Attachment L-4 - Research Topics.pdf

Attachment L-4

Attachment L-4 Sample Research Topics

Research Field # 1: Communication:

Topic # 1 – Communication Systems Software Development and Analysis The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development of formal, mathematically-based methods supporting software development for the control and operation of communications systems. Development and design of algorithms for articulated antenna pointing and tracking, hardware and software co-design, synthesis of system models from scenarios, and graphical user interface (GUI) software are of special interest. Areas of interest include autonomous systems integration, antenna pointing, tracking and handoff, and architecture monitor and analysis using multiple RF and networked communication paths for a comprehensive control capability.

Topic # 2 – Development of Unmanned Airborne System (UAS) Communication The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of line-of-sight (LOS) and beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communications system in cooperation and under the direction of NRL. This includes software and hardware integration, leveraging of COTS and GOTS systems, compiling and filing the necessary data for frequency authorization and approval for developed systems, and execution of bench and field testing of systems and sub-systems for evaluation and performance metrics. The contractor shall provide written documentation of work conducted, and work in conjunction with NRL to develop designs, procedures, and test plans for these communications systems.

Topic # 3 – Link budget analysis The Contractor shall conduct link budget analysis and system evaluations of existing or proposed DoD communications in support of both white paper studies and real-world demonstrations. The contractor shall draw information from Navy and DoD sources for information such as communication terminal parameters, concepts of operation, theaters of operation and atmospheric conditions in which this links will operate. These analyses will be conducted for both line-of-sight (LOS) and satellite communications links.

Topic # 4 – Tactical Communications The Contractor shall design and analyze RF communication protocols for use with modernized cryptography in tactical environments. The Contractor shall use relevant RF propagation models for these environments that include HF, UHF, VHF, and various SATCOM links. Specifically the HF modems for both parallel and serial tone modems will need to be implemented and their performance modeled. Updated versions of these modems that better match the modernized communication modes will need to be studied and developed. Techniques for Foreword Error Correction (FEC) combined with robust data communications protocols also to be used with modernized cryptography will need to be developed for these tactical RF environments. Techniques for Over-The-Air-Delivery (OTAD) of keying material will need to be analyzed for use with modernized cryptography and methods with improved performance and usability designed.

Topic # 5 – Resilient, Assured Networks.

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts in the area of hybrid protocol, open-source routing, and serverless networking in an Anti-Access, Area Denial, wireless, heterogeneous littoral and inland battlespace. These technologies enable cognitive networks, efficient use of available spectrum, and robustness with effective congestion control for tactical edge and distributed sensor/autonomous system networks.

Topic # 6 – Advanced Tactical Data Links (ATDL).

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts to identify candidate technologies for next generation tactical data links and networks to include cross-compatibility with legacy systems including CEC, Link 16, and other tactical edge and IC community communications and networks systems. Facilitate use of heterogeneous communication media such as Link-16, MADL, CDL, CEC/DDS, and TTNT to provide both IP and non-IP data service with improved robustness, connectivity, security, and bandwidth efficiency in an A2AD environment, as well as integrated reach-back and connectivity with operational networks and SATCOM links.

Topic # 7 – RF Exploitation

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts in the area of wireless network connectivity between afloat platforms, including ships, aircraft, and UAV’s. Includes Line of Sight (LOS) solutions and use of advanced waveforms to maximize bandwidth at various ranges to achieve the best signal surpluses, to include improved antennae, maximizing efficiency of legacy communications links, UAV communications relays, and wireless connectivity for surface vessel-bourne boarding teams. There is particular interest in adhoc mobile-area network (MANET) solutions and application compatible with current afloat platform capabilities, particularly CDL, TTnT, Link 16 and other established wireless network capabilities.

Topic # 8 – SATCOM Mitigation The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development of methods and techniques for overcoming loss of SATCOM connectivity between (a) deployed units in an Expeditionary or Carrier Strike groups (ESG or CSG; respectively), and (b) connectivity between Operations Centers and deployed ESG/CSG in any given geographic area of responsibility. Solutions must be exportable, scalable, and relevant in any geographic maritime environment in which an ESG or CSG might operate. Particular interest exists in small SWaP solutions that can be hosted on small- to medium-UAVs, and in other airborne relays, as well as exploitation of existing, unaffected SATCOM systems to include low-earth orbiters.

