Posted on 07/08/2005 7:01:33 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
DID has covered evolving US anti-submarine warfare strategy before, including the growing importance of dealing with super-quiet diesel-electric submarines in shallow-water littorals.
In response, one of the early-stage Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) approaches involves thinking entirely outside the sonar box. We talk about "submariner dolphins" - but maybe the creature they really need to emulate is the shark.
Unlike dolphins, sharks don't use sonar. Instead, they rely on both an acute sense of smell and on jelly-filled canals that pick up on the tiny electrical charges a potential morsel makes when it flexes its muscles, or swims counter to the earth's magnetic fields.
As DefenseTech.org reports, that second ability is the subject of no less than 3 Phase I SBIR contracts that are trying to duplicate the idea for use by submarines and underwater sensors: RD Instruments in San Diego, CA; Quantum Applied Science & Research, Inc. in San Diego, CA; and Advanced Ceramics Research Inc. in Tucson, AZ.
As part of its SBIR program, the DoD issues an SBIR solicitation four times a year, describing its R&D needs and inviting R&D proposals from small companies - firms organized for profit with 500 or fewer employees, including all affiliated firms.
Companies apply first for a six-month to nine-month Phase I award of $70,000 to $100,000 to test the scientific, technical, and commercial merit and feasibility of a particular concept.
If Phase I proves successful, the company may be invited to apply for a two-year Phase II award of $500,000 to $750,000 to further develop the concept, usually to the prototype stage. Proposals are judged competitively on the basis of scientific, technical, and commercial merit.
Following completion of Phase II, small companies are expected to obtain funding from the private sector and/or non-SBIR government sources (in "Phase III") to develop the concept into a product for sale in private sector and/or military markets.
There is also an STTR program, which is similar in structure to SBIR but funds cooperative R&D projects involving a small business and a research institution (i.e., university, federally-funded R&D center, or nonprofit research institution).
Ping!
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