USMA-BAA-Amendment- 11.pdf

UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY

BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT

W911NF-20-S-0008

01 April 2020 – 31 March 2027

ISSUED BY:

U.S. Army Contracting Command Aberdeen Proving Ground

Research Triangle Park Division P.O. Box 12211

Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2211

Special Notes

1. Formatting of the Announcement

The following table provides an overview of the outline structure of this announcement:

I.

A.

1.

a.

i.

(1) (a) (i)

2. See Appendix 1 for a Table of Acronyms used in this announcement.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. OVERVIEW OF THE FUNDING OPPORTUNITY 1

A. Required Overview Content 3

1. Agency Name 3 2 Issuing Acquisition Office. 3

3. Research Opportunity Title 3

4. Announcement Type 3

5. Research Opportunity Number 3

6. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number and Title 3

7. Response Dates 3 B. Additional Overview Information 4

II. DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT THE FUNDING OPPORTUNITY 5

A. Program Description 5

1. Ballistics, Weapons, and Protections (BWT) Campaign 5

a. Blast Protection of Structures 5

b. Future Aviation Capabilities Research and Development 5

c. Next Generation Combat Vehicle Research and Development 5

d. Ballistics and Weapons Engineering Research and Development 5

e. Next Generation Soldier Systems Research and Development 6

2. Infrastructure, Energy, Resilience and Sustainability (ES) Campaign 6

a. Sustainability and Energy Resilience Research 6

b. Critical Infrastructure Resilience 7

3. Materials, Measurements, and Experiments (MMF) Campaign 7

a. Research and Development for Combating Corrosion and Improving Materiel

Readiness

b. Advanced MRI Measurements for Data Analysis and Model Validation 8

c. Material Science and Rapid Prototyping Research 8

4. Unmanned Systems and Space (USS) Campaign 8

a. Next Generation Unmanned Systems Research and Development 8

b. Robotic Systems Research and Development 9

c. Space Engineering and Rocket Technology Research 9

5. Human Support Systems (HSS) Campaign 9

a. Biomechanical Engineering 9

b. Wearable Technologies and Sensors 9

c. Design for Future Combat Leaders 10

d. Health, Nutrition, and Artificial Intelligence 10

6. Emerging Technologies Campaign 10

a. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Cyber Security 11

b. Quantum Sciences 11

c. Internet of Things (IOT) 12

d. AI for Human-robot and human-AI interaction 12

e. Data Science Campaign 13

f. Strategic Foresight on Emerging Technologies 14

7. Life Science Campaign 14

a. Biochemistry 14

b. Clinical Studies and Genetics 15

c. Microbiology 15

d. Neurophysiology of Cognition 16

e. Biomaterials and Additive Manufacturing Thrust 16

8. USMA Special Programs 17

a. Conferences 17

9. Social & Behavioral Sciences Campaign 18

a. Military Force Structure and the Use of Force Research 18

b. Civil Affairs (CA) Solutions 18

c. Law and Policy of Cyber Operations Campaign 19

d. Cultural Causes and Consequences of the Surveillance Economy 19

10. Combating Terrorism Campaign 20

a. Jihadist Terrorism 20

b. Domestic Violent Extremism 20

c. Technology and Terrorism 21

d. Counterterrorism Assessment 21

11. Simulations Modernization Campaign 21

a. Market Research about Simulations for training and education 21

b. Applied research about modeling and simulation for training and education 21

c. Simulated Small Unit Combat Research and Development 22

d. Automated Tactical Exercise Simulation for Military Science 22

e. Content Creation 22

f. Simulation for Training Cooperation 22

12. Curriculum and Outreach Campaign 23

a. Education and Outreach 23

b. Character of Future Warfare 23

c. Honor, Ethics, and Character Development 23

d. Novel Methods for Teaching Parallel and Distributed Computing 24

e. Performance Workshops Supporting Education Initiatives 24

f. Creating Sports Analytics Content to Promote the Growth of Data Science 24

13. Resilient Supply Chains Campaign 24

14. Advancing Military Music Research and Innovation 25

B. Federal Award Information 27 C. Eligibility Information 30

1. Eligible Applicants 30

2. Cost Sharing or Matching 30

3. Other 30 D. Application and Submission Information 31

1. Address to View Broad Agency Announcement 31

2. Content and Form of Application Submission 31

3. Unique Entity Identifier and System for Award Management (SAM) 43

4. Submission Dates and Times 44

5. Intergovernmental Review 44

6. Funding Restrictions 44

7. Other Submission Requirements 44 E. Application Review Information 45

1. Criteria 45

2. Review and Selection Process 45

3. Recipient Qualification 46 F. Award Administration Information 48

1. Award Notices 48

2. Administrative and National Policy Requirements 48

a. Required Representations and Certifications 48

b. Policy Requirements 50

3. Reporting 55 G. Agency Contacts 56 H. Other Information 57

1. Contract Proposals 57

2. Grant and Cooperative Agreement Proposals 65

APPENDIX 1: TABLE OF ACRONYMS

I. OVERVIEW OF THE FUNDING OPPORTUNITY

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point's mission is "to educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army." The United States Military Academy is located at West Point, New York. USMA executes research to enhance the education of cadets, develop the faculty professionally, and address important issues facing the Army and the Nation. In addition, the Academy conducts research and analysis in emerging fields that may realize novel or vastly improved Army capabilities.

