Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory CSO
The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory is looking to obtain innovative solutions or potential new capabilities in the following categories: Building Cold Region Domain Awareness, Enhancing Mobility and Maneuver in Cold Region Environments, Integrated Ice Operations, Advanced Materials Development and Applications in Extreme Cold Environments, and Resilient Cold Region Energy Systems.
Naval Special Warfare Command CSO
Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC) seeks to accelerate the development, procurement and integration of unique capabilities into deployable warfighting capabilities in support of the Joint Force and our allied Special Operations Forces (SOF).
Non-destructive Viral ID
Warfighters are often deployed to emerging disease hotspots. To help mitigate potential exposure risks, DoD entities tasked with force health protection [1] rapidly assess, often on-site, a range of sample types for potential biological threats. Current rapid on-site identification (ID) methods include sequencing [2,3] and lateral flow assays (aka dipstick tests) [4], which destroy both the sample & the organism(s), inhibiting further analysis. While sequencing costs continue to decrease and cheap lateral flow assays continue to increase in organism scope, forward operators often triage the number of sites and samples collected due to resource, personnel, and time constraints [5]. Recent advances in metasurfaces [6,7]7, optical waveguides [8], microfluidics [9], and (super)high resolution imaging [10], now suggest accurate organism ID and viability maintenance can co-occur; however, current non-destructive systems lack field utility due to their lab-centric designs [7]. This SBIR will address both the significant limitations to rapid, on-site biosurveillance in resource constrained environments and the lab-centric designs for non-destructive pathogen ID by developing human-portable, low size, weight, and power (SWaP) technology to rapidly and non-destructively ID viruses on-site and in the field. Final Phase II prototypes must be: ≤ 1 ft3; ≤ 5 lbs; and ≤ 200-Watt peak power input, with all SWaP requirements inclusive of power delivery mechanisms, software/data processing, consumables, and reagents, and should function with a wide range of simulated clinical samples (e.g., blood, saliva, nasal swabs, etc.) and contrived environmental samples (swipes/wipes, chicken rinse, etc.). Systems should non-destructively ID viruses faster than current state-of-the-art sequencing and lateral flow assays (≤ 15 min per sample, not including sample pre-processing) while maintaining viral infectivity for downstream lab-based analysis. By the end of Phase II systems should ID viruses faster than current state-of-the-art sequencing and lateral flow assays (≤ 15 min per sample), in the field sample pre-processing, if any, should be no more than 20 minutes per sample, and viral ID should be independent of cloud connectivity (e.g., database access, analysis and ID can occur on the device without cloud access).
Request for Information (RFI) - Strategic Technology Office (STO)
This RFI is to provide a mechanism to inform the office of new capabilities and concepts and the potential performers who will provide them. DARPA will use this information to determine the companies and individuals that STO would invite to have further substantive discussions to inform future projects and programs in appropriately classified settings when necessary.
