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WASHINGTON – Five businesses accelerating innovation are at the helm of the Army SBIR CATALYST pilot – a novel program that uses matching capital from transition partners and major weapons systems integrators to drive contracts up to $75 million to tackle Army customer needs.

Announced at the October 2022 Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting and Exposition by the Under Secretary of the Army, Hon. Gabe Camarillo, the Army SBIR CATALYST Program is one of five initiatives incentivizing the Army’s collaborative efforts with industry. Launched in February 2023, the Army SBIR CATALYST pilot requests select small businesses to submit proposals for participation.

While the pilot accepted several small business technology proposals capable of supporting the Army of 2030, it focused on solutions within specific technology ecosystems where small businesses lead in innovation. To ensure the U.S. can overcome any adversary, the Army SBIR CATALYST pilot prioritizes ecosystems including artificial intelligence and machine learning, climate and clean tech, autonomy, and supply-chain logistics in the Indo-Pacific region.

“This is the first time an SBIR program has launched an initiative focused on overcoming untapped potential by investing so heavily and building a shared risk structure between small businesses, Army transition partners and technology integrators,” said Dr. Matt Willis, director of Army Prize Competitions and the Army Applied SBIR Program, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology. “With this pilot – and significant increase in Army funding – we can drive down risk while providing greater resources to advance prototype development, testing and transition.”

Utilizing greater capital to enhance R&D investments, the Army SBIR Program will award five small businesses base contracts up to $1 million each for a six-to-12-month period of performance. The Army SBIR CATALYST pilot requires each awardee to have previously received an Army SBIR|STTR award within the past four fiscal years, while not having yet received a second SBIR|STTR Phase II under the same project.

Army SBIR CATALYST Program pilot awardees:

ANDRO Computational LLC, “DeepSPEC: Artificial Intelligence-Powered Blind Signal Detector and Classifier”

·        Technology ecosystem: AI/ML

·        Potential transition partner: PEO Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PL Tactical Space Superiority)

Compound Eye Inc., “VIDAS-SLAM: Undetectable, GPS Denied Mapping and Positioning”

·        Technology ecosystem: Autonomy

·        Potential transition partner: PEO Ground Combat Systems

EM Photonics Inc., “Image Analysis Approach for Wind Management”

·        Technology ecosystem: Sensors

·        Potential transition partner: PEO IEW&S (PdM Information Warfare)

R-Dex Systems, Inc., “Blue Jay: Strengthening SIGINT Classifiers and Identifying Adversarial Attacks”

·        Technology ecosystem: Immersive and Wearables

·        Potential transition partner: PEO IEW&S (PD Sensors-Aerial Intelligence)

Solvus Global LLC, “Cold Spray Repair & Restoration of Long-Range Precision Fires”

·        Technology ecosystem: Contested Logistics and Sustainment

·        Potential transition partners: DEVCOM Armaments Center, DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, and PEO Ground Combat Systems (PM Main Battle Tank Systems)

Propelling emerging capabilities to transition and commercialization, the Army SBIR CATALYST contract award has potential for multi-phase funding opportunities. After the initial $1 million base award and six-to-12-month PoP, recipients could receive Army SBIR CATALYST Phase II Enhancement contracts of up to $7 million of Army SBIR Program funds, up to $3.5 million in funding from the Army transition partner and up to $3.5 million from the technology integrator.

The result is a total funding potential of up to $15 million for each small business, based on a fund ratio of 2:1:1 over an additional 12-to-24-month PoP beyond the base period — for a contract pool of up to $75 million total across all five companies in the Army SBIR CATALYST pilot. Through these R&D investments, the Army SBIR Program leverages capital to buy down risk for the Army’s larger, more scalable acquisition profile.

Via the pilot, the program will overcome untapped potential to transition Army technology challenges into major weapon systems programs by strongly synchronizing small business innovators with Army transition partners and integrators. As a result, it will provide resources for advanced prototype development testing and transition.

Traditionally, the Army Applied SBIR Program provides Phase I contracts to small businesses and nontraditional vendors with solutions that show technical merit, feasibility and commercial potential. The program also offers funds to companies that can earn further federal support in Phase II. The Direct to Phase II award is for already-mature technologies ready for demonstration.

