Army photo

Army acquisition chief Bruce Jette speaks at an xTechSearch event

WASHINGTON: The Army’s xTechSearch competition has picked 20 small businesses – out of 350 applicants – to pitch their technologies in person to an Army panel in front of a live audience at AUSA’s Global Force conference in March.

The goal is to connect the Army to innovative small businesses outside the traditional defense contracting world and find so-called “dual-use” technologies with both commercial and military applications. XTechSearch is run by the Army’s civilian Service Acquisition Executive, Assistant Secretary Bruce Jette, a former small-business founder and patent-holding inventor himself.

These 20 companies have already made it through two rounds. The first phase winnowed the 350 written white-paper proposals down to 48, each of which got $5,000 and a chance to pitch to Army experts in person at regional events. (Playa Vista, Calif., Austin, Tex., and Philadelphia each hosted 16 firms). Of those 48, the 20 announced yesterday will get exhibit space at AUSA Global Force in Huntsville, Ala., aka “Rocket City” for its long-time links to NASA and Army Space & Missile Defense Command.

(We cover the conference every year and will be there again in March).

In Huntsville, each contender will get just 20 minutes to make their case and take questions during the first two days of the AUSA event. On the last day of the Global Force conference, March 19th, the Army will announce 10 winners (maybe as many as 12), who’ll each receive $120,000 and Army mentoring to help develop a proof of concept over the next six months.

Army photo

An Army soldier sets up a highband antenna in Afghanistan.

The finalists will present their work at the biggest defense conference of the year, AUSA’s mammoth Annual Meeting in DC this October, where a single firm will receive $240,000.

Who Are The 20?

So who are the 20 companies and what are they pitching? The vast majority develop software and/or electronics, which go on everything in the modern military but the MREs. Several, though, are working on novel materials for mechanical and medical purposes. While the Army doesn’t break the proposals down by subject area – it just lists the companies alphabetically – we’d break them down into six categories:

General Networking & Computing:

  • IoT/AI builds durable, cyber-secure sensors and AI software for frontline networks, allowing devices to analyze data on-board “at the edge” rather than having to transmit everything back, a major benefit when bandwidth is limited and transmissions may be monitored or jammed.
  • nLAB, aka NanoSystems Laboratory, builds semiconductors with lab-grown diamonds to increase heat conductivity and improve cooling, a chronic problem for energy-hungry electronics.
  • Novaa, which works on radio, radar, and precision navigation, is developing a new ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna for frontline satellite communications systems.
  • Passenger develops virtual reality and augmented reality hardware, a high Army priority for both training systems and tactical displays.
  • Primal Space is a North Carolina company that develops software for efficient transmission of massive 3D data sets for gaming, simulations, reconnaissance, and navigation.

Navigation:

  • Battle Sight, run by former soldiers and Marines, is offering their patent-pending “Falling Saber,” a compact tracking device for supply drops so special operators and other clandestine ground forces can recover them quickly.
  • GeoPipe uses AI to build 3D maps of the real world and automatically identify and label objects. Their software could help the Army build its massive One World Terrain database for training and mission planning.
  • LynQ sells GPS tracking devices but is now developing new low-bandwidth, jamming-resistant data transmission technologies for navigation without GPS.
  • MEI Micro builds miniaturized Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) and other sensors, again for navigation when GPS is unavailable or jammed.

Medical & Lifesaving:

  • GeneCapture is building a portable infection-detection system that frontline troops can take with them to genetically identify over 200 pathogens an hour, a potential boon in disease-ridden regions and biowarfare zones.
  • KeriCure, named after its founder, Dr. Kerriann Greenhalgh, is a Florida biotech firm that sells sterile, water-proof spray-on polymers to seal burns and other wounds.
  • NeuroFlow, headed by a West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran, provides automated software to help connect soldiers with mental health resources.
  • Vita Inclinata Technologies, founded by a search & rescue worker whose teammate died when a National Guard medevac chopper couldn’t pick him up in the woods during high winds, developed a new stabilized hoist and sling system for helicopter rescues in all conditions.

Material Science & Mechanical Engineering:

  • FLITE Material Sciences works on ways to make metal, glass, and plastics intrinsically resistant to rust, ice, and fouling – all chronic problems for military equipment – without the need to apply, maintain, and replace protective coatings, which add cost and can wear off.
  • Inductive Ventures – which has already received funding from the Navy and the Defense Logistics Agency –  uses magnets both to stop wheels, replacing maintenance-intensive friction brakes, and to spin them, allowing, say, an Army helicopter to taxi without having to turn on its main rotor, which burns fuel and wears out parts.
  • LumiShield Technologies spun out of Carnegie Mellon University — which works on many other high-tech projects with the Army — to develop new, longer-lasting protective coatings using aluminum oxide.

Surveillance:

  • Bounce Imaging makes compact, rugged cameras that troops can throw like a grenade over obstacles and into buildings, where the device looks in all directions and sends back 360-degree video and audio in real time.
  • FastVDO uses artificial intelligence to assess surveillance video and automatically rate its quality on the intelligence community’s official VNIIRS scale, so analysts know which clips are worth a human’s time.

Counter-Drone:

  • DroneShield, the US subsidiary of an Australian firm, builds a range of Counter-Unmanned Air Systems (C-UAS) devices that detect drones and shut them down with radio jamming.

You can read the Army’s official in-depth description of the xTechSearch process & contestants below:

XTechSearch 4 Phase III AUSAGFSE Innovators Corner_Look Book_with ProfileSheets by BreakingDefense on Scribd