Topics

Detection of, tracking of, classifying of, and responding to all threats along the terrestrial and maritime border - specifically, technologies that can perform one of the following functions: 1) Classify humans versus animals in rugged terrain, concealing foliage, water obstacles, mountains, and other environmental constraints a) Lower false alarm rate (Pfa) with raised probability of detection (Pd); Pd should be at least 90% b) Operate at low power consumption levels (2-year battery life) c) Sensor hardware must be covert 2) Ground based sensors that are a covert and can detect the presence of and track human targets in remote (no grid power) heavily forested areas 3) Cost-effective airborne sensors for better land border security to assist in locating illicit activities, materials, or their means of conveyances, including: a) Runway-agnostic unmanned aerial systems that could be evaluated on their ability to provide ground operators with situational awareness and airborne imagery of areas of interest; and b) Next-generation sensor payloads for small unmanned aerial systems

Improved situational awareness by tracking small boat activity(including semi- and fully-submersible) activity, detecting anomalous and/or illegal behavior, and providing timely and actionable information in support of law enforcement and port security efforts; in particular, new information sources that utilize publically available databases, data sets, data collection devices, or sensors of opportunity to increase detection/tracking accuracy and/or the field of regard surrounding inland waterways, ports, harbors, and coastal regions.

New or improved algorithms for DNA sequence analysis that significantly reduces the time required to identify that a threat signature is present in a complex mixture.

New or improved rapid diagnostic tests that facilitate public health and/or disease outbreak surveillance, response, and recovery. Use cases include continuous health surveillance and mass triage scenarios (1) New laboratory-based high throughput, molecular-based detection platforms with improved sensitivity and time to answer (2) New field deployable/point of need diagnostic tests with improved sensitivity and time to answer (3) Non-culture based diagnostic tests to determine exposure or early symptomatic infection

Facility protection: Integration of sensors into building systems (e.g. HVAC, Security) and development of associated Concepts of Operations to enable rapid and adaptive responses to chemical and biological releases in order to protect occupants and mitigate the impact of the release.

CBRN Threat Characterization Program: Supports research and development of next generation and novel methodological approaches to terrorism risk analysis, intentional attack analysis, scenario modeling and simulation to support the following needs: 1) Risk Management; 2) Cost Benefit Analysis and Resource Allocation; 3) Development and evaluation of deterrence, preparedness, response and mitigation strategies; 4) Behavioral modeling of adversary intentions and public response to CBRN terrorism events.

The Cyber Security Division focuses on research for advanced cyber security and information assurance solutions to secure the Nation's current and future cyber and critical infrastructures against persistent threats and dynamic attacks. This research is guided by the President's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace and Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. These solutions include secure protocols, end system security, user identity and data privacy technologies, research infrastructure, law enforcement forensic capabilities, competitions, and education.

Internet Infrastructure Security - including Secure internet protocols including Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) and Secure Protocols for Routing Infrastructure (RPKI and BGPSEC).

National Research Infrastructure - mimicking real-life conditions, systems and infrastructure, to enable the cyber security research community to discover, test, and analyze state-of-the-art tools, technologies and software in a scientifically rigorous and ethical manner.

Homeland Open Security Technology - Open Source Security Technology to enable implementation and deployment of open source security technologies in Federal, State, and Local environments.

Forensics support to law enforcement - including the research and development of tools and technologies that will allow investigators to visualize, analyze, share and present data derived from cell phones, GPS devices, computer hard drives, networks, and other digital media.

Identity Management (IdM) - seeking tools, technologies, credential vulnerability studies, and other efforts that improve the security of access control in both cyber and physical environments. The mission of the IdM research projects is to develop, test, and evaluate interoperable tools, technologies, standards, and protocols for the purpose of controlling user access within and outside of organizational boundaries. The foundational goal is to increase security and productivity while decreasing cost and security risks.

Data Privacy Technologies - seeking to develop a set of technologies and associated business processes, which help organizations responsibly manage personally identifiable information (PII) in a manner that protects individual privacy consistent with applicable law, policy, and mission. Data Privacy tools that inherently provide privacy are critical enablers of information sharing as they automate control of privacy data and foster confidence that personal information is being used appropriately while minimizing privacy risk. Data Privacy projects support the application of technologies to the transfer, management, and accountability of privacy data for federal, state, local, and critical infrastructure and key resource information sharing missions by exploring, refining and integrating technologies and techniques, and piloting the results.

Software Assurance - The CSD objective in the area of Software Assurance is to develop and improve Software Analysis technologies, tools, and techniques to reduce the exposures and vulnerabilities in software. The nation's critical infrastructure (energy, transportation, telecommunications, banking and finance, and others), businesses, and services are extensively and increasingly controlled and enabled by software. Vulnerabilities in software put the nation's critical resources at risk. To address this objective, CSD is seeking research in areas such as: a) The integration of Static Application Security Testing (SAST) with Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) tools and techniques to create a hybrid approach to reduce exposures and vulnerabilities in the software environments. b) Vulnerability correlation engine to reduce false-positives and improve detection capabilities for false-negatives. c) Comprehensive remediation workflow analysis d) Vulnerability mapping and correlation (DISA STIGS, NIST, CWE, OWASP and PCI). e) Integration and support with DHS Software Assurance Market Place (SWAMP) f) Threat and attack model simulations to cover areas such as business logic flaws, system environment, OS related exposures

The CSD objective in the area of cyber security education is to develop, demonstrate and help implement comprehensive and dynamic cyber security education models that impact our homeland and national cyber security education condition for the better. These models and associated technologies need to support cyber security competitions and education and curriculum development. To address this objective, CSD anticipates cyber security research in areas such as: a) the coupling of operations with education and training; b) abstract learning versus learning with context; c) Bayesian learning (prior knowledge) and where and how it might be applicable.

