The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) this month and last awarded over two dozen contracts and grants worth about $12 million for basic and exploratory research, small business funding, and technology demonstrations to industry and universities.
The two-year old agency also says that it has made strides since its inception in advancing research and development in several areas. For example, DNDO is finding new materials to do radiological detection with that are more effective or less expensive or easier to produce, Bill Hagan, assistant director for Transformational and Applied Research at DNDO, tells TR2.
“Two years ago we were in discovery mode and we still are but now we are seeing ideas and proposals based on new materials that are increasing in maturity,” Hagan says. “So we’re improving purity, producibility and more. New materials can eventually have a large impact on the detection architecture.”
Hagan also points to advances in detectors, particularly in getting away from point detectors, which will allow for increased throughput and lower costs. He says advances in detectors are enabling other imaging techniques to be used, such as three-dimensional versus two-dimensional, which helps eliminate clutter for the operator.
As the nation’s nuclear detection architecture begins to fill out with a lot of distributed sensors, DNDO has several new projects underway and is considering more on how best to optimize communications and data fusion between sensors, Hagan says. One question the agency is asking is “Are there ways to get further benefits from networking,” he says. DNDO has one program that will take data from non-sensors and fuse it with sensor data to see if more accurate results can be obtained, he adds.
DNDO also has some small efforts underway in nuclear forensics with more planned, Hagan says.
Contract Awards
As part of the FY ’08 year-end budget flush, DNDO made 17 awards to companies in three categories. For Advanced Technology Development, the agency awarded four contracts to three companies under the Shielded Nuclear Alarm Resolution (SNAR) Broad Agency Announcement that was made in March. Two awards went to OSI Systems’ [OSIS] Rapiscan Division, one worth $558,000 and the other $1 million. The other contracts went to L-3 Communications [LLL], $1.3 million, and Passport Systems, Inc., $2.1 million.
Rapiscan’s projects are titled “Enhanced DDAA (differential die away analysis)-based SNM (special nuclear material) Detection System,” which falls within the Rapidly Re- locatable Systems topic area, and “Photo-fission Based Alarm Resolution,” which is within the Integrated Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) Systems topic area. L-3’s project is “Relocatable SNAR” and Passport System’s is “Advanced Technology Demonstration for SNAR, Integrated NII System.
DNDO says that through the ATD projects, it will compare and assess “viable technology solutions.” Contractors will eventually develop a prototype that can be tested in a simulated or constrained “operationally relevant environment” to generate performance data that can be used in a cost benefit trade analysis for transition to commercial system development and acquisition.
Under Exploratory Research, seven awards were made to five companies. General Electric’s [GE] Global Research Center received two awards, including $1.1 million related to fuse target tracking data into radiation imaging algorithms by merging GE’s intelligent video tracking with the CZT Compton camera technology for stand-off detection of moving targets. The other award, $586,411, is for an array of large-area flat panels for SNM detection.
Radiation Monitoring Devices, part of Dynasil Corp. [DYSL], received awards for $224,000 and $159,000. The larger award is for exploring thallium bromide and related systems for semiconductors for gamma ray detection and the smaller award is for optimizing thallium bromide processes utilizing sublimation and zone refining techniques.
Raytheon [RTN] won a $574,860 contract to integrate existing detector technology with a distributed architecture of detection systems for detection and localization of radiological and nuclear threats.
Passport Systems also won an Exploratory Research award totaling $149,879 to develop a high-energy gamma source based on the known (neutron, gamma) reactions.
Finally under Exploratory Research, Decision Sciences Corp. (DSC) received $10,000 to integrate Muon Tomography (MT), passive gamma and neutron detection techniques for radiological and nuclear material. Hagan says the small award is meant to finish up some existing work DSC is doing prior to obtaining a larger contract. DSC has built a prototype of an MT-based cargo screening system that has been tested by Los Alamos National Laboratory (TR2, June 11).
Finally, six Phase I awards were made under the Small Innovative Research (SBIR) program. Phase I awards, which typically last for about six months, help the government determine whether it makes sense to move into a second phase worth up to $1 million to build and test devices.
- Radiation Monitoring Devices received $150,000 to investigate CBD diamond films for the detection of fission neutrons for non-nuclear proliferation.
- Radiabeam Technologies, LLC received $150,000 to develop a handheld portable accelerator to replace radionuclide radiography devices. The company will utilize a MicroLinac, which is based on x-band radio frequency linac technology and is an available inexpensive RF source.
- Starfire Industries, LLC, received $150,000 to develop an innovative fusion neutron generator for the replacement of Am-Be sources. The company also presents the use of pulsed DT tubes for source replacement.
- Creative Electron received $149,913 to develop a Smart Multiple Anomaly Recognition Technique to determine the presence of contraband in cargo utilizing sub-band decomposition of NII images.
- Forell Enterprises, Inc., received $149,595 to develop software for an X-Ray anomaly image process utilizing their own intelligent agent technology. The software provided will learn to detect and identify items of interest in cargo conveyances.
- Stellarray, Inc., received $147,903 to develop flat panel X-Ray sources for radiation source replacements using cold cathode arrays lithographically formed on the exit window to emit hundreds of thousands of electron beams toward a broad X-Ray target.
Separately, DNDO and the National Science Foundation made $3.1 million in awards to nine schools and universities to foster leading edge research in radiological and nuclear detection at academic institutions.
Under the Academic Research Initiative (ARI), the following institutions will get the grant funds: Texas A&M; Purdue; Washington State Univ.; Univ. of California at Berkeley; Naval Postgraduate School; Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville; Univ. of Michigan at Ann Arbor; Univ. of California at Santa Barbara; and California State Univ. East Bay Foundation.
“It is our intention that our efforts through the ARI, combined with the support efforts of other federal agencies, to help cultivate the nuclear scientists and engineers of the future,” says Vayl Oxford, director of DNDO. “We will continue to expand our support in the coming years to demonstrate long-term, stable funding for innovative ideas that advance nuclear detection capabilities and build the nation’s intellectual capital.”
DHS says there is a potential $58 million in grant opportunities available over a five-year period to colleges and universities for research into radiological and nuclear detection technologies. The ARI program began last year. Solicitations are planned over the next three years.