DHS Awards GD Potential $395M for Continued Date Center Support Services
The Department of Homeland Security has awarded General Dynamics
’ [GD] Information Technology segment a potential 18-month, $395.5 million contract extension to continue providing support services to Data Center 1 (DC1) until the competitive Data Center and Cloud Optimization (DCCO) contract is awarded in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021 and the DCCO contractor is in place. The contract extension has a one-year base period and one six-month option. DC1 is a government-owned, contractor-operated enterprise date center. GD provides managed hosting and professional services. DHS in late April said it planned to award GD a contract extension for DC1.
CWMD Office Awards K2 Construction $253M for RMP Deployment Services
The Department of Homeland Security Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office has awarded K2 Construction Consultants a potential five-year $252.5 million contract to provide deployment, construction and design services for the Radiation Portal Monitor Program (RPMP). Work will include site surveys, site designs, construction, ancillary equipment installation, calibration, configuration management, commissioning, and RPM acceptance from Customs and Border Protection. Under the contract, RPMs will be deployed to land border crossings, including ferries and railroads, seaports, international airports, preclearance airports, and international mail and express consignment courier facilities.
DTRA Awards ARServices $146M for R&D Support
ARServices has won a potential $145.5 million contract from the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to provide support to the Research and Development Directorate Program Management Office. ARServices says its team will provide programmatic, financial and policy expertise across the CBRNE spectrum, and in the countering weapons of mass destruction, countering improvised threats, and countering improvised threat networks mission domains. The company also says its support will enable the R&D Directorate’s research, development, test, and evaluation activities, ranging from basic research and demonstration and validation to providing unique testing and evaluation facilities and rapid and deliberate delivery of new capabilities. ARServices has supported DTRA’s R&D Directorate for nearly a decade. The award has a six-month base period and four one-year options.
FEMA Awards Manhattan Associates $75M for Logistics Supply Chain Help
Manhattan Associates has received a potential $74.8 million contract from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide logistics supply chain management system-cloud operations and maintenance. FEMA says the award was made without a competition because the solution is proprietary to the contractor. The operations and maintenance services include system upgrades, electronic data interchange management, training support, and the development of training materials.
DHS S&T Makes Small Machine Learning Awards to Enhance Threat Detection
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate has awarded Physical Sciences Inc. and Alakai Defense Systems Inc. each about $1 million to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning-based non-contact technologies to improve the accuracy and reduce the time and cost of detecting threats such as explosives, chemical agents and drugs using spectroscopic systems. The two-year awards were made under phase 2 of the Small Business Innovation Research program and will result in the development of prototypes to demonstrate the technology. “Our impetus for developing these machines-learning modules stems from the Transportation Security Administration’s operational needs for threat signature fusion, the ability to learn, detect and classify new threats without being explicitly programmed, and ultimately, increase accuracy of detection,” says Thoi Nguyen, S&T program manager for the Next Generation Explosive Trace Detection program. PSI will continue to develop its deep-learning algorithm for detection and classification of trace explosives, opioids, and narcotics on surfaces for optical spectroscopic systems. Alakai will continue to develop its Agnostic Machine Learning Platform for Spectroscopy that rapidly and accurately detects trace quantities of hazardous and related chemicals from a variety of spectroscopic instruments.
Catalyst Communications Gets $3M NIST SBIR Award for Interoperable Comms
The Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded Catalyst Communications Technologies a $3 million phase three Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract to commercialize the company’s interoperable solution for land mobile radio (LMR) and long-term evolution (LTE) communication systems for public safety. Virginia-based Catalyst is completed phase two work building prototypes for various LMR systems and a public safety-grade dispatch console that seamlessly supports both LMR and LTE. The Phase one and two work was funded by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate. In phase three, Catalyst will work to commercialize a standards-compliant solution that will permit new mission-critical push-to-talk applications on LTE mobile phones to communicate with both existing subscribers of public safety LMRs and dispatchers.