Topic #9 – Spectrum Sharing The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development of methods that enable other than exclusive use of spectrum for wireless applications. These includes Spectrum Sensing, channel optimization, database coordination, cooperative networking, spectrum reuse, data exchange and other methods have been considered to be a component of the solution that will enable commercial exploitation of available spectrum bands that are currently exclusively used by the military. The architecture of such solutions along with the technology to enable it is of interest.

Consideration of the security implications is a key aspect as technology to enable sharing architectures must respect the confidentiality, integrity and assurance aspects to ensure viable trusted sharing mechanisms

Topic #10 – Protocol development and Network-Transport Layer technologies The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development of routing, server-less networking, interfaces with the PHY- MAC Layers, sensible transport and protocols, a distributed, autonomous data-flow based network management paradigm, and network analytics (both topology and utilization based). This work also includes information theory research and development of IETF/IRTF International Internet standards and RFC’s.

Topic #11 – Network Emulation Test Bed and Tool-kit development and implementation The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development and implementation of emulation techniques with reference implementations of the physical layer, robust environmental and propagation models, military scenario-based state machines, and full, actual network stacks to emulate operational and tactical network behavior and performance up to 200 nodes, with scalable techniques that can be used on similar platforms with more nodes. It also includes performing verification-validation tests as part of TRL 4 to TRL 6 capability development.

Topic #12 – Communications Intelligence & Signal Intercept Technology Research and development of techniques and signal processing systems for signal intercept and information operations applications. This includes the development of algorithms for the recognition and processing of communications signals and protocols. The result of the research may be a prototype system which may further result in this functionality being integrated into existing systems or stand-alone systems, and may be transferred to over Government or Government-funded organizations.

Research Field # 2: Computing and Data Storage:

Topic # 1 – High Performance Computing Environment The Contractor shall conduct research in the development of reliable, heterogeneous, high-performance computing (HPC) environments including desktop workstations, massively parallel computers, local and distributed storage systems and high-performance network interconnects. HPC systems under study range from traditional to novel, from air-cooled to liquid-cooled to immersive-cooled. Storage systems range from directly attached to network attached, local to the computer room and distributed across the globe. Network interconnections range from Fibre Channel to Ethernet to InfiniBand and include both the LAN (Local Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network). A separate, but highly desired goal, is to transition capabilities generated in this area to lesser computing needs. Tailored solutions that only work in HPC environments are less desirable than solutions that can work in lower performing environments.

Topic # 2 – High Performance Data Storage The Contractor shall conduct research in the areas of high capacity and high performance data storage and retrieval. Data systems that serve the HPC environment must be capable of storing and retrieving large volumes of data (terabytes and petabytes) quickly (100’s of gigabits-per-second to terabits-per-second). Since both NRL HPC researchers, as well as our colleagues at other institutions, access HPC systems from across the country, one goal of distributed storage systems is to “appear local” to wherever the researchers computing assets are located. A separate, but highly desired goal, is to transition capabilities generated in this area to lesser storage needs. Tailored solutions that only work in high performance storage environments are less desirable than solutions that can work in lower performing environments.

Topic # 3– High Performance Computing-Data Storage Interconnections The Contractor shall conduct research in the areas of high-performance networking technologies and protocols in which to interconnect HPC and data storage systems. These networking technologies are employed locally (inside the data center), across the campus (LAN) and across long distances (metro and cross-country WAN). To achieve the highest levels of performance, the barriers between traditional computing and networking must be broken down and novel approaches sought. One such area is Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) in which computer-to-computer and computer-to-storage interconnections bypass the traditional network stack and behave as though both systems share the same memory bus. A separate, but highly desired goal, is to transition capabilities generated in this area to lesser networking needs.

Tailored solutions that only work in high performance communications environments are less desirable than solutions that can work in lower performing environments.

Topic # 3 – High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) The Contractor shall conduct research in topics of interest to the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP), of which NRL is an Affiliated Resource Center (ARC). Colleagues and collaborators from across the DoD and DoD-supported university system bring novel and hard-to-solve compute problems to NRL ARC assets. These problems require thorough analysis, and close working relationships with other scientists, to investigate new methods to determine which HPCMP computer systems are appropriate for their solution.

