials, static and dynamic analysis tools for commercial and open source software, automated secure code development and vulnerability remediation, and integration into DevSecOps pipelines.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I

END OBJECTIVE: Ensure advanced computing software and hardware applications are designed to rapidly adapt to the evolving security environment of future technologies, leverage advances in emerging technologies to increase cybersecurity across operations and increase assurance across the supply chain and life cycle of key hardware and software employed in cybersecurity functions and critical infrastructure.

CYBCI 06: Trustworthy and Responsible Artificial Intelligence

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: The research and development of creating or enhancing technologies to enable DHS to effectively assess the performance of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) systems against technical and mission metrics, provide operators making critical decisions an appropriate level of trust and confidence, inspire trust in the general public towards AI/ML systems deployed by DHS. Areas of interest include: develop methods, processes and technologies for explainable AI for mapping AI and ML decision process reasoning to human-understandable terms; develop risk analysis framework for malicious or unintentional misuse, accidents, or other errors and failures of AI technology; identifying and managing bias in AI;

develop methods for AI robustness, including techniques such as uncertainty quantification for AI and ML applications, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANS), and robust control techniques, etc.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I

END OBJECTIVE: The end objective is applied research and development for establishing some parameters for consideration of explainability, including discussion about the tradeoffs between performance and explainability, study of risk evaluation of AI/ML with focus on their impact on specific DHS use cases; development of recommendations for best practice for reducing AI/ML risk associated with use case important for DSH components operations.

CYBCI 07: Advanced and Emerging Data Computation and Analytics

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: This topic focuses on novel computational and analytic methods and capabilities for large-scale data sets for DHS missions. DHS must keep pace with rapidly evolving and emerging computing techniques and environments by experimenting with growing number and size of data sets and next generation technologies, including real-time analytics, privacy enhancing technologies such as secure multi-party computation, high performance computing, edge computing, blockchain, and cloud environments to inform program planning, avoid technical obsolescence, accelerate transition, and prevent mission surprise. DHS S&T research addresses scaling automation and computation for efficient, timely analytics and methods and tools that increase mission effectiveness with security and privacy built-in. Beyond technology, the research includes understanding how humans make decisions using technology, tasks humans can/should do rather than machines, new methods for validating analytics for reliability and trustworthiness in operations, bias in data, and other factors that are important considerations in applying data analytics successfully in operations.

Future Computing Architectures: Research and evaluation on data storage and infrastructure to improve real-time, efficient computation with built-in privacy and security.

Media and Augmented Analytics: Interdisciplinary research that develops methods and evaluates and applies advanced/emerging capabilities to leverage public, government, and commercial data sets. Media refers to both text and binary data types. Augmented analytics are capabilities that aid human decision making.

Analytic Concepts and Capabilities: Exploration of capabilities and concepts that have yet to be well-defined or matured for DHS. Past examples of work in this area include game theory applications for airport screening, model drift and bias detection, and others.

Particular interests near-term: Quickly producing high fidelity digital twins for critical-infrastructure applications (e.g., power, chemical, water, etc.); new capabilities in privacy enhancing computations that are scalable to DHS operations; new capabilities that support individual and organizational control over data over the life of the data; third-party model validation; novel reinforcement learning applications for homeland security problems; analytic solutions for infrastructure security and cybersecurity, including mobile device; increasing quality of synthetic data images for machine learning in high consequence decision-making particularly when data is scarce and collection is challenging.

TOPIC RESEARCH SOUGHT: Type I, Type II, and Type III

END OBJECTIVE: The objective is to deliver methods and capabilities that increase DHS's ability to leverage value from increasing growth in data set volume for enhancing mission effectiveness and efficiency.

CYBCI 08: GMD and Nuclear EMP Critical Infrastructure Risk

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: High altitude Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) or a naturally occurring Geo-Magnetic Disturbance (GMD), also referred to as "space weather") events, have the potential to disrupt or permanently damage electrical components and systems within the critical infrastructure sectors (e.g., industrial control systems, large power transformers, network routers, traffic controllers, and radio receivers/transmitters) and large-scale infrastructure (e.g., the electric power grid, communication networks, satellite networks and interstate pipelines).

DHS S&T’s goal is to improve our understanding of the effects of EMP/GMD events on communications infrastructure (and other critical infrastructure) and drive research activities to provide practical, data-driven, specific, and actionable information, concepts,…