SBIR-STTR Award

Access to high-quality technical talent is a growing need in the US Air Force (USAF), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the federal Government as a whole. Competition over high-quality candidates can be fierce, causing Government clients to expend time and energy just filling seats on their software projects, let alone getting the work itself done. To quickly build secure applications and keep up with other global superpowers, USAF needs a sustainable way to recruit and train developers. For this Phase I STTR effort, Team Fearless proposes exploring a tech talent pipeline solution that would leverage an existing artificial intelligence workforce development and training tool to give USAF access to high-quality candidates from non-traditional labor pools. Our solution would enable USAF to identify candidates with no technical background who have a high likelihood of succeeding in the software development field and provide them with hands-on training tailored to USAF needs. Our proven training model could get trainees with no previous development experience up to speed on key technical subjects and ready to develop in as little as five months. This would give USAF access to previously untapped talent pools and bring economic and technological growth to their program’s local economies. Our primary objectives during this Phase I STTR project will be to prove the feasibility of our proposed tech talent pipeline solution for USAF, develop a plan for a future minimum viable product solution, and discover and engage with USAF developers and development teams to establish how our solution could be made to meet their needs. To accomplish these objectives, Team Fearless (comprising Fearless Solutions, LLC, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County) will perform the following high-level tasks within the three-month Phase I period of performance: Project kickoff hosted and requirements gathered Proprietary workforce development technology and other commercial products assessed Research completed and summarized

This project will demonstrate a proof-of-concept Small Unmanned Aerial System (SUAS) equipped with chemical sensors for plume tracking and source detection in a realistic outdoor environment. The project will first develop designs for incorporating chemical sensors onto Group 1 fixed wing and quadcopter SUAS, then make SUAS-performance-enhancing improvements to the Molecular Property Spectrometer (MPS) sensor platform, and eventually solve the problem of how SUAS equipped with such sensors would perform plume tracking and source detection. The team will demonstrate plume detection capability and sensitivity levels through a set of carefully designed experiments and demonstrations. The program leverages the successes of Phase I efforts in the design of SUAS compatible CBRNE sensors and identifying novel algorithms for plume tracking and source detection. The assembled technical team of experts from NevadaNano and the University of Utah Robotics Center has a history of collaborating in the area of SUAS-compatible sensor design, development, and deployment to ensure successful project outcomes and deliverables.