S&T Media Release: DHS S&T Announces $1.3M in Small Business Innovation Research Award

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Washington, D.C. – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has awarded $1.3 million to 12 small businesses for 13 Phase I contract awards to develop technology solutions to Homeland Security challenges.

“These awards are the result of our SBIR solicitation, released in December 2016, seeking solutions in five topic areas identified by S&T program managers to address the research and development needs of DHS components and the greater homeland security enterprise,” said DHS SBIR Program Director John Pucci.

The objective of the Phase I award is to establish the technical merit, feasibility, and commercial potential of the proposed Research and Development efforts. Small businesses may be eligible for additional development funding under Phase II based on the results of their initial project, as well as the scientific and technical merit and perceived commercialization potential moving forward.

Phase I contracts of approximately $100,000 each were awarded in the five topics areas:

  • Enhanced Agent Situational Awareness in Dismounted, Low Light/Adverse Conditions
        • Intelligent Automation Inc, (Rockville, MD), for “DARTS: Dismounted Adversary Recognition and Tracking System”
        • Physical Optics Corporation, (Torrance, CA), for “Infrared and Optical Wilderness Location and Surveillance System”
  • Do-Not-Spoof Services for Modern Telephony
        • AnaVation LLC., (Reston, VA), for “Verification of Caller Ascertained Logically (VOCAL)”
        • Illuma Labs LLC, (Dallas, TX), for “Real-Time Authentication to Counter Caller ID Spoofing”
        • SecureLogix (San Antonio, TX), for “A Layered Service Provider/Customer Approach to Call Spoofing”
  • Identity Verification & Validation for Mobile Networks Authentication Enhancement
        • NAND Technologies Inc, (Front Royal, VA), for “SIM Forward: Leveraging Trusted Authentication for New 5G Services”
        • Rivetz Corp., (Richmond, MA), for “Trusted execution providing simpler and stronger priority access”
  • Wearable Chemical Sensor Badge
        • Aromatix Technologies, (San Jose, CA), for “ Versatile Wearable Chemical Sensor using Ultrasound gas sensing technology (CMUTs)”
        • Design West Technolgies, Inc, (Tustin, CA), for “A Wearable Toxic Chemical Sensor Badge”
        • Morphix Technologies, (Virginia Beach, VA), for “Wearable Chemical Sensor Badge”
        • Platypus Technologies, LLC, (Madison, WI), for “Wearable Liquid Crystal Based Chemical Sensor Badge for the Identification of Toxic Industrial Chemicals”
        • TDA Research, Inc. (Wheat Ridge, CO), for “Wearable Smart Chemical Sensors”
  • Over-the-air Authentication Technology for Messaging via Emergency Alerts
      • NAND Technologies Inc, (Front Royal, VA), for “AlertPrime: Tokenizing WEA”

Initiated in 2004, the DHS S&T SBIR Program is a competitive contract awards program to increase the participation of innovative and creative U.S. small businesses in federal research and development initiatives and to increase private sector commercialization of SBIR-funded solutions.

The SBIR Program is open to qualifying U.S. firms with 500 or fewer employees. Since 2004 DHS SBIR has awarded a total of $277 million to small businesses. Woman-Owned Small Businesses (WOSBs) have received funding in the amount of $39.5 million, and Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Small Businesses have received $23.6 million.

For more about the S&T SBIR Program, visit https://sbir2.st.dhs.gov