Real-Time Innovations (RTI) has been selected by AFWERX for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract in the amount of $1.25 million, which is focused on enhancing RTI Connext to address the most pressing challenges in the U.S. Department of the Air Force (DAF). RTI will focus on exploring semantic level information, uniquely accessible within the OMG Data Distribution Service (DDS) communications protocol, to construct an accurate understanding of data movement and activities within a running network. This will provide a faster and more accurate threat and anomaly detection capability, enabling more effective and targeted responses to cyber-attacks, equipment failures, and human error.
"With the ever-increasing cyber threats to defense and industrial networks, RTI believes that this research is vital to leveraging the power of data-centric networking to build more secure systems,” said Dr. Paul Pazandak, Director of Research at RTI. “This additional funding will allow us to explore advanced concepts in three-dimensional visualization of distributed systems, and semantic level threat analysis and response frameworks. We are building upon our existing research activities in artificial intelligence, machine learning, cyber model-based systems engineering and data-centric security. This work will benefit both commercial and defense market sectors, and we look forward to working with the government on this effort.”
The Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX have partnered to streamline the SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) process by accelerating the small business experience through faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small businesses and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by continually implementing process improvement changes in contract execution. The DAF began offering the Open Topic SBIR/STTR program in 2018, which expanded the range of innovations the DAF funded, and from here on out, RTI will start its journey to create and provide innovative capabilities that will strengthen the national defense of the United States of America.
