Official websites use .gov
A
.gov website belongs to an official government
organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A
lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to
the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official,
secure websites.
Homeland Security Research, Development, Testing, Evaluation and Demonstration of Technologies Related to Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction
97.077
Support the PPD-8 objective of prevention related to terrorist acts involving nuclear or radiological materials, or weapons using these materials. Support basic research to enhance national security's capability to detect and prevent the illicit entry, transport, assembly, or potential use within the United States of unauthorized chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) materials, devices or agents and otherwise help protect against an attack using such materials, devices, or agents. The Academic Research Initiative (ARI) Program has two primary objectives: 1) Engage the academic community to advance fundamental knowledge in CBRN sciences applicable to countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) with emphasis on basic and applied research to solve long-term, high-risk challenges and 2) Develop human capital for the CBRN science and engineering professions. Further, the program works to sustain a long-term commitment to basic research in this field and coordinates research efforts across the federal government to develop new capabilities for WMD threat detection.
This chart shows obligations for the program by fiscal year. All data for this chart was provided by the
administering agency and sourced from SAM.gov, USASpending.gov, and Treasury.gov.
For more information on each of these data sources, please see the
About the data page.
Notice of Funding Opportunity will be issued for New ARI Activities: Complete second year evaluation of the approximately 10 new activities awarded two years ago and complete first year evaluation of the approximately 8 new activities awarded the previous year. Initiate approximately 5 new activities that address gaps in the GNDA and TNF. Notice of Funding Opportunity was released for new ARI activities. Completed second year evaluation of 10 activities awarded two years ago and completed first year evaluation of 8 new activities awarded the previous year. Awarded eight new activities that address gaps in the GNDA and TNF.
Completed evaluations of the 37 on-going activities. A Notice of Funding Opportunity will not be issued for new ARI activities this year.
Notice of Funding Opportunity issued for new TSI activities. Initiated 4 new activities that address mission needs. Completed evaluations of the 26 on-going activities.
Completed evaluations of the 18 on-going activities.
Issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity for new ARI activities leading to award of 7 Cooperative Agreements. Completed evaluations of the 11 on-going activities. Supported 48 students and produced 36 technical publications.
DHS CWMD Academic Research Initiative (ARI) FY20 Accomplishments
• Carnegie Mellon University: Threat Detection at Checkpoints Modeling o The team implemented a prototype system for characterizing passing conveyances using computer vision algorithms for detection and tracking of vehicles in video. An initial set of detection and classification results from traffic data collection was obtained. The team will continue efforts to develop new approaches to improve the effectiveness of radiation portal monitors for threat detection at checkpoints.
• University of Michigan: Fast Neutron Detectors for Active Interrogation o The program is transitioning firmware to a board-ready version for hardware implementation. Neural network-based pile-up recovery was demonstrated successfully in an interrogation environment, and results were verified by simulation, activation analysis, and conventional detection methods. This work will lead to laboratory demonstrations of shielded SNM detection with neutron signals in a high-intensity photon interrogation environment.
• University of Tennessee: IDEAS for SNM o The radiation hardness of LKH5 scintillating glass was characterized, and samples were coupled to commercially available silicon thin film transistor arrays. These arrays were shown to have better radiography performance than CdWO4.
• Yale University: Active Interrogation with Superheated Emulsions: o The team has developed large, uniform-droplet superheated emulsion detectors with an optical readout to detect neutrons in an active interrogation environment. The next phase of development will involve laboratory testing of the detectors in a field-representative active interrogation scenario.
• University of California-Berkeley: Enhanced Search by Fusing Radiological and Non-Radiological Sources o The team continued integration of mobile radiation search system and object tracking approach into data fusion capability is underway. The team will complete algorithm integration into the data fusion system to support anomaly detection by end of FY21, providing improved capability for wide area nuclear search and monitoring. Preliminary analysis indicates contextual information can improve detection capabilities and provides critical attribution capabilities. Object tracking and data fusion are ongoing efforts. Lidar enhancements have improved contextual sensor data when synchronized.
• University of Tennessee: Methylammonium Lead Halide Scintillators o Efforts focused on optimization of the growth parameters to enhance the electronic properties of perovskites relevant to radiation sensing. Growth techniques included modifications of precursor ratios and concentrations, heating/cooling rates, and incorporation of substitutional elements such as lithium, cesium, and chlorine. The team made significant progress in optimizing growth processes for different HOIP variants. Incorporation of different anions and cations to improve performance, to include the addition of lithium for thermal neutron sensing was made. Funding also supported a new graduate level course, NE 597/697 “Topics of Semiconductor Detectors,” which was taught by the PI during this period.