Additionally, the Army Applied SBIR Program allows businesses to collaborate with technical, acquisition and operational subject matter experts. These specialists offer insight into the Army’s technological opportunities while guiding companies through the Army research and development ecosystem.

The Army Applied SBIR Program continues to release contract opportunities on a rolling basis to respond to current and future warfighting technology needs. The Army SBIR CATALYST program’s structure complements these existing efforts and drives awards up to eight times larger than typical SBIR contracts.

For eligibility information and a list of open solicitations, please visit the Army SBIR|STTR website. To learn more about the Army CATALYST Program, please visit the Army SBIR CATALYST Program page.

The office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology provides the American Soldier a decisive advantage in any mission by developing, acquiring and sustaining the world’s finest equipment and services. It also leverages technologies and capabilities to meet current and future Army needs. For more information, please visit the Army ASA(ALT) website.

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ROME, N.Y. (WUTR/WFXV/WPNY) – FuzeHub is a not-for-profit organization providing manufacturers – from startups to medium-sized companies – with access to a network of industry experts and resources.

And they also just recently awarded grant funding to 10 collaborative projects through its ‘Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund.’

One of those recipients is Mohawk Valley Edge and ANDRO Computational Solutions – who received $50,000.

With this funding, ANDRO Computational Solutions, of Rome, in collaboration with Mohawk Valley Edge, is introducing ‘SecondNet’ – a new concept in intelligent, coordinated emergency management for rapid alert and response to mitigate active threats.

“When you talk about delays, latency, people not getting there in time, it’s usually attributed to the lack of communications infrastructure,” explained Dr. Andrew Drozd, President & Chief Researcher, ANDRO Computational Solutions.

“That seems to be the common denominator, so that’s something that we can fill, and again, it’s repurposing military technology for a civilian environment.”

As Dr. Drozd said, this technology was originally utilized by the military, but when speaking with teacher friends, realized it could also, potentially, be used in school systems – to protect against in school threats.

“With the rise in school threats, that was sort of a logical question,” said Dr. Drozd.

“So, we started thinking about that last year and said, you know, we actually could because there’s a particular technology that we have called SPEARLink.”

The SPEARLink radio provides broadband coverage – where you need it, when you need it.

“The idea is that you want to have broad coverage 24/7, basically whenever you need it, so that when an emergency arises, you can communicate two ways – where the emergency is taking place, and also informing the administrators, the school principal and the law enforcement and first responders on the outside,” he said.

“If you can create this kind of a network with widespread connectivity, this provides that rapid response capability that’s often been lacking.”

Existing networks currently have to depend on cell towers, internet and Wi-Fi to function.

“If that infrastructure goes down or becomes unavailable, our system is available to you,” explained Dr. Drozd.

“And especially if you’re in a remote area where you have sparse broadband coverage – that’s exactly what our SPEARLink technology does.”

And as for the grant funding, ANDRO and MV Edge will be using it to implement a “pilot program” – to actually test this technology in schools.

“We want to bring our gear in, install it, come up with the use cases that we want to show and tell and demonstrate, and then actually fire it up and show it to people,” he said.

“Basically, collect metrics, collect information about how fast this works, the efficacy of the overall tech technology and where it might be approved.”

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Dr. Jithin Jagannath, Chief Scientist of Technology and the Founding Director of the Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Innovation Lab at ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC, will serve as the Guest Editor for the IEEE Communications Standards Magazine’s Special Issue Integrating Sensing and Communications. On behalf of Dr. Jagannath and other editors, we invite you to submit high-quality manuscripts to the Special Issues (details below)- Manuscript Submission Deadline: 1 July 2023

Signal processing methods played a crucial role in the early development of joint sensing and communication systems, driven by the need to use the limited spectrum more efficiently and reduce hardware costs. Initially, dual-function radar communication systems dominated the field of joint sensing and communication. However, it has since evolved into a more intricate paradigm called integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), which allows for various types of interactions between sensing and communication and considers other sensors besides radar. Designing future ISAC systems requires many tasks, such as selecting transmitter signals, designing precoders, processing received signals, estimating channels, tracking, and allocating resources. These tasks typically involve solving complex nonconvex optimization problems that require a standard performance metric or constraints related to the employed sensing and communication regime. In recent years, several signal processing techniques have been introduced to address these challenges, resulting in a growing interest in advanced signal processing methods for designing and implementing ISAC in future wireless networks. This Special Issue (SI) aims to provide a compendium of technical papers and vision-setting articles from academia, industry, and standardization activities, focusing on major disruptive trends related to ISAC.