At West Point, research is organized and administered through centers and institutes, most of which reside within academic departments. These centers and institutes, affiliated with each other through the West Point Werx Innovation Hub and coordinated by the Office of Research provide the infrastructure necessary to tackle the Nation’s and the world’s most challenging problems. Our research centers and institutes bring context to the classroom, are central to our vibrant and pioneering faculty, and are one way West Point connects to the Army and to the Nation. Our students are driven, our faculty is world-class, and through our centers, scholars and scientists thrive and produce their best work. Cadets regularly win Best Paper Awards at national and international graduate-level conferences, our faculty hold fellowships and chairmanships in their discipline's national organizations, and our products are deployed to the Soldier. In addition to applied research, there are centers and institutes at West Point that focus on other aspects of the USMA mission.

The USMA BAA identifies topics of interest to the USMA departments, directorates, and research centers and institutes. These groups focus on executing in-house research programs, with significant emphasis on collaborative research with other organizations. The groups fund a modest amount of extramural research in certain specific areas, and those areas are described in this BAA.

The USMA BAA seeks proposals from institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, foreign organizations, foreign public entities, and for-profit organizations (i.e., large and small businesses) for research based on the following campaigns: Ballistics, Weapons, and Protections;

Infrastructure, Energy, Resilience and Sustainability (ES); Materials, Measurements, and Experiments;

Unmanned Systems and Space; Human Support Systems; Emerging Technologies (ET); Life Sciences; USMA Special Programs; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Combating Terrorism; Simulations Modernization;

Curriculum and Outreach; Resilient Supply Chains; and Advancing Military Music Research and Innovation.

Proposals are sought for cutting-edge innovative research that could produce discoveries with a significant impact to enable new and improved Army technologies and related operational capabilities and related technologies. The specific research areas and topics of interest described in this document should be viewed as suggestive, rather than limiting.

Prospective applicants contemplating submission of a whitepaper or proposal are strongly encouraged to contact the appropriate Technical Point of Contact (TPOC). The TPOCs’ names and email addresses are listed immediately after each research area of interest. If requested by the TPOC, a whitepaper should be prepared in accordance with the instructions contained in this BAA. Upon receipt, a whitepaper will be evaluated, and the applicant will be advised of the results. Applicants whose whitepapers receive a favorable evaluation may be encouraged to prepare a proposal in accordance with instructions contained in this BAA. The costs of whitepapers and/or proposals in response to this BAA are not considered an allowable direct charge to any award resulting from this BAA or any other award. It may be an allowable expense to the normal bid and proposal indirect costs specified in FAR 31.205-18. Proposals may be submitted at any time during the announcement period.

In accordance with federal statutes, regulations, and Department of Defense (DoD) and Army policies, no person on grounds of race, color, age, sex, national origin, or disability shall be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving financial assistance from the Army.

Applicants submitting proposals are cautioned that only a Contracting or Grants Officer can obligate the Government to any legal instrument involving expenditure of Government funds.

All administrative inquiries regarding this BAA shall be submitted via email to: Brandon.s.hill24.civ@army.mil.

Scientific and technical questions should be referred to the TPOCs shown following each research area of interest. Interested parties are encouraged to periodically check any of the following websites for updates and amendments to this BAA: www.grants.gov, www.fbo.gov, and the USMA website, https://westpoint.edu/centers-and-research.

Colonel Brad McCoy, PhD Associated Dean for Research United States Military Academy

A. Required Overview Content

1. Agency Name:

United States Military Academy

2. Issuing Acquisition Office:

U.S. Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Ground, Research Triangle Park (ACC- APG-RTP) Division

3. Research Opportunity Title:

USMA Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)

4. Announcement Type: Initial Announcement

5. Research Opportunity Number: W911NF-20-S-0008

6. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number and Title:

12.431 – Basic Scientific Research

7. Response Dates:

This BAA is a continuously open announcement valid throughout the period from 01 April 2020 through 31 March 2027, unless announced otherwise.

B. Additional Overview Information

This BAA sets forth research areas of interest to the United States Military Academy. This BAA is issued under paragraph 6.102(d)(2) of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), which provides for the competitive selection of basic and applied research proposals, and 10 U.S.C. 2358, 10 U.S.C. 2371, and 10 U.S.C.

2371b, which provide the authorities for issuing awards under this announcement for basic and applied research. The definitions of basic and applied research may be found at 32 Code of Federal Regulations

(CFR) 22.105.

