Heterogeneous UxS Teams/Development of Rigid Body Dynamics Software Library/The Use of Botanical DNA Materials as Anti-Counterfeit Markers for Electronic Components

A. Collaborative Perception Across Heterogeneous UxS Teams ($20,000 ceiling)- Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division is interested in receiving proposals for the development of novel collaborative perception algorithms that will enable heterogeneous teams of UxS (specifically unmanned air and ground systems) to share knowledge and perform joint target search and tracking autonomously. While existing distributed data fusion methods have looked at probabilistic representations for fusing detections at a decision level, work is needed to investigate shared perceptual features that exist across unmanned air and ground systems to enable the performance of collaborative tasks. The topic would address how to determine such shared perceptual features so that heterogeneous unmanned systems can perform, for example, target handoff from one vehicle to another. B. Development of a new Rigid Body Dynamics Software Library for Mathematical and Physics-Based Modeling and Simulation. ($40,000 ceiling)- The basic research proposed here would involve the development of a new software library for the temporal (time) integration of the governing equations of rigid body dynamics. The temporal integration technique employed in this new library involves the application of the Runge-Kutta method of various orders and possibly other finite-difference-type techniques to a system of equations consisting of kinematic equations (arising from the Lie Group structure of the group of rotation transformations) which define the first and second time derivatives of the rotation transformation in terms of angular velocity and angular acceleration together with the equations of motion (balance of momentum and balance of angular momentum) of a rigid body. C. Robustness of the Use of Botanical DNA Materials as Anti-Counterfeit Markers for Electronic Components ($40,000 ceiling)- The project will solicit academic laboratory participation for doing testing that demonstrates the 'robustness' of the use of Botanical DNA material as anti-counterfeit markers for electronic components. Request analysis of candidate DNA marker materials utilizing current DNA manipulation technology. This will include, for example, Whole Genome Amplification (WGA), and the use of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). This analysis may result in the discovery of vulnerabilities in the botanical DNA Marking approach: for example, if candidate material can be successfully replicated by WGA, and then is ‘recognized’ as valid material by use of PCR. Request proposal of concepts based on the 'state of the art' in Plant Genomics that may strengthen the DNA marking approach. This would be done especially in light of results from (1) above.