NASA SBIR 2009 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Intelligent Automation, Inc.
15400 Calhoun Drive, Suite 400
Rockville, MD 20855 - 2737
(301) 294-5221

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Margaret Lyell
mlyell@i-a-i.com
15400 Calhoun Drive, Suite 400
Rockville, MD 20855 - 2737
(301) 294-5223

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 6

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
The number of sensors that are deployed continues to increase for scientific, commercial and intelligence related applications. Quantities of sensor data are increasingly available. NASA and NOAA are generating large quantities of sensor data involving earth, oceans and weather observations. US intelligence and commercial endeavors are also generating vast amounts of sensor data, gathered from sources ranging from satellites to vehicles.

Standards have been developed that assist in making the large volume of sensor data usable. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has developed a number of specifications related to Sensor Web Enablement. OGC working groups are not only science-focused; the newest working group that is forming is an Emergency and Disaster Management Discipline Working Group (DWG).

Intelligent Automation Inc (IAI) is proposing to support the data access and utilization needs of the individual researcher / scientist and the emergency incident commander through development of the Sensor Management Tool (SMT). SMT is standards-based, open source and will offer configurable views for different categories of users. In the Phase I effort IAI demonstrated feasibility and prototyped the SMT concept; this involved integration of NASA World Wind to extend SMT functionality. 'Lessons learned' provide input into our detailed plan for full-featured SMT development.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Our proposed Sensor Management Tool is relevant to and can be utilize in a wide range of Earth or planetary science related endeavors. These include (1) Sensor Management Tool use in accessing and managing data for ocean studies (including Gulf of Mexico efforts), (2) Sensor Management Tool use for managing data relevant to hurricane studies, (3) Sensor Management Tool use for managing data relevant to climate and ecology studies,(4) Sensor Management Tool use for managing data from UAVs in NASA – led technology development for western region firefighting mission efforts, (5) Sensor Management Tool for use in managing data from planetary missions (NASA World Wind earth globe would be replaced by the appropriate map), etc.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Promising Non- NASA commercial applications include: (1) Use of Sensor Management Tool with Emergency Incident Commander Views for FEMA applications, (2) Use of Sensor Management Tool for accessing, retrieving and managing data for DoD Surveillance applications, (3) Use of Sensor Management Tool regarding data related to agriculture monitoring or ecology monitoring (dept. Agriculture, various state agencies) (4) Use of Sensor Management Tool with respect to data related to infrastructure monitoring (Homeland security), (5) Use of Sensor Management Tool with respect to data related to commercial facilities monitoring, and (6) Use of Sensor Management Tool with respect to data in vehicle and fleet maintenance management, among others.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING (NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.)

Human-Computer Interfaces Software Development Environments Software Tools for Distributed Analysis and Simulation