The Department of Defense (DoD) is mandated to have SBIR/STTR open topics for many of their component organizations now; largely based on the exceptionally successful Air Force program. Often, while the opportunity is listed as “open,” meaning they potentially accept a wide variety of possible technical solutions, there are particular foci of interest that limits the potential awards to particular areas. The Army currently has an open topic with a particular focus on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML).
This topic opened on June 11, 2024 and will close on September 17, 2024. This is part of the DoD SBIR 24.4 Annual solicitation which encompasses many topics across several components with a variety of deadlines.
This particular topic: A244-P037: Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning (AI/ML) Focused Open Topic accepts both Phase I and Direct to Phase II SBIR submissions. Phase I awards will be up to $250,000 for 6-months, and Direct to Phase II’s will be up to $2,000,000 for a two year projects. Phase I requires a 5 page technical plan, an 8 slide deck commercialization plan, and an outline of deliverables. Direct to Phase II requires a 10 page technical volume, a 5 page feasibility report that mimics Phase I work, and an 8 slide commercialization plan.
There are six subfields of interest to the Army for this topics that include:
- Synthetic data generation for situations not obtained by direct measurement
- Data Validation and Verification
- Methods to identify and mitigate AI risk in the operational and supply chain areas
- Constructing and testing Large Language Models or Radio Frequency signal detection
- Retrieval augmented generation to improve generative AI models
- Collaborative AI method to enable communication between autonomous systems at long ranges.
Since Wisconsin has an established digital economy and environment and a burgeoning AI/ML talent pool, we encourage skilled people and companies to consider this opportunity and reach out to us for assistance in preparing an application to this (or any) topic.
