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ORCA and the SBIR Program

OR Concepts Applied has participated in the highly competitive SBIR program since 1990. We have won Phase II efforts for most of the projects for which we were selected to be a Phase I winner. This section discusses a number of these efforts. Our portfolio of SBIR technology is an important asset because it allows us to be awarded sole source contracts on any government effort that represents an extension of our previous research.

Phase III is the key to SBIR success. Rule changes over the past few years have increased incentives to make use of SBIR technology by both government and commercial entities. Perhaps most importantly, Phase III contracts may be awarded SOLE SOURCE. The Government has deemed that Phase I and Phase II wins are deemed as adequate competition.

In general, a Phase III contract may be awarded for any project that 1) derives from, extends, or logically concludes efforts performed under prior SBIR funding agreements and 2) is funded by sources other than the SBIR program. Furthermore, there are no limits on the number, duration, type, or dollar value of Phase III awards.

ORCA is enthusiastic about teaming with other companies and is willing to use our portfolio of SBIR technologies as part of a competitive strategy.


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Argos - Visualization Tool for Cyberspace Command and Control

Cyberwar is here. Being able to detect and monitor a cyber attack is necessary to protect our national interests. Being able to respond to a cyber attack has additional merit. During this SBIR effort, OR Concepts Applied (ORCA) embarked upon a research and development effort called Argos (a name, not an acronym) to create innovative software that supports command and control (C2) of cyber assets for both defensive and offensive applications. Our focus has been on tools that provide commanders and operators with cyber situation awareness (SA). A critical part of our work has been devising visualization tools to support cyberspace command and control (CC2) applications.

ORCA has taken an in depth look at cyber attacks from footprinting, to system compromise, to back door installation and clean up. We set up a security lab with several honey pots to capture threat and learn more about malware used by script kiddies and aspiring black hat hackers. We studied botnets and their relevance to modern cyber warfare.

We examined a tool used by a network operations center (NOC) and rebuilt it using modern human factors considerations. The new interactive intrusion chart prototype can analyze server log data with interactive filtering, drilldown into day and time, frequency and severity display modes, and drilldown into specific attackers. Visualization focused on presenting the severity (green to red) and frequency (white to black) of attacks. The prototype was demonstrated during the Phase I final briefing.

Our research has laid the foundation for the development of a CC2 system. Defensive tools were described to detect, monitor, and react to attacks against friendly nodes. We detailed how effects monitoring could be built to analyze the effects of actions taken by the CC2 system. We outlined information gathering tools to populate the cyber landscape and provide much needed intelligence. We discussed offensive toolkits to take advantage of the latest in script kiddy tools, providing a “Script Kiddies on Steroids” offensive capability. Visualizations for each of these tools have been explored, along with simulation elements to test the SA capabilities of various approaches.

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Multi-Vehicle Mission Planner for Unmanned Vehicles

The goal of the Multi-Vehicle Mission Planner (MVMP) Phase II SBIR effort is to design a mission planner capable of providing pre-mission planning and dynamic replanning for multiple heterogeneous unmanned systems.

During Phase I, OR Concepts Applied (ORCA) designed the MVMP architecture for multi-vehicle mission planning for teams of unmanned air, sea surface, underwater, and ground vehicles. ORCA also designed an MVMP software component for coordinated multi-vehicle planning and control of Navy unmanned vehicles (UVs).

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Adaptive Levels of Automation for UAV Supervisory Control

 

OR Concepts Applied designed and implemented a human factors test bed to evaluate adaptive autonomy schemes and a range of levels of autonomy for UAV supervisory control. The test bed includes a high fidelity simulation that interfaces with a mission control element (MCE) that supports multi-vehicle control. The MCE uses OPUS mission planning tools to provide the operator with optimization and analysis decision aids. SA Technologies, Inc. was instrumental in helping to create user interface elements to help maintain high levels of situation awareness even when the level of automation is increased. The test bed provides a variety of tools for researchers to create scenarios, alter adaptive schemas, and collect experimental data.