Topic # 4– Computational Algorithms and Applications The contractor shall conduct research and develop new techniques for exploring parallel decomposition of scientific and engineering models in such areas as acoustics, signal processing, weather prediction, ocean circulation, fluid dynamics, electromagnetics, image understanding and simulations. The contractor shall develop solution methods that account for optimal or near-optimal data flow, memory access and scalable distribution of processing. The contractor shall test resulting solutions using NRL's distributed high-performance computing facility. The contractor shall support and assist other HPC users in porting and running their scientific programs on NRL and other HPCMP resources available to NRL.

Topic # 5– High Performance Computing Security The contractor shall conduct research and develop novel methods to secure access to both computational resources as well as storage resources with minimal impact to performance. Specific areas of continued interest are the use of DoD Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)/Common Access Card (CAC), end-to-end Kerberos v5, network encryption and secure storage at rest. In all these areas, separate attention is given to key management (generate, storage, retrieval and authorized use).

One inherent goal is to either chose systems that are compatible with DoD/NSA guidelines or work with DoD and NSA organizations to further work in areas of noted deficiency. A separate, but highly desired goal, is to transition capabilities generated in this area to less demanding environments. Tailored solutions that only work in HPC environments are less desirable than solutions that can work in lower performing environments.

Topic # 5– Web-based Applications and Services The contractor shall conduct research and develop approaches to solving problems using emerging web technology. As “cloud” technologies mature, user access ranging from supercomputers to handhelds over both high-bandwidth and low-bandwidth links will blur. Services utilizing these technologies will range from the common (e-mail, simple web services) to the complicated (remote supercomputing and library access) to the novel (unforeseen services and/or interactions).

Techniques for bridging the large gap between high- and low-capacity systems while retaining high levels of performance and low-latency will need to be developed, especially when deployed over high-latency and/or high-loss communications channels.

Research Field # 3: Information and Artificial Intelligence:

Topic # 1 – Data Analysis and Experimentation

The Contractor shall perform exploratory analysis of customer data up to the SCI classification level to discover adversarial behavior indicators, patterns and/or trends. Models that capture learned indicators and patterns shall be developed, and methods shall be rapidly prototyped to apply models to detect and assess adversarial entities, their activities or their networks. Methods may include machine learning approaches, statistical anomaly detection, Bayesian data fusion and tracking, or automated link discovery and network assessment. Scientific experiments shall be designed and conducted to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the prototype adversarial modeling and behavior detection algorithms. Experimental results shall be documented, conclusions drawn, and recommendations made about best performing approaches in a final written report and accompanying presentation slides that sets forth the research goals and the tasks undertaken.

Customer data are primarily, but not exclusively, social in nature, and may include geographic, sociological, psychological, economic, anthropologic, cultural, criminology variables.

Topic # 2 – Case Study Research and Analysis

The Contractor shall perform case study research and analysis on weak and failing states to develop grounded, political science theories to counter violent extremist organizations. Models shall be developed using observational research data empirically-derived from weak and failing states. Testing methods for political science theories shall be developed that support analysis, assessment, and policy. The Contractor shall document the findings in a final written report and accompanying presentation slides that sets forth the analysis goals and details the findings, recommendations, and actionable next steps for each problem set. The Contractor shall provide assistance on the application of political science research theory and testing methods to tactical and operational planning and assessment staffs up to the SCI classification level.

Topic # 3– Decision Support

The Contractor shall conduct research towards the development of new and enhanced decision support capabilities. The development efforts shall include the derivation of new analytical techniques within the areas of mixed-initiative interactions (e.g., human-agent collaboration), machine learning, artificial intelligence, mathematics, web services, Service Oriented Architectures and semantic web services. The new and enhanced decision support capabilities must be developed within the context of DoD’s large data problem and furthermore advance the state-of-the-art in anomaly detection and pattern recognition. The decision support capabilities must be quantifiable and demonstrate improvements to military decision-making processes. The operational domains of interest in which the decision support systems must be evaluated and transitioned include, but not limited to, the supervisory control of autonomous systems, threat detection within cyber-warfare, maritime domain awareness and Stabilization, Security, Transition and Reconstruction Operations

(SSTRO).

Topic # 4– Information Management

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts with the goal of advancing technologies that maximize the effectiveness of an enterprise (e.g., military operations), by contributing to effective systems that discover, process, disseminate, visualize and present information in support of military decision making. Technologies that are of particular interest include: data management and exploitation technologies that apply emerging mathematics and information science to improve machine processing of large amounts of data, approaches for effective information use through intelligent notifications, mediation, access control, and persistence services; and techniques for automated management of information. Development in this area will involve the synchronization of these information presentation/visualization technologies over wide-area network environments.

