DOINews: Interior Business Center Sponsors Event to Showcase Innovative, Breakthrough Technologies for Greener and Safer Future

Imagine law enforcement personnel powering equipment with wearable super flexible batteries and stunning bad guys with a LED flashlight that causes nausea, vertigo and vomiting ... Imagine first responders quickly evacuating a dangerous territory and leaving behind electronic equipment that will eventually vanish, self-destruct ... Is it science fiction? Is it fantasy? No, just a few examples of innovative, breakthrough technologies that have been created through research and development efforts in support of Interior Business Center's acquisition customers at DOI, DHS, DARPA, IARPA, and the Army National Guard. These efforts resulted in forward-thinking solutions in the fields of defense and homeland security equipment, crowd management capabilities, geospatial decisional systems, network security, multimedia analysis, data and IT solutions, and many more.

On April 10, 2014, IBC hosted a technology showcase, in Washington, D.C., to share information about these new and emerging solutions with potential to help the Department of the Interior bureaus and offices meet their missions more efficiently and effectively. Research and development costs for technologies on display have already been incurred, which creates opportunities for economies of scale. During the event, DOI program managers, project managers, contracting officers, and law enforcement professionals saw demonstrations and engaged with representatives from IBC's customer agencies that built the technologies. This event was mainly supported by the IBC acquisition division located in Sierra Vista, Ariz.

IBC Deputy Director Angie Graziano and IBC's Acquisition Services Associate Director Keith O'Neill open the event, inviting DOI program managers to exchange ideas with federal colleagues who developed these new and innovative solutions.

IBC's Acquisition Services Branch Chief Jeff Sorensen hosts the event, introducing presenters and all the scheduled sessions.

Technologies

U.S. Department of the Interior

The DOI Landscape Decision Tool supports managers and executives in making informed decisions about land management projects. The system will provide users with the most accurate, intelligently fused, place-based data from commercial, government and private sector sources. Users can combine a variety of geospatial data sets to get relevant information about a specific location, allowing users to see, understand, track and monitor current and planned resource management activities across the nation.

Learn more: www.ecr.gov/AnnouncementsEvents/Announcements/201203/USDOIGeospatialToolCollaborative.aspx

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Army National Guard

The eXportable Compact Training Capabilityprovides a highly realistic battle space experience for training units as they prepare for mobilization in the Army Force Generation process. XCTC uses a combination of the FlexTrain instrumentation suite, monitoring software, replay capabilities and overall IT integration to support battlefield immersion and after action review.

Learn more: www.arng.army.mil/News/publications/fs/2009/graphics/xctc.htm

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Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

The Vanishing Programmable Resources-Electronic Materials program will develop and establish electronic components that can “disappear” or “self-destruct” in order to create greener technology as well as increase security for electronic assets.

Learn more: www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/MTO/Programs/Vanishing_Programmable
_Resources_(VAPR).aspx

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Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity

The Aggregative Contingent Estimationprogram builds on a common finding from research on human judgment - one can increase accuracy by combining the independent judgments of a large number of people who have access to different information. ACE improves this approach by weighting and statistically correcting the judgments of participants, according to their past accuracy.

Learn more: http://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/ace

The Open Source Indicators (OSI) program forecasts significant societal events by identifying subtle changes in population-level behavior that precede civil unrest, political elections, economic crises, and disease outbreaks. Data used in the program include anonymized social media, internet traffic, web search queries, financial markets, Wikipedia edits, online purchases, and online reservations.

Learn more: www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/osi

IARPA program manager Dr. Jason Matheny describes how the ACE program can dramatically enhance the accuracy, precision, and timeliness of intelligence forecasts for a broad range of event types. Dr. Matheny also provides an overview of the OSI program that is developing methods for continuous, automated analysis of publicly available data in order to anticipate and/or detect significant societal events.

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The Aladdin Video program is developing technology to aid analysts in quickly finding his/her events-of-interest in massive video collections. This program is researching technologies to automatically describe a video by its content; indexing of content that can be searched many times for different events.

Learn more: www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/aladdin-video

IARPA program manager Dr. Jill Crisman explains how the Aladdin Video Program combines state-of-the-art in video extraction, audio extraction, knowledge representation, and search technologies in a revolutionary way to create a fast, accurate, robust, and extensible technology that supports the multimedia analytic needs of the future.

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U.S. Department of Homeland Security

The BIOSwimmer is a biologically-inspired autonomous underwater vehicle, designed for high maneuverability in harsh environments. The BIOSwimmer is capable of swimming through waters to inspect ships, locks and dams, piers, bridge pilings, cabling and pipelines.

Learn more: www.dhs.gov/st-snapshot-bioswimmer

David Taylor, Program Manager at DHS Science & Technology Directorate, demonstrates the high maneuverability of the BIOSwimmer, the unmanned underwater vehicle designed to resemble a tuna.

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The Compact Escape Hood is a concealable lightweight Chemical Biological Radiation Nuclear Hood specifically designed for first responders. A “gas mask” that provides discreet, compact and immediate protection. Learn more: www.dhs.gov/boys-hood The Controlled Impact Rescue Tool is self-contained, safe and portable unit designed to aid first responders in breaching and breaking through reinforced concrete. The device requires no hoses or auxiliary power, allowing rapid deployment. Learn more: www.dhs.gov/racing-against-clock The Energy to Power and Operate First Responder Tools is a super flexible cloth with a unique technology to provide battery power to first responders in easy to wear, flexible formats that can conform to fit around a multitude of surfaces. The flat battery can be integrated into wearable gear to power emergency tools, lighting, communications, sensors and psychological monitors. DHS program manager Ajmal Aziz presents three products developed to support first responders and emergency management personnel: the Compact Escape Hood, the Controlled Impact Rescue Tool and the Energy to Power and Operate First Responder Tools.

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The Geospatial Location and Accountability Navigation System for Emergency Responders is a device designed to save the lives of first responders by tracking, locating, and directing teams to rescue at-risk/down personnel during emergency events.

Learn more: www.dhs.gov/where-there's-smoke-there's-signal

The LED Flashlight is a flashlight designed to stun individuals who are being detained/apprehended by law enforcement personnel. It works by stunning an individual and inducing psychophysical effects that include nausea, vertigo, and vomiting.

Learn more: www.dhs.gov/enough-make-you-sick

IBC contracting officer Scott Dalrymple presents the Geospatial Location and Accountability Navigation System for Emergency Responders and the LED Flashlight, two solutions developed to support first responders and emergency management personnel.

If you have questions or would like further information about the 2014 Technology Showcase please contact the IBC Acquisition Services Directorate at AQDAwareness@ibc.doi.gov, or visit our Contact Us page.

Story and photos by Andrea Antunes, communications manager, IBC
May 5, 2014