Cyber-physical control and Critical Infrastructure Systems and Security - The intersections of cyber security and critical infrastructure is a growing vulnerability for the American homeland, characterized by tight coupling, coordination, and interconnections among sensing, communications, computational, control, information and physical resources. Their interconnections in particular form a complex system of systems, and the complexity of these systems and interconnections will continue to grow. The complexity of systems poses challenges in resiliency, vulnerability, threat, and recovery assessment. To address this area, CSD is interested in applied research addressing areas such as: a) Models, theories, methods, and tools to fully address the cybersecurity of cyber-physical systems, in a unified and integrated way; b) Analysis, understanding and control approaches at the intersection of security analysis and operations analysis, i.e. possible overlaps between control and critical infrastructure systems and their cyber security, industrial security and operations security capabilities; c) The interplay of control, business and consumer-facing systems, and the interplay between different critical infrastructure systems; d) Security architectures, in particular how different security approaches might best work to protect critical infrastructure systems.

Internet Measurement and Attack Modeling Techniques: Security focused measurement and attack modeling for all aspects of cyberspace. This includes the Internet (e.g., ASNs, routers) as well as other devices (e.g. medical devices) or networks (e.g. ICS) that may connect to the Internet, via a static or dynamic (possibly intermittent) connection.

Securing the mobile workforce: technologies to support flexible client side security.

Security in cloud based systems - including secure protocols to protect data flow to, within and out of the cloud; data integrity; user privacy constraints; forensics analysis to preserve digital evidence; and measurement systems to identify unauthorized activity.

Experiments and Pilots - Technologies developed through federally funded research requiring test and evaluation in experimental operational environments to facilitate transition.

Research Data Repository - Cyber security datasets of interest to the research community.

Cybersecurity Economic Incentives - Research into the areas of: a) Cyber insurance and insurability, b) Defining the boundaries between service provider empowerment and law enforcement involvement, within the context of their global legal abilities and partnerships, and c) The legal and technical issues and barriers involved in data sharing among service providers, both domestic and global, and developing improved models for domestic and international collaboration and cybersecurity data sharing.

Data Analytics - The exponential increase in the volume of data created daily worldwide creates new challenges for cyber security. S&T is interested in technologies and tools to support the analysis of datasets whose size is beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture, manage and process. These include but are not limited to: a) Data discovery, b) automated analysis techniques, c) machine and self-learning algorithms and d) data visualization.

Tailored Trustworthy Spaces - Technologies and tools supporting the concepts of tailored trustworthy spaces, including but not limited to: a) trust negotiation tools and data trust models to support negotiation of policy, b) Type-safe languages and application verification, and tools for establishment of identity or authentication as specified by the policy, and c) Support for application-aware anonymity to allow for anonymous web access, and platform security mechanisms and trust-in-platform.

Explosives Countermeasures include the detection, mitigation, and response to explosive threats including: all modes of transportation within the Transportation Systems Sector (Aviation, Maritime, Mass Transit, Highway, Freight Rail, and Pipeline); in checked and carry-on baggage; Home Made Explosives (HME); improvised explosive devices (IEDs), vehicle borne (VBIED) and person borne (PBIED); and response and defeat technologies.

Standoff Detection of Explosives: Technologies for the standoff detection of explosives and explosive devices related to Person and Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices. Explosives of interest include commercially available explosives (i.e. Ammonium Nitrate based), conventional military explosives (i.e. Composition C-4 and Semtex A/H) and homemade explosives (i.e., peroxide base). Standoff Detection implies that both the detection equipment and operator be located at some distance (greater than 1 m up to tens of meters) away from the subject or object under interrogation. Subtopics include: 1) Integration of both multimodal and multispectral technologies for improved detection and/or imaging metrics. 2) Development of automated detection and/or identification capabilities associated with both imaging and spectroscopy based technologies.

Trace Detection of Explosives: Technologies for the detection of explosives trace particle and vapor signatures in aviation security, facilities protection, and mass transit security operations. Specific interests include handheld and benchtop explosives trace detection (ETD) systems, optical methods for quickly and quantitatively measuring trace contamination on a range of surfaces, and advanced explosives trace detection system concepts.

Cargo Security includes detecting intrusion or unauthorized access, positively identify cargo, and provide timely response - in particular, in containerized, palletized, parcel, or bulk/break-bulk maritime, air cargo, and freight rail.

Test and Evaluation Expertise and Facilities for Counter-IED detection technologies. Standoff, Remote, and Checkpoint based explosives detection systems, to be evaluated, most often require real explosives and local storage of said explosives. Facilities must be able to store, on-site, small amounts (less than 1 pound) of various solid explosives, while achieving clean, uncontaminated facilities for equipment testing. Facilities must be able to accommodate non-eye safe laser ranges, x-ray based screening equipment, and neutron-based screening equipment. Facilities must also be able to accommodate, in certain cases, large, outdoor vehicle borne IED screening equipment.

Data Fusion and Automated Detection for aviation cargo, checked baggage, carry-on baggage, personal check points and all surface intermodal concerns. Algorithms and techniques for detection fusion and automated alerting that combines a variety of detection modalities, including but not limited to X-ray, trace chemical detection, computed tomography (CT) and video.

Advanced Detection Technologies: Development of robust, enhanced explosives detection methods such as fluorescence quenching materials, bio-inspired molecular recognition techniques and advanced sampling technologies to improve selectivity and sensitivity capabilities. Detection methods should be easily deployed, low cost and require minimum training to operate. Special attention should be paid to determining better sensing mechanisms and signal amplification mechanisms to apply to future detection improvements. Advanced image processing and data collection methods are of interest.

The First Responder Group identifies, validates, and