Topic # 5– Information Processing

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts with the goal of advancing intelligent information systems technologies such as data management and exploitation technologies that apply emerging mathematics and information science to improve machine processing of large amounts of data; tools that reduce barriers to effective information use by providing intelligent notifications, mediation, access control, and persistence services; tools to assess information quality and suitability; tools that support automated management of information.

Topic # 6– Modeling and Simulation

The Contractor shall conduct research towards the development of advanced modeling and simulation architectures as applied to defense and weapons systems, particularly the application of high performance parallel and distributed computing technology. The development shall include classical cluster and shared memory architectures, graphics and other novel processing units, as well as geographically distributed large-scale simulations. Supporting technologies that are of particular importance include ontologies for math and physics-based models suitable for building composable systems, natural environmental effects servers for modeling and simulation (M&S) architectures, general purpose computing on graphics processing unit (GPU) processing, and web-based technology

Topic # 7– Computational Linguistics

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of statistical or semantic computational models of natural language from text or speech. The Contractor will conduct research in computational linguistics, including but not limited to cognitive modeling, semantics, pragmatics, syntax, morphology, phonology, theories of grammar, and psycholinguistics. The contractor will develop methods investigating linguistics of spatial relations, phonological analysis of dialect, semantic analysis for recovery after dialog interruptions, and the machine classification of spoken language. The Contractor will develop prototypes with a mixed-initiative reasoning component.

Topic # 8– Cognitive Architectures and High-Level Reasoning

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of theories and applications of comprehensive computational models of cognitive processes, especially as they relate to all aspects of reasoning. The Contractor shall develop models of autonomous decision making at multiple levels in a command structure, learning attention strategies, and cognitive systems that acquire strategies for controlling inference. Research will include integrated systems that mimic human cognitive capabilities, and can be applied to a broad range of analysis and problem solving tasks.

Topic # 9– Socially Aware Systems

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of computational models that are capable of socially aware inference, particularly while interacting with humans. Research will be conducted on abductive rationalizing agents that, using a relational representation for rules and beliefs, can incrementally generate coherent explanations of their observations. The Contractor shall develop a cognitive architecture that supports socially aware inference including the ascription of mental states to both itself and other agents in service of behavior prediction and explanation. Research will include phenomena associated with moral reasoning and decision-making are being used as drivers for developing these capabilities.

Topic # 10– Audio Interpretation and Cueing

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of methods for interpreting and generating audio signals to assist humans with a variety of applications and environments. The Contractor shall develop algorithms (based on human perception of sound) for improving the performance of active sonar classification, identifying/modeling attentional principles for using virtual audio information in Navy watchstanding operations, and accelerating and serializing simultaneously-received audio communications so as to increase the capability of operators to monitor multiple radio channels. Research will use audio cueing techniques to combat issues pertaining to information overload.

Topic # 11– Intelligent Decision Aids

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of interactive decision support systems that assist human operators with conducting situation awareness activities, recommending response options, predicting the results of these options, and providing explanations for these predictions. The Contractor shall develop systems that are embedded in human-centric decision processes, such that they provide guidance rather than decision making. Research areas will include machine learning and related techniques for knowledge acquisition, models for interpreting observation sequences, and methods for ranking actions and predicting their effects.

Topic # 12– Goal Reasoning

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of agents that can dynamically determine their objectives. The Contractor shall develop sub-processes including plan recognition, state expectation generation, the detection of notable events, explanation generation, goal formulation, goal reprioritization, goal selection, and goal management. Research domains will include machine learning and related techniques for learning models used by these processes. Research will be conducted in the control of an underwater autonomous vehicle during long-duration missions, the centralized control of a heterogeneous team of unmanned autonomous systems, the control of individual robotic members of a human-robot team, and the control of simulated agents in air combat scenarios.

Topic # 13– Machine Learning

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of algorithms that simulate the improvement of performance over time, and can be used for a wide variety of applications. The Contractor shall develop active learning techniques to acquire domain models for goal reasoning, case-based reasoning algorithms for learning operator models to enhance their trust in robotic teammates, and deep learning techniques for semantic scene recognition. The Contractor will research a broad spectrum of learning techniques that range from knowledge-intensive to knowledge-poor, methods that have been inspired by nature, and their use in supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised, and reinforcement learning tasks.