Proposals submitted in response to this BAA and selected for award are considered to be the result of full and open competition and in full compliance with the provision of Public Law 98369, “The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984” and subsequent amendments.

The DoD agencies involved in this program reserve the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals submitted in response to this announcement. Due to Government budget uncertainties, no specific dollars have been reserved for awards under this BAA. The participating DoD agencies will provide no funding for direct reimbursement of whitepaper or proposal development costs.

Whitepapers and technical and cost proposals (or any other material) submitted in response to this BAA will not be returned to the applicant. Unless noted in an applicant’s proposal to the contrary, unsuccessful proposals will be retained for six (6) months from declination and then properly destroyed. It is the policy of participating DoD agencies to treat all proposals as sensitive, competitive information and to disclose their contents only for the purposes of evaluation.

An applicant may withdraw a proposal at any time before award by written notice or by email sent to the government point of contact identified in Section G of this BAA.

II. DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT THE FUNDING OPPORTUNITY

A. Program Description

1. Ballistics, Weapons, and Protections (BWT) Campaign

a. Blast Protection of Structures and Vehicles.

The blast imparted on a structure from close indirect fire or from improvised-explosive-devices (IEDs), while short in duration, may be orders of magnitude larger pressure than ordinary service loads. Mines and buried IEDs are an increasingly deadly threat to our vehicles and the soldiers inside, and increasing the thickness of conventional armor has traditionally been the response, which adversely affects vehicle performance. More effective measures of protection require carefully chosen materials and geometries tailored for each specific situation. This line of effort explores advances in high-performance materials, novel geometric structures, as well as recent advances in additive manufacturing technologies to greatly increase the resilience of our structural and armor systems. The work examines structural optimization via field tests in conjunction with cutting-edge high-fidelity computer simulations that use high-performance computers. The resulting engineering solutions inform both next-generation designs and retrofit of existing systems and structures.

TPOC: Dr. Joe Hanus, 845-938-4099, CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu

b. Future Aviation Capabilities Research and Development.

This research area informs future technologies for improving the efficiency, performance, lethality, interoperability, and survivability of Army Aviation manned and unmanned platforms. Key technologies, concepts, and capabilities include additive manufacturing of aviation components and repair parts, air-launched effects, integration of manned and unmanned systems, vibration isolation and reduction, noise reduction, drag reduction of exposed bodies, active flow control, morphing structures, and pilot-vehicle interface technologies, hardening of the fuel system, fuel system analyses, structural health monitoring, predictive maintenance, model based systems engineering environments, and rotor blade erosion analysis and prevention. Further tasks include analyzing the impact of aerodynamic interference between rotors in multi-copter configurations, analyzing and assessing reliability and maintainability of Future Vertical Lift (FVL) proposals, and conducting manned and unmanned aircraft analysis using modeling, simulation and surrogate vehicles. These technologies are sought to reduce vehicle weight, improve performance, reliability, maintainability, reduce the auditory, visual, and EO/radar signature of Army aircraft, improve pilot situational awareness, facilitate operations in degraded visual environments, facilitate optional vehicle autonomy, allow for manned-unmanned teaming, and increase battlefield effectiveness.

TPOC: Dr. Todd Davidson, CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu

c. Next Generation Combat Vehicle Research and Development.

This research will inform future mobility, lethality, and survivability tradeoffs within the Army’s suite of ground combat platforms from light tactical vehicle to heavy combat systems. The research includes, but is not limited to, the modeling and testing of future active suspension technologies for increased platform trafficability and stability, future energy-absorbing armor concepts that will simultaneously reduce vehicle weight and increase Soldier protection, design of auxiliary power range extenders for electric vehicles, design and development of modular strap-on equipment that can interface with a future vehicle’s power, structure, command and control systems, vehicle autonomy implementation that will allow for optional manning and future powertrain development that will decrease vehicle auditory signature and increase vehicle operating range. Topics may also include research and analysis of the electrification of combat vehicles or the use of novel power plants that are independent of carbon-based fossil fuels.

d. Ballistics and Weapons Engineering Research and Development.

This research area will enlighten future ballistics and weapons engineering design pursuits across the range of Army combat power generation systems from small caliber, individual and crew-served weapons to large caliber, ground combat systems. The research and development is associated with the theory, modeling and experimental analysis of future weapon systems as related to terminal, exterior and interior ballistic performance and metrics.

mailto:CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu mailto:CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu

The work includes but is not limited to signature reduction, weapon system sensors, non-lethal technologies, novel cargo projectiles, electromagnetic launch, gun mounts, heat dissipation, drone defeat, accuracy and precision enhancement, insensitive munitions, extended range, hypervelocity impact physics, experimental research, and guidance technologies.

e. Next Generation Soldier Systems Research and Development.