Scope of Contributions

All submissions need to include standardization aspects to be in scope of the IEEE Communications Standards Magazine. In particular, this issue seeks submissions on a variety of topics including but not limited to:

• New spectrum regulations and standards
• Experimental demonstrations and prototypes
• Security and privacy issues for ISAC
• Spectrum sharing in CBRS band for ISAC
• Integrated sensing, localization, and communications
• Integrated sensing, communication, and computing
• Interference management techniques of ISAC
• Full duplex techniques of ISAC
• Fundamental information theoretical limits for ISAC
• Centralized/distributed machine learning for ISAC
• Reconfigurable intelligent surface for ISAC
• Synthetic aperture for sensing and communications
• Terahertz-band ISAC
• Unified/Integrated waveform design for ISAC
• Transmission protocols/frame designs for ISAC
• Radio dynamic zones and RF Data Factory for ISAC
• Radio science, radio astronomy and spectrum access for ISAC
• ISAC-enabled space-air-ground integrated networks
• ISAC for drones and vehicular networks

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format indicated in the Information for Authors section of the Paper Submission Guidelines. All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Manuscript Central. Select “March 2024/Integrating Sensing and Communications” from the drop-down menu of Topic/Series titles.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 1 July 2023
Initial Decision Date: 1 September 2023
Revised Manuscript Due: 1 October 2023
Final Decision Date: 1 November 2023
Final Manuscript Due: 1 January 2024
Publication Date: March 2024

For more information, visit: Integrating Sensing and Communications | IEEE Communications Society (comsoc.org)

ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC of Rome, NY has been selected for the first-round award of FuzeHub’s Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund Manufacturing Grants in 2023.  Industry lead ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC in collaboration with not-for-profit economic development partner Mohawk Valley EDGE of Griffiss Business & Technology Park in Rome, introduces SecondNet – a new concept in intelligent, coordinated emergency management for rapid alert/response to mitigate active threats in schools and other public spaces.  ANDRO is adapting their patented SPEARLink^TM radio developed for the U.S. Army, to conduct proof-of-concept pilots to demonstrate an intelligent, agile communications networking capability.  ANDRO has implemented an in-house, low-volume production process to fulfill on SPEARLInk^TM orders for its customers and is seeking to expand its operations for the SecondNet market.  School violence and active shooter threats are rapidly escalating. There is an urgent need for reliable personal communication devices that provide real-time situational awareness during crisis situations.  SecondNet fills current technology gaps and assures that the safety needs of our school communities and any public space are met.  SecondNet will demonstrate an unparalleled breakthrough in rapid alert/response to save lives.

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Given his remarkable achievements in the area of computer networks, Dr. Jithin Jagannath, Chief Scientist of Technology and the Founding Director of the Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Innovation Lab at ANDRO Computational Solutions, has been invited to join the Editorial Board of Computer Networks as an Area editor.

Computer Networks is a highly reputable journal established as one of the first publication venues in the field as “Computer Networks and ISDN Systems”. In 1998, Computer Networks published the original paper by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine, ” that introduced Google [1], “a prototype of a large-scale search engine which makes heavy use of the structure present in hypertext.”

Computer Networks has now reached an impact factor of 5.5, and according to Google Scholar metrics, it is the 12th most impactful publication venue (including all conferences and journals) in the area of communication and networking, above venues like IEEE Infocom, ACM Mobicom, and IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. Dr. Jagannath will work to pursue the ambitious goal of making Computer Networks one of the most influential journals in the field.

On behalf of Dr. Jagannath, we invite you to submit high-quality articles to Computer Networks. For more information, visit Elsevier

Congratulations to Dr. Jithin Jagannath, Chief Scientist of Technology and Founding Director of the Marconi-Rosenblatt Lab at ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC, for his year of service as an Exemplary Reviewer of the IEEE Communications Letters.