Topic # 14– Automated Planning

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of algorithms and systems that can automatically generate executable plans given an initial state, goal state, and a state-transition model. The Contractor shall develop algorithms for challenging domains that require relaxing several classical planning assumptions (e.g., partial observability, stochastic actions, continuous state and action spaces, adversarial agents). Research will include methods for hierarchical task or goal planning, for bridging the gap between deliberative and reactive control architectures, for providing guarantees on the executability of task decomposition expansions, and for planning among collaborative agents.

Topic # 15–Bio-Inspired Computation

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of behaviors and algorithms inspired by biology for collective and/or coordinated decision making, including behaviors and techniques such as grazing, herding, swarming, ant colony algorithms, and quorum sensing. The Contractor shall develop methods for evolutionary computation (e.g., co-evolutionary algorithms), which can conduct an iterative search through the space of genomes as guided by a fitness function, where genetic operators are used to derive new genomes from an evolving genome population. The Contractor will use genetic algorithms to solve continuous optimization and combinatorial optimization problems.

Topic # 16– Distributed Control of Autonomous Systems

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of distributed sensing and intelligent control of a set of unmanned autonomous vehicles (e.g., ground, air, surface, underwater). The Contractor shall develop methods related to physicomimetics, a method that permits robotic agents to perceive and react to artificial physics forces. Recent work has involved the coordination of heterogeneous ground and air vehicles for surveillance tasks, plume detection, and related tasks. The Contractor will conduct research in swarm intelligence, and using physicomimetics for swarm control.

Topic # 17– Computational Models of Trust

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of systems concerning operator trust in automation and autonomous systems. The Contractor shall study the characteristics of an automated system, how they affect operator trust, and cognitively-plausible process models of operator trust in automation. The Contractor shall develop methods for learning models of operator-specific preferences and using these to adapt an agent’s behavior so as to increase trust.

Topic # 18– Cognitive Modeling

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts for the creation and testing of cognitively-plausible models of human behavior. The Contractor shall research predicting and preventing procedural errors, the cognition of complex visualizations, interruptions and resumptions, and spatial cognition. The Contractor shall use Act-R to encode and apply these models. The Contractor shall conduct human subject studies in which subjects interact with Navy-relevant simulations, and analysis of subject behavior to determine fits with cognitive models.

Topic # 19– Cognitive Robotics

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of embodied cognition in which cognitive models are encoded in (and are used to control the behavior of) robots that interact with humans. The Contractor shall develop advanced technologies for shipboard damage control, which requires cognitive models to create a humanoid robot’s cognitive skills. The Contractor shall study how Theory of Mind can be used to model and simulate the cognitive processes of other agents and permit reasoning on those models.

Topic # 20– Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of all aspects of perception and reasoning to support HRI. The contractor shall develop perception (both aural and visual) tasks that include parsing of human speech, utterance disambiguation, and gesture recognition. The Contractor shall research reasoning tasks that include inferencing from perceptions, maintaining mental models of state and context, and decision making in support of the robot’s human operators. The Contractor shall develop intelligent systems that are able to work more effectively with people.

Topic # 21– Computer Vision

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of systems associated with interpreting imagery and video corpora. The Contractor shall research neural network (e.g., deep learning) techniques and their efficient implementations, and the use of tripod operators. Interpretation tasks will include, but are not limited to, feature extraction, object detection, pose estimation, and activity recognition. Applications of interest include scene interpretation and autonomous platform navigation. The Contractor shall investigate methods for combining machine perception techniques with computational cognitive models to support higher-level understanding, to allow cognitive systems to influence perception, and for perception to prime cognition.

Topic # 22– Aerial Surveillance

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of methods for collecting situation awareness from sensors mounted on unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). The contractor shall develop methods for identifying key features, such as paths (e.g., roads, railroad tracks, coastlines) and objects/entities that inhabit them, which would be of interest to warfighters who are approaching or already traversing these paths.

Topic # 23– Range Imaging

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of passive and active techniques for producing images showing the distance to points in a scene from a specific point. The Contractor will develop methods used to detect weapons (e.g., RPGs, unexploded munitions) by their shape using efficient object detection algorithms on hardware platforms (e.g., cameras, projectors, photomasks) for generating 3D images of a scene, and methods for detecting and interpreting shapes of interest, including range scaled chain codes.