This research area will inform future Soldier lethality and sustainment through the design of future non-weapons related Soldier equipment. The research is not limited to the ideation and prototype of future Soldier systems in the areas of mobile command posts, aerial delivery systems, Soldier load carrying systems, future camouflage and deception/concealment systems, future force projection and force sustainment concepts, advanced in individual body armor and protective technology, and future Soldier sensor systems.

2. Infrastructure, Energy, Resilience and Sustainability (IERS) Campaign.

This campaign focuses on research that contributes to securing critical infrastructure, designing and building resilient infrastructure, and designing and building sustainable infrastructure.

The goal is to improve the critical infrastructure resilience of communities and military installations.

Our research explores energy, water, human factors, organizational structure, networks, cyber psychology, cyber ranges, and cyber education as related to any and all of the critical infrastructure sectors, defined by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as well as those of military bases and military communities.

Our research aims to provide new capabilities to:

• Understand gaps in critical infrastructure research

• Explore information sharing (what is shared, to whom, how quickly, how much information)

• Determine what aspects of critical resilience exercise planning can be automated

• Understand the needs of communities and installations in developing critical infrastructure resilience

• Better emulate operational technology for improved cyber range support

• Explore decision-making when there is a critical infrastructure cyber event

• Explore the impacts of critical infrastructure disruption events on other sectors and/or military movement

Our research has the potential to:

• Automate portions of the exercise planning process

• Integrate existing frameworks and knowledge bases into a scalable, repeatable critical infrastructure resilience framework

• Develop a rich picture of readiness using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data

• Provide communities and military installations with a road map to critical infrastructure resilience

• Model and simulate impacts of critical infrastructure disruptions

• Standardize metrics for measuring impacts of disruptions, information sharing, organizational planning, and/or other difficult to measure factors in incident response

• Determine regional and local trends in critical infrastructure incident response and preparedness

a. Sustainability and Energy Resilience Research.

This research area will inform the development of sustainable defense and civilian public infrastructure and energy systems both at home station and on the battlefield. Research areas include the design and analysis of technologies associated with sustainable infrastructure and hardware for the Army such as resilient energy delivery, storage and consumption systems, assessment of alternative and synthetic fuel production, renewable energy use in industrial processes, utilization of waste products to improve system efficiency; sustainable maintenance and structural health monitoring of public facilities and infrastructure to include buildings, roads, bridges, tunnels, locks, dams, harbors, and similar infrastructure from natural threats such as wear and corrosion, as well as man-made physical, cyber, RF and emerging threats; analysis of future trends associated with environmental and geo-political changes and their effect on defense and civilian infrastructure, energy resilience, and operational flexibility.

Research can include material degradation from corrosion and other forms of wear that are unique to DoD applications as well as novel applications of concrete technology in support of both vertical and horizontal construction as well as blast resilient structures. Research can also address novel construction materials, including but not limited to cross laminated timber, structural insulated panels, or advanced/enhanced sustainability concrete materials to determine the defense-application benefits of these materials as well as the potential risks associated with using them in defense applications such as blast response, thermal signatures, RF transparency, etc. Analysis of both home station / installation applications of various technologies and deployed / operational applications is of interest. Deployed applications of energy and sustainability can include, but are not limited to, electrification of combat vehicles, energy support of future weapons such as directed energy systems, and mobile or micro-nuclear power technology, the survivability, distribution, and logistics considerations of novel or alternative fuel sources and analysis of renewable energy options for operational energy consumption and usage.

TPOC: Dr. Todd Davidson, -4694, CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu

b. Critical Infrastructure Resilience

The Government relies on civilian critical infrastructure to support military installations and military movement. Research is needed in the following areas:

i. Developing a scalable, repeatable framework for communities and installations to use

ii. Understanding interdependencies between civilian critical infrastructure and military installations and military movement

iii. Understanding the concerns of communities pertaining to critical infrastructure protection and resilience

iv. Determining the impacts of critical infrastructure disruption events

v. Expanding the number of locations that can participate in Jack VoltaicTM events

vi. Studying how much critical infrastructure resilience planning can be automated

vii. Improving standardization of data collection for a more meaningful analysis

viii. Using data collected to model and simulate impacts of critical infrastructure events on military installations and military movement

ix. Emulating operational technology to allow for its inclusion in cyber range events

x. Sharing information gained from Jack VoltaicTM events with stakeholders and those who may benefit

xi. Visualizing critical infrastructure interdependency and impact data

xii. Any other topics that can improve critical infrastructure protection or resilience

TPOC: Dr. Karen Guttieri, karen.guttieri@westpoint.edu

3. Materials, Measurements, and Experiments (MME) Campaign.

a. Research and Development for Combating Corrosion and Improving Materiel Readiness.