The IEEE Communications Letters publishes short papers in a rapid publication cycle on advances in the state-of-the-art of communication over different media and channels including wire, underground, waveguide, optical fiber, and storage channels. Both theoretical contributions (including new techniques, concepts, and analyses) and practical contributions (including system experiments and prototypes, and new applications) are encouraged. Peer review is vital to the quality of published research. Each article submitted to IEEE is evaluated by at least two independent reviewers selected by a member of the publication’s editorial board.

For more information, visit IEEE

ROME — The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in Arlington, Va. has awarded ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC of Rome a highly competitive Direct-to-Phase-II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract.

The contract is to develop a novel capability called ADJUST – Adaptive and Dynamic Jammer nUlling System with multi-resolution Transform domains. The contract is valued at $750,000 for a 24-month period of performance. ADJUST will be used to adaptively detect and suppress the effect of jammers that can negatively impact or compromise various radio frequency (RF) communication signals and associated spectrum bands.

ANDRO’s Marconi-Rosenblatt Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) Innovation Lab in Rome will lead the work headed by principal investigator, lab director and chief scientist, Jithin Jagannath, in cooperation with a resident research team that includes Keyvan Ramezanpour, Anu Jagannath and Justin Henny.

Company President Andrew Drozd said this opportunity further accelerates the pace of the lab’s current research in advancing the state of the art in jammer-resilient technologies for wireless communications. He envisions Phase III opportunities on the horizon for a multi-million-dollar program to transition the capability to the warfighter and for potential commercial applications.

“We have all seen even in the most recent events [like Ukraine] how hostile jamming is a constant challenge to RF systems,” said Jagannath. “These challenges are further exacerbated in satellite communication and navigation systems where the high sensitivity of the receiver is critical. We have an excellent team tackling this challenge head-on with a unique approach.”

According to Jagannath, the uniqueness of ADJUST is attributed to a combination of a flexible architecture design, performance optimization features, and an open architecture framework. He explained that ADJUST adopts a novel software-defined modular architecture with the flexibility of different signal processing blocks for hardware and software acceleration optimized for software-defined radio (SDR) platforms and that considers multiple RF signals to ensure a broader impact.

The ADJUST software-defined architecture concept also allows portability across platforms and seamless future upgradeability to ensure more robust jammer-resilient solutions for the future.

Drozd mentioned that announcements are forthcoming soon on additional Department of Defense contract awards to ANDRO relevant to the AI/ML Innovation Lab’s research in advancing the state of the art in intelligent SDRs and robust wireless communications applications.

ANDRO is a privately-owned company established in 1994 focused on scientific research, development, and the application of advanced computer software in the domains of radio frequency spectrum exploitation, secure wireless communications, cognitive radios, advanced radar data fusion, sensor resource management, computational electromagnetics and co-site modeling and simulation.

Read the full story here: Daily Sentinel

ROME, N.Y. — The U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) has awarded ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC a $750,000, 24-month direct-to-phase-II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract.

The pact seeks to develop jammer-resistant, wireless-communication capabilities for the Air Force. The novel capability called ADJUST – Adaptive and Dynamic Jammer nUlling System with multi-resolution Transform domains — will be used to adaptively detect and suppress the effect of jammers that can impact or compromise various radio-frequency (RF) communication signals and associated spectrum bands.

ANDRO’s Marconi-Rosenblatt Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Innovation Lab, will lead the work, headed up by Jithin Jagannath principal investigator, lab director, and chief scientist, in cooperation with a research team that includes Keyvan Ramezanpour, Anu Jagannath, and Justin Henny.

“We have all seen even in the most recent events how hostile jamming is a constant challenge to RF systems,” Jagannath said in a news release. “These challenges are further exacerbated in satellite communication and navigation systems where the high sensitivity of the receiver is critical. We have an excellent team tackling this challenge head on with a unique approach.”

The opportunity further accelerates the pace of the lab’s current research in advancing jammer-resilient technologies for wireless communications, ANDRO President Andrew Drozd noted, and may lead to phase III opportunities to transition the capability to the warfighter and potential commercial applications.

Established in 1994, ANDRO focuses on scientific research, development, and the application of advanced computer software for radio-frequency-spectrum exploitation, secure wireless communications, cognitive radios, advanced-radar data fusion, sensor-resource management, computational electromagnetics, and cosite modeling and simulation.

Read the full article here: CNY Business Journal