• University of Utah: Machine Learning of Nuclear Forensic Data o Demonstrated that new image classification technique resulted in higher predictive average value. This supports ongoing work in evaluating the feasibility of using machine learning for image analysis of forensics samples, to reduce the data processing time through automated assessment of sample images and identifying crucial trends in large data sets. A PhD student on this project received an Innovations in Nuclear Technology R&D Award from the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Technology R&D.
• Southern Methodist University: Radiation Background Characterization for Anomaly Detection o Measurements on the Aviation Pathway continued with an additional 38 flight segments on passenger and 65 on cargo aircraft completed. Passenger flights utilized passengers carrying Kromek DS3 detectors in “airplane” mode while cargo flights utilized FEDEX shipments. Results showed that altitude is the dominant effect on background at airline and cargo altitudes, with geomagnetic latitude as the second most important effect (greater effect at lower latitudes). The team also demonstrated the ability to predict count rate given altitude and geomagnetic latitude.
• George Mason University: Surveying Ingress Pathways for Energetic Radiation Background o The team continued work to combine advanced radiation detector systems and platforms with robust mobile ad-hoc network connectivity and advanced machine learning algorithms to quantify background signatures and enhance real-time anomaly detection. During FY20, the testbed was expanded to include at least one mobile platform to determine impact on anomaly detection. The team determined the threshold for anomaly detection for machine learning algorithm for a fixed network and fixed source. Finally, the team developed a background radiation simulation module for planning tool; and down selected to best II-VI and oxide-based p-and n-thin film semiconductor to be used in p-i-n photodiode structure, and evaluated a silicon diode / scintillator element using 60Co source and standard nuclear counting electronics.
• Carnegie Mellon University: Robust Interpretable Anomaly Detection for CWMD o This project examines multiple approaches for anomaly detection in radiation measurements, scoring that describes which anomalies are of most importance, combining disparate data sources such as manifest with radiation portal monitor, and explainability of the output of machine learning. Each of these subjects was advanced in FY20. o The Spectral Anomaly Detection algorithm was improved by requiring structured deviations across multiple observations. This improved anomaly detection while retaining low false positive rates. o Automatic scoring of anomalies was developed with consideration of the Enhanced Radiological Nuclear Inspection and Evaluation (ERNIE) application used on radiation portal monitors. Scoring was developed that focuses on threat anomalies rather than the many other anomalies that may be generated from benign variations.
• University of Tennessee: Multimodal Data Fusion for Anomaly Detection o Anomaly detection code was run on a virtual single board computer to assess the ultimate resource requirements for field deployment. o Entered final version of Autoencoder Radiation Anomaly Detector (ARAD) into secure the code repository at UTK. o The PhD student involved in ARAD development graduated in FY20 and moved to a team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In the intervening months, he has become an essential part of a technology evaluation team at ORNL working on a CWMD Advanced Technology Demonstration for wearable radiation detectors.
Exploratory Research (ER) Program The ER Program specifically focused on innovative, high risk, early-stage applied research expected to have transformational impact, and when conducted with a clear and well supported technical approach, would provide new capabilities to help counter the threat of nuclear terrorism. Research under this Program culminated in a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) demonstration, to support transitioning to an advanced technology demonstration program or supporting direct commercialization of the technology.
Final Exploratory Research project (Carnegie Mellon Univeristy), completed 8/31/2020 o The team completed feasibility evaluation into development of an algorithmic framework for aggregating data from multiple sensing modalities on vehicle platforms to reliably monitor, detect, localize, track, and characterize radiological/nuclear threats in real time in cluttered scenes such as urban traffic scenarios.
Issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity for new ARI activities leading to award of Cooperative Agreements. Completed evaluations on the on-going activities.
Issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity for new ARI activities leading to award of 3 Cooperative Agreements. Issued awards for 16 continuing Cooperative Agreements. Completed evaluations on all on-going activities.
Issued awards for 15 continuing Cooperative Agreements. Completed evaluations on all on-going activities.
Estimated: Issue awards for 14 continuing Cooperative Agreements. Complete evaluations on all on-going activities.
Estimated to issue a Notice of Funding Opportunity for new ARI activities leading to award of a TBD number of Cooperative Agreements. Issue awards for 8 continuing Cooperative agreements. Complete evaluations on all on-going activities.
Single Audit Applies (2 CFR Part 200 Subpart F):
For additional information on single audit requirements for this program, review the current Compliance Supplement.
OMB is working with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and agency offices of inspectors general to include links to relevant oversight reports. This section will be updated once this information is made available.