Topic # 24– Face Recognition

The Contractor shall conduct research and development and integration efforts toward the development of automated approaches for identifying individuals from images under varying and challenging lighting conditions, possibly with occlusions. The Contractor will develop algorithms for identifying and enclosing the region in the human face space that belongs to a target person, and neuro-inspired techniques for computing the similarity of two faces. The Contractor will conduct research in the area of watchlist surveillance, in which the objective is to determine whether someone is among a given set of people based only on face imagery.

Research Field # 4: Man-Machine Interfaces:

Topic # 1 – Human Subject Studies and Experimentation

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts in the area of human systems integration to enhance human and system performance, and recruit potential research participants for involvement in human subject research efforts conducted by NRL. Additional objectives include collaboratively working with the government to identify a population of potential subjects who are interested in participating in research studies that meet the specific requirements defined by NRL, and scheduling or conducting the experiments.

Topic # 2 – Immersive Simulations and Virtual Environments

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts in the area of immersive simulations and virtual environments. This includes the development of T algorithms for collision detection and handling, full body avatar control, and realistic movement and control. Additional interest is in the design and implementation of the software architectures used to create the immersive simulation and virtual environments. Supporting objectives include the design of device interfaces for the virtual environment and experimental tests to determine the behavioral fidelity of the output to the user (typical devices are real-time tracking systems, custom measurement devices, instrumented weapons props, and wireless transmitters).

Topic # 3 – Virtual and Augmented Reality

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts in the area of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mobile augmented reality systems and their supporting algorithms, architectures and interaction techniques.

Applications of these devices include head-worn and other mobile see-through displays, immersive VR displays, wearable computers, tracking systems, and pen-based or glove-based interaction systems. Areas of particular interest include human factors evaluations, usability-based methodologies to quantify the costs and benefits of design choices, and understanding how system fidelity and training objectives interact and expressing results in terms of improvements in the field or live exercises.

Topic # 4 – Visual Analytics

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts in the area of multiple visual representations and multivariate visualizations. Areas of particular interest include system architectures, large-scale displays (especially tiled display systems), scientific visualization, multivariate representations, statistical analysis techniques, and coordinated data views. Specific interest is in human factors evaluations, new visualization metaphors, and measuring or assessing information overload. Typical application of developed algorithms include: display techniques, information filtering or selection, aggregation or fusion of data streams, and interaction techniques. Data attributes include uncertainty and behavior over time. Interaction techniques include 2D, 3D, and multi-modal techniques.

Research Field # 5: Networking:

Topic # 1 – High Performance Communications and Networking The Contractor shall conduct research in the area of high performance communications and networking. A common computer communications and network environment that interconnects high-end computing assets (supercomputers, “cloud” services, etc.) to both users and other computing assets must be capable of local (data center), campus (LAN) and global (WAN) reach. Communications protocols with current and future growth include SONET, G.709, Optical Transport Network (OTN), Packet-over-SONET (POS), Ethernet (including 10-GigE, 100-GigE and higher), InfiniBand (SDR, QDR, FDR and higher), Coarse and Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (CWDM &DWDM) and all-optical (OOO) interconnects.

Topic # 2 – Remote Access and High-Latency, High-Loss Environments The Contractor shall conduct research in the area of high- and low-performance remote access. Techniques such as Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) in which computer-to-computer and computer-to-storage interconnections bypass the traditional network stack and behave as though both systems share the same memory bus are critical to this area. RDMA is inherent to protocols such as InfiniBand and are being modified to work over older technologies (ROCE, RDMA Over Converged Ethernet, is one such example). Adaptation to high-latency (global or double-satellite hops) and/or high-loss (channel with high error rates or congestion) is critical. Protocols such as UDT (UDP-based Data Transfer) and NORM (NACK-Oriented Reliable Multicast) show promise and are candidates in this area of research.

Topic # 3 – “Smart Networks” The Contractor shall conduct research in the area of distributed computing along network/communication paths. Unlike traditional distributed computing in which one accesses supercomputing assets remotely, this area of research distributes varies aspects of the “problem” across processing nodes along the data path. In the “sensor to shooter” model, one can perform some or all of the necessary computing processes from the source (where the data is collected with possibly local processing) through an intermediate storage facility (where some computing would be available) through a supercomputer system and onto the ultimate user (who may have some local computing capability).