The Center for Innovation and Engineering (CIE) is interested in researching and developing solutions to mitigate and prevent the corrosion of Army assets. Current research projects in the CIE are focused on designing detection systems for corrosion on structures and researching new corrosion resistant metal alloys; however future research projects are not limited to metals as all materials currently utilized by the Army are subject to degradation by their surrounding environment. Additionally, the CIE is interested in research on curricular development for promoting corrosion education to the future workforce of the Army through multi-disciplinary collaborations in order to increase the overall awareness and interest in combating corrosion.

b. Advanced MRI Measurements for Data Analysis and Model Validation.

This research involves leveraging advanced measurement diagnostics in water tunnel studies to research technological flows in a variety of capacities and fields related to aerodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and environmental flows. Three basic modalities of experiments are envisioned and used interchangeably – time averaged, three-dimensional, three-component velocity field measurements in turbulent flows at isotropic resolutions approaching 0.5mm in each direction; three-dimensional measurements of concentrations of a passive scalar in turbulent flows at isotropic resolutions of 0.7 mm to 0.5% full scale in scaled versions of complex terrain features subjected to steady or periodic releases of a contaminant; and time averaged three-dimensional temperature fields at similar resolutions for a thermally stratified turbulent flow field in complex geometries. The techniques envisioned, termed Magnetic Resonance Velocimetry (MRV), Magnetic Resonance Concentration (MRC), and Magnetic Resonance Thermometry (MRT) respectively as described, leverage developing diagnostic techniques based on magnetic resonance imaging to rapidly acquire large, time-averaged, velocity, concentration, and temperature data sets that are of great practical utility for validation of computational models, model improvements, detailed physical analysis, and for understanding fundamental features of these important classes of flows. Current primary applications for these studies involve exterior ballistics analysis for projectiles, mass transport and thermal studies within advanced gas turbine blades, and environmental flows involving contaminant dispersion within both urban areas and rugged rural terrain. The experimental analysis is supported by computational comparisons using advanced numerical simulations that leverage in-situ boundary condition measurements and geometry files as initial conditions, and the data are available for comparison with other computational models, experimental data sets, and analyses.

c. Material Science and Rapid Prototyping Research.

This research area seeks to determine new insights into new materials and new fabrication techniques to provide enhanced performance of materials, structures, and energetics with a focus on defense related applications. This research can include novel methods of 3D printing, including 3D printing ceramics, metals, biological material, soils, concrete, energetic material, or recycled materials; the sustainment challenges associated with 3D Printing; 3D Printing at the edge (such as on a Forward Operating Base), the challenges associated with materials degradation from 3D printed parts including corrosion and fatigue; and topology optimization of 3D Printing parts and components associated with defense systems. Material Science topics can include research into the material properties of novel materials with defense applications to include nano-scale fabrication of materials, energetic material, smart materials and smart structures, bio-templating, advanced composites and polymers as well as rapid prototyping techniques.

4. Unmanned Systems and Space (USS) Campaign

a. Next Generation Unmanned Systems Research and Development

This research area will inform future technologies for improving the efficiency, performance, lethality, interoperability, survivability of and protection from unmanned aerial and ground systems. Key technologies, concepts, and capabilities include vehicle design and fabrication, sensor integration and processing, actuation, event-driven autonomy and decision making, multi-agent swarm control, manned-unmanned teaming, path planning, wireless communications, operator-vehicle interface, rapid and airborne deployment, field recovery systems, various counter-unmanned systems capabilities including the development of both cyber, physical, directed energy, or radio frequency-based techniques to neutralize, degrade, defeat, or destroy threat UAS, and mailto:CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu agile field and flight testing of the above (UAS or Counter UAS systems). These technologies are sought to maintain the Army and its future leaders on the leading edge of the rapidly evolving field of unmanned systems, as well as provide innovative and effective solutions to support the Soldier.

b. Robotic Systems Research and Development.

This research area will inform the development and scoping of future robotic systems in defense-related environments to include unmanned or optionally manned ground and air systems, robotic drive systems, robotic control systems, unique robotic actuators, particularly with defense-related applications, robotic tethering and powering systems and methods, methods of developing autonomous behaviors and self-organizing (swarming) behaviors of groups of robots, methods of state estimation and control, particularly in GPS denied environments (including indoor or subterranean), methods for obstacle detection and avoidance, the terramechanics of ground vehicles, flight dynamics of novel air vehicles including quad rotors, flapping wing micro air vehicles, hybrid air vehicles, and air-launched vehicles. The research can address multiple phases of the design process from ideation to the realization of testable prototypes.

c. Space Engineering and Rocket Technology Research.

This research area seeks to analyze, design, develop and test new technology associated with small, multi-stage rocket capability to achieve low earth orbit of small payloads (less than 50 lbs) or to enable the development and realization of a hypersonic air vehicle. The research focus areas include on-board technology including rocket hardware analysis and development, rocket and flight path modeling, aerodynamic analysis, energetic development, development of state estimation, control and/or telemetry systems; design, development and implementation of safety hardware, and the analysis, development and design of alternative rocket fuels.