This work was the focus of Phase I and Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contracts. In 2009, additional efforts were undertaken to enhance the test bed with special attention being directed at making it easier for researchers to set up experiments. Also note that the UAV Commander game is a fun spin off from this more serious research effort.

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Simulation Technologies for EA Management

The demand for electronic warfare (EW) and electronic attack (EA) in particular is increasing with the proliferation of advanced radar systems and wireless communications and triggering devices. There is a growing number of target sets from increasingly effective integrated air defense systems and in the urban battle space. Our limited EA assets will better meet the many demands if there are effective resource management schemes.

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The Versatile Integrated Planner and Router

OR Concepts Applied (ORCA) implemented a software component called the Versatile Integrated Planner and Router (VIPR). VIPR was designed to provide force level planning and sortie level routing for air vehicles with a focus on unmanned aircraft performing surveillance missions. VIPR leveraged technology from the existing ORCA Planning and Utility System (OPUS) by making use of a commercially available application programmer interface (API). A major innovation was integrating VIPR with the Navy's Tactical Control Station and the PMA 263 TCS Testbed. A second innovation was our increase of UAV autonomy by driving the VIPR component with health and status information from an aircraft Failure Management System.

BENEFITS: The Versatile Integrated Planner and Router (VIPR) benefited the Navy by providing mission planning tools for unmanned aircraft and by increasing the potential for autonomous vehicle operations. The technology embodied by VIPR includes algorithms for force level allocation of aircraft to mission objectives as well as individual sortie planning to achieve mission goals while avoiding threats. With the Navy's guidance, ORCA technology can play a role in adding to uav and other mission planning capabilities.

We had hoped to merge our VIPR technologies with the Tactical Control Station (TCS) suite of tools and to make it part of the next generation Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS) - a collaborative program of the US Air Force, Navy, Marines, and SOF. That has not yet happened. The Navy's UAV Technology Review Board (UAV TRB) endorsed VIPR technology in recognition that the Navy could acquire capabilities with lower development risk, a shorter development cycle, and greater product sophistication per investment dollar. Unfortunately, that endorsement was not enough!


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Large Number of Air Vehicles Simulation

The Phase II technical effort for Large Number of Air Vehicles Simulation (LNAVSIM) brought together the triad of Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) target allocation, the LNAVSIM air vehicle coordination techniques and OPUS air vehicle routing and analysis to the simulation facility at Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) in Dayton, Ohio. The LNAVSIM capability provided inter-vehicle coordination capabilities for the Joint Interim Mission Modeling (JIMM) simulation environment. The Air Force was investigating ways to utilize simulation techniques to study large numbers of offensive weapons such as the UCAV as a means to locate high-value, strategic, movable targets and deliver firepower. ORCA's Phase II focus on providing an environment designed to be an effective tool for evaluating command, control and operations of large force structures involving many differing aircraft working in coordinated and collaborative ways was invaluable. We achieved the goal of being able to assess the effectiveness of these systems when integral to a much larger force structure.

Mission planning and simulation for multiple flying vehicles in dynamic environments involves asset allocations, tiered tactics and collaborative strategies designed to accomplish goals of the mission, given the current knowledge available about the world. As knowledge changes, the planning system should dynamically replan to best accomplish the mission. The domain of inflight rerouting and mission replanning concepts for these dynamic environments was presented.

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LO Inflight Replanning

Way back in the 1990s, we were already working the problem of dynamic inflight replanning. This research project was performed for Wright Patterson AFB. We developed and demonstrated methods for inflight replanning and onboard selection of maneuvers and flight paths. Note that replanning is particularly challenging for low observable (LO, i.e. stealthy) aircraft since even small deviations from planned routes can lead to unwanted detection by the enemy integrated air defense system. Our Phase 2 effort focused on documenting operational and system requirements.

We also investigated a variety of rules of engagement (ROE) relevant to the inflight replanning problem. In particular, we developed protocols to maintain deconfliction even if multiple aircraft are simultaneously replanning.