Topic # 4 – Network Protocol Development The Contractor shall conduct research in the area of network protocol development in both high-performance and high-latency environments. The need to interconnect high-performance computing and storage systems together or to lower-performance systems will require adaptation of existing network protocols as well as development of new ones.

Topic # 5 – Application of Cryptographic Network Devices The Contractor shall conduct research in the area of cryptographic network device application and integration. Without focusing on the actual cryptographic algorithms, devices that secure network access inherently reduce the functionality of that device to interoperate with traditional network devices. Performance and usability, or the lack thereof, are critical measures of how well a cryptographic network devices will function. Network analysis must be conducted in concert with the design of the device, and initially after prototype, to ensure that device’s performance will be acceptable.

Research Field # 6: Operational IT:

Topic # 1 – Computer Security The Contractor shall provide support in the design and development of a variety of information security capabilities. The contractor shall perform analysis and deployment of security vulnerability assessment tools. The contractor shall perform tracking of security advisories and develop software for security assessments on a wide range of platforms. The contractor shall perform vulnerability scans on NRL systems and work with system administrators to resolve a variety of security issues

Topic #2 – Data Storage and Archive The Contractor shall provide support for the operation, management, upgrade and maintenance of the archival storage and database systems at NRL that supports the HPC infrastructure and includes data and databases used by the NRL Library, HPC users and Labwide Services. An additional component of the HPC infrastructure includes a COOP (Continuity of Operations Plan) system for the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program's computing resource database.

Topic #3 – Virtualized System The Contractor shall provide support for the operation, management, upgrade and maintenance of a virtualized computing environment. Virtual Machine (VM) services range from e-mail to calendaring to web content management to remote computing to specialized R&D applications. The breadth of this system spans the researcher to the administrative professional and from unclassified to highly-classified applications.

Topic # 4 – Library Sciences The Contractor shall provide research and support in the design, development and implementation of a variety of information technology solutions to support NRL library digital services. Support includes the analysis, development, testing and documentation of customized data formats and profiles for use with internally developed web and COTS applications and systems. The contractor shall perform integration and normalization of multiple licensed scientific data sources with COTS software to allow data migration between multiple applications. This effort will require the contractor to support WINDOWS and UNIX system administration, installation and troubleshooting of database and search engine technologies, support of Integrated Library Systems (ILS), Local Area Network (LAN)/Wide Area Network (WAN) services, NFS and CXFS file systems, authentication and authorization services and remote user access services.

Topic # 5 – Computer Networks The Contractor shall provide support to operate, maintain, enhance, and optimize NRL’s labwide operational network.

This network consists of broadband, copper and fiber optic Local Area Network (LAN) components deployed in accordance with industry standards. Use of necessary equipment including, but not limited to, signal generators, spectrum analyzers, signal analysis meters, time/domain reflectometers (TDRs), optical TDRs (OTDRs) and various cable scanners is required. Maintaining a broadband cable television (CATV) plant, which includes tuning the video broadband segments, and the repair of Radio Frequency (RF) components is required. The Contractor shall prepare reports and documentation on the LAN systems for use by network personnel and customers including feasibility studies for changes in the network environment due to growth or evolution of requirements. This includes UNIX system administration, system software development, installation and troubleshooting. The contractor shall install and maintain IPv4 and IPv6 network protocol suites on a variety of platforms including network backbone devices and workstations; assist and coordinate with NRL customers. The contractor shall provide configuration, software implementation recommendations, general and complex troubleshooting and resolution of network problems. Networking technologies include Ethernet, GigE and wireless. The contractor shall research, deploy, configure and manage networking services, including domain name service (DNS), remote access, web services and e-mail. Requirements include: Support of Apache and CAC access services integration. Provide support in front-end e-mail systems, including anti-virus scanning. Maintain Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Intrusion Protection System (IPS) services. Research, test and evaluate new communications software and tools.

Research Field # 7: Security:

Topic # 1 - Advanced Cryptographic Technologies

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the advancement of cryptographic technologies for the Cryptographic Modernization Initiative (CMI), that include software-based cryptography, secure kernel development for embedded real-time environments supporting MILS and MLS, cryptographic interoperability specifications for modern cryptographic waveforms, software definable radio architectures, modernized/dispensable cryptographic devices for the tactical edge, and modeling and emulation of high speed secure cryptographic techniques.

Topic # 2 - Advanced Cryptographic Technologies

The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the advancement of net- centric key distribution systems. Additionally, we are interested in secure key management architectures and advanced key management techniques, such as key net broadcast, group key concepts, quantum cryptography for COMSEC and secure key distribution, and integrated key/mission planning.

Topic # 3 - IA Enabling Technologies

The Contractor shall develop innovative solutions and IA enabling technologies in a broad spectrum of cyber security research areas that include:

• Secure BIOS / secure root-of-trust / secure hardware platform technologies (including, but not limited to ways of establishing hardware root-of-trust and using untrusted hardware in a trusted manner);

• Trusted data-at-rest protection techniques (including trusted disk encryption techniques, whether hardware-based, software-based or combined hardware-software approaches);

• Trusted networking techniques, especially in how they relate to host platform security (including device attestation techniques, trusted ways to connect to a network, device recognition and access control techniques based on secure roots of trust);

• Security enhanced / trusted operating system (OS) development (including trusted execution flow of programs / OS processes, SELinux and other policy developments, trusted integrity verification approaches, trusted application and OS update solutions)

Topic # 4 - Guarding Solutions The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the advancement of high assurance Cross Domain Solutions (CDS) to support assured information sharing for tactical network applications and platform environments.

Areas of research include but are not limited to: security policy management across disparate enclaves/domains, architectures and techniques to enable high throughput / low latency secure data transfer, high assurance data parsers for filtering. Likewise, we are interested in the research and development of secure gateway technology and new analysis tools and techniques for enabling remote monitoring/administration/configuration of such security devices.

Topic # 5 - Security Architecture The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the advancement of the design and development of security architectures and mechanisms for enterprise systems. Identity management systems and access control solutions for data sharing are of particular interest. In addition, we are interested in data protection mechanisms and vulnerability assessments of systems including cloud systems.

Topic # 6 - Application Security The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the advancement of innovative solutions and developing practical approaches that enhance application security. Emphasis will be placed on security ontologies for machine-understandability, automated machine understandable security policies and tools, application-specific security monitoring, reasoning capability to determine application status and flexible run-time binding to enhance survivability.

Techniques, tools, and solutions for automatic web service composition, as well as cross-domain web service discovery and invocation for multilevel secure SOA are also of interest.

Topic # 7 - High-assurance Software and Safe Execution Environments The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the advancement of software engineering methods, processes, and tools that are required to build or monitor high-assurance software. Additionally, we are interested in creating a safe software execution environment by using virtualization techniques to prevent failure propagation.

Topic # 8 - Mobile Security The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development of security algorithms, protocols, and infrastructure to effectively and efficiently support information sharing in the mobile environment. We are particularly interested in technologies that are suited to operate in the wireless medium, able to reduce the management complexity/overhead, enhance survivability, and support novel military requirements in the network centric battlefield.

Topic # 9 - Computer Network Defense The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development of high assurance network security architectures and solutions (e.g., components, toolkits, equipment, software, and systems). We are interested in the development of tools and solutions for security information, configuration management, and event management.

Emphasis on providing a single, holistic view of network health and status, aggregating data feeds from diverse sources, and optimization of network monitoring processes is of particular interest. Additionally, we are interested in development of tools, techniques, and solutions for network intrusion detection, as well as visualization capabilities to dynamically and visually display network situational awareness.

Topic # 10 - Malicious Code Analysis The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development of methods, tools, solutions for malicious code analysis, reverse code engineering, and other anti-forensic/anti-reversing techniques. The customization and maintenance of malware analysis tools, the application of knowledge of malicious code trends and concepts, and diverse reporting capabilities, such as compilation of malware research findings and identification of unique malware characteristics are also of interest. Additionally, we are interested in scrutinization of coding techniques, language usage/proficiency, and file format properties to identify the level of code sophistication and potential origin are also of interest.

Topic # 11 - Middleware for Secure and Dependable Distributed Systems The Contractor shall conduct research and development efforts toward the development of reconfigurable and secure middleware that includes, but is not limited to, transformational code development, multi-agent systems, agent-oriented software engineering, and the formal analysis of software engineering…