Research areas can additionally include any technology or study that facilitates the development or employment of this technology including usage cases, concept of the operation development, integration of the technology within the existing space infrastructure and policy landscape, technology to support the creation of a mobile space-launch capability or hypersonic-capable air vehicle.

5. Human Support Systems (HSS) Campaign

a. Biomechanical Engineering.

This research area will inform the Department of Defense on biomechanical strategies to enhance soldier readiness. This includes human performance optimization, injury prediction and prevention, physical and cognitive augmentation, analysis of Return to Duty metrics, the influence of various powered prosthetics or exo-skeleton devices on human physical, metabolic, or cognitive functioning. This work may include human subject testing, injury tracking, device design, literature reviews, code development, and simulation.

b. Wearable Technologies and Sensors

This research area will inform the Department of Defense on the science of wearable technologies and cloud-based data collection, archiving, and analyses. The work can include research into the effect of wearable technology and the potential for wearable technology to inform decision relating to Soldier performance. This work may include human subject testing, health tracking, activity monitoring, device design, advanced modelling and simulation. It can include monitoring and assessing soldier performance in various conditions utilizing approaches associated mailto:CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu mailto:CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu mailto:CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu%20 with biomechanics, load carriage performance nutrition, equipment use, injury prevention, and recovery times.

c. Design for Future Combat Leaders.

This research area will inform the way design is taught and practiced at West Point and the ways deeper experience with design might not only make better engineers but also more adaptive and agile leaders. The research includes work on novel curricular structures and new pedagogical techniques. Through a thorough investigation of design across a wide variety of contexts and various disciplines, the research will serve to improve the way design is taught and practiced in academic and field environments in an engineering context and to inform the way engineering design is connected to design as it is taught in the operational Army. These efforts will serve to enhance the broader aim of producing more innovative leaders.

TPOC: Dr. Joe Hanus, 845-938-4099, CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu

d. Health, Nutrition, and Artificial Intelligence

With rapid advances in nutrition research, new and large multi-modal data sources are being collected requiring novel computational and data science approaches and tools to advance our understanding in a way that accounts for the complex systems involved. Developing data science and machine learning approaches and tools that help better understand and address the systems both within individuals and their environment could not only transform nutritional research and guidance, but also provide new data science methods to inform other areas of health such as infectious disease modeling, reproductive health, obesity research, and public health community based interventions.

This research will focus on

• Distilling large multi-modal data sets for use in AI/ML algorithms

• Identifying causal pathways in nutrition related outcomes

• Predicting individual health outcomes resulting from changes in nutrition.

• Establishing software development procedures and processes for tool integrations into a third-party application, to include a testing environment

• Design and implementation of a large scale cloud based data repository to support machine learning research

• Design and implement tools to import data into cloud based repository to include pre-processing functions in a secure manner

Additionally, we are interested in developing new methods for storing, accessing, and modeling in the aforementioned areas. The Center for Data Analysis and Statistics seeks to:

• Generate new biomedical and public health data sets that are ethically sourced, trustworthy, well-defined, and accessible

• Develop architecture and interfaces that to unify attributes across wide ranging data sources and types

• Create tools that collapse and combine data sources so that they are FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable), transparent (explainable AI), representative of the population, and free from error and bias.

• Provide novel resources to disseminate data, ethical principles, tools, and best practices

• Create training materials and activities that bridges the gap between biomedical, data science education, and AI research communities.

TPOC: Dr. Diana Thomas, (845) 938-5619, diana.thomas@westpoint.edu and math.reseawrch@westpoin.edu COL Chris Morrell, (845-768-3980), chris.morrell@westpoint.edu

6. Emerging Technologies (ET) Campaign

In February of 2022, the White House released the list of Critical and Emerging Technologies that are potentially significant to U.S. National Security. This ET Campaign focuses on the understanding, design, development, experimentation, and operationalization of emerging disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cyber, Advanced Computing, Autonomous Robotics, Communication & Networking Technologies, and Quantum Information Technologies. One goal of this campaign is to create techniques and mailto:CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu mailto:CMEcie_director@westpoint.edu mailto:diana.thomas@westpoint.edu mailto:COL tools that enable autonomous cyber operations and that ensure the security of Army systems and data. Another goal of this campaign is to understand how these emerging technologies (either singularly or in combination with each other) will affect future military operations in different geographies, geo-political climates, organizational structures, and against different adversaries.

Our research aims to provide the Army Cyber Enterprise new capabilities to:

• Shift emphasis from sensing to information awareness

• Understand the underpinning of cyber autonomy

• Relieve human cybersecurity analyst cognitive overload in dealing with the data deluge problem

• Enhance human-machine interface in information processing

• Protect data and systems using advance cryptography techniques

• Operate in real-time to handle the pace of modern operations

Our research has the potential to:

• Cope with various complex disparate data/information types

• Integrate a diversity of unique reasoning and learning components collaborating simultaneously

• Bridge correlational with causal discovery

• Determine solutions or obstructions to local-to-global data fusion problems

• Mechanize reasoning/learning and computing in the same computational environment

• Yield provably efficient procedures to enable or facilitate cyber data analytics

• Deal with high-dimensional and massive cyber datasets with provably guaranteed performance

a. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Cyber Security

The Government networks currently channel more data than its security analysts can meaningfully process. Analysts are overwhelmed with numerous alerts and are vulnerable to alert fatigue. The vast scale of data collection challenges human- driven/human-only solutions to collection and processing.

The goals of this work are to increase the government’s capacity to process that data by assisting and augmenting analysts through the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms, to include deep learning algorithms. Research will focus on experimental investigation and prototype development of AI/ML algorithms and capabilities. In addition, this research program will focus on helping analysts perceive and understand dynamic and unknown environments.

Elements of this research effort include new frameworks and tools for the creation of algorithms;

tailored algorithms to perform discrete tasks, particularly in the fields of intrusion detection; resilience against adversarial attacks; new labeling techniques to generate massive scale annotated data for supervised deep learning techniques; new methods of edge computation to bring deep learning algorithms to constrained computational environments; methods to evaluate and determine the effectiveness of algorithmic approaches; interfaces for the display, search, and interaction with algorithmically derived metadata and tabular structured algorithmic output; new techniques, hardware, software, and tools for the training, testing, and validating of algorithms; and storage and indexing capabilities for local algorithmically-produced data.

TPOC: MAJ Nathaniel Bastian, (845) 938-3287, nathaniel.bastian@westpoint.edu

Elie Alhajjar, (845) 938-5865, elie.alhajjar@westpoint.edu

b. Quantum Sciences

The Army needs to better employ quantum sciences in a number of areas to improve the performance and security of its future systems. Research is needed in the following areas:

• Quantum computing to solve highly complex problems in real time mailto:elie.alhajjar@westpoint.edu mailto:lie.alhajjar@westpoint.edu

• Quantum sensing to achieve highly sensitive sensors and enable highly accurate navigation

• Quantum communications, and networking to enable highly secure and efficient information flow

• Cryptographic algorithms that are secure against Quantum computing attacks

TPOC: Lubjana Beshaj, (845) 938-0564, lubjana.beshaj@westpoint.edu

c. Internet of Things (IOT) –

The Army is integrating a wide range of capabilities and equipment from the Internet of Things domain.

The Army’s interest is driven in part by the fact that the amount of usable communication bandwidth on the battlefield will be dynamic, and as such automated reallocation of communication resources and information sharing strategies are more challenging than commercial ones. Research is needed to improve Army IOT in the following areas:

• New concepts, quantitative models and technical approaches enabling automated security and management of IoT devices.

• New machine learning techniques that accelerate decision making are needed to address the scale/volume of IoT security information and advance the science.

• New approaches, low-complexity algorithms, and methods to enable IoT to be secure, resilient, and to automatically manage and affect risk and uncertainty in a highly deceptive, mixed cooperative/adversarial, information-centric environment.

• Novel approaches to enable improved training on securing IoT.

TPOC: LTC Nathaniel Bastian, (845) 938-3287, nathaniel.bastian@westpoint.edu

d. AI for Human-robot and human-AI interaction:

The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), autonomy, and automation approaches that may be integrated with the human (e.g. wearable and/or portable devices), the robot (e.g. autonomous or semi-autonomous unmanned vehicle in the undersea/surface/ground/aerial/space domain), with any component of the human-system interface (e.g. front-end display), with services across the manned-unmanned team (e.g. cloud), and/or across the command-and- control decision matrix. Solutions can include (but are not limited to) classical approaches to AI/ML, autonomy, automation, and learning (e.g. supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement, rule-based, life-long, etc.).

The AI for Human-Robot interaction research necessarily addresses four possible communication failure modes among peer-to-peer communication interactions:

• Human-Human state estimation and intent understanding

• Human-robot state estimation and intent understanding (including cyber bot understanding)

• Robot-human state estimation and intent understanding (including cyber bot understanding)

• Robot-robot state estimation and intent understanding (including cyber bot understanding)

Topic Areas Include:

• Robot sense, think, act loop – perception including localization and mapping, planning/control for motion, obstacle avoidance, task, missions (e.g. aided threat recognition (ATR) and threat confirming and queuing for small-unit combat operations).

mailto:lubjana.beshaj@westpoint.edu mailto:paul.maxwell@westpoint.edu

• Perception – computer vision (object detection, terrain analysis) leveraging sensors such as cameras/lidar/radar etc., human physiology monitoring for health and intervention (e.g. dynamic scene understanding for robotic assistance in search and rescue missions for humanitarian assistance/disaster recovery (HADR) missions or downed airman search and rescue missions).

• Collaboration/Cooperation- Collaborative/Cooperative AI in adversarial environments, trust and transparency, reduction of cognitive load. Metrics and Measures of collaboration. Human-robot teaming (e.g. algorithms supporting dynamic re-planning of tasks based upon application of computable models of command intent to automatically generate altered plans and recommending actions for human decision to better meet command intent for a given mission).

• Decision aids- triage tools, task management, explainable AI (e.g. use of computable models of command intent/human intent to support visualization of recommended actions to meet human intent for a given task/subtask).

• Command and Control- capturing command intent, mission planning, execution,

• and after-action reporting. Linking assets together faster. Transfer of control between AI assets and humans. (e.g. assistance in visualization of logical event streams and physical evolution of continuous system parameters such as target engagements associated with complex activities for human-robot teaming such as transfer of tactical control associated with application of rules of engagement when moving from WEAPONS HOLD to WEAPONS TIGHT to WEAPONS FREE in a given combat environment).

• Interaction/Communication–human-machine interfaces including speech/ gesture/ haptics/ visual/mobile devices and advanced data visualization. Efficient communication between AI assets and humans. (e.g. use of voice or hand and gestures to support robotic execution of evacuation of wounded combatants).

• Validation of AI: area of research such as verification and validation, test and evaluation in simulation and real-world testbeds (e.g. support for visualizations and data collection and VV&A for virtual, live, and constructive simulations such that the AIs generated in virtual environments can be used in live environments and constructive environments to validate use of the AIs in physical environments to meet command intent/human Intent).

TPOC: Michael Novitzky, (845) 938-6193, michael.novitzky@westpoint.edu Robert Thomson, robert.thomson@westpoint.edu

e. Data Science Campaign

The Data Science campaign looks to create holistic and integrated solutions leveraging novel approaches for all aspects of data science, to include data management, data engineering, data discovery, data fusion, data visualization, and data analytics. The goal is promote and encourage integrated research projects that create, develop and apply novel computational, mathematical and statistical methods, algorithms, software, data curation, analysis, visualization and mining tools to address large-scale simulations and analysis of large and heterogeneous collections of data. In addition, we seek key developments that would improve the modeling of systems under dynamic conditions, achieve effective instrumentation management and architect control of dynamic and heterogeneous resources. Our research explores new ways of conceiving of and executing Army data science capabilities with greater reliability, performance, and scalability.

Our research aims to provide the Army and the Army Cyber Enterprise new capabilities to:

• Address challenges in the Army’s capability to rapidly collect and analyze operational data, then securely distribute results and information to operational decision makers.

• Determine appropriate high-throughput applications and large-scale data storage and processing that support the Army’s requirement to operate in multiple environments (both cyber and physical) and meet performance and energy objectives for applications ranging from very low-power sensors to high-performance computing systems.

• Generate data that will improve algorithms overall performance and their resistance to adversarial training techniques.

• Securely collect, store, manage, and share various complex disparate data and information types.

mailto:michael.novitzky@westpoint.edu mailto:zky@westpoint.edu mailto:robert.thomson@westpoint.edu

• Work with massive high-dimensional datasets in a secure, efficient, and accurate manner with provable performance.

Our research has the potential to:

• Cope with various complex disparate data/information types

• Bridge correlational with causal discovery

• Determine solutions or obstructions to local-to-global data fusion problems

• Yield provably efficient procedures to enable or facilitate data analytics

TPOC: LTC Nathaniel Bastian, (845) 938-3287, nathaniel.bastian@westpoint.edu LTC Mathew Fukuzawa, Mathew.Fukuzawa@westpoint.edu; math.research@westpoint.edu

f. Strategic Foresight on Emerging Technologies

Many of the interesting Emerging Technologies will not be available to the U.S. military for decades. However, once they are available - they can radically change DOTMLPF-P (doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership, personnel, facilities, policy) requirements for the U.S. military. These DOTMLPF-P processes also take time to change. Therefore, we are interested in strategic foresight and trends research that will help us understand the impacts that these technologies can have on military operations throughout the continuum of conflict along with recommended solutions to disrupt or mitigate the associated vulnerabilities. We are also interested in how these emerging technologies will affect military operations if both sides adopt them and/or if only one side adopts them.

We are also interested in understanding if these technologies will have a different impact on military operations depending on which region of the world it is occurring in.

TPOC: COL Natalie Vanatta, ACIThreatcasting@westpoint.edu, 845-938-8983

7. Life Sciences Campaign

The Life Science Program supports basic and applied research to advance scientific knowledge and understanding of the fundamental properties, principles, and processes governing biomolecules, cells, as well as multi-species communities, biofilms, individual humans, and groups of humans. Research investments are driven by exploiting new scientific opportunities with anticipated long-term payoffs, including maintaining U.S. technological superiority and developing new Army capabilities.

The interests of the Life Science Program are primarily in the following areas: synthetic biology, biochemistry, neuroscience, microbiology, molecular biology, genetics, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, natural products chemistry, clinical science, epigenetics, systems biology, bioinformatics, biomaterials, and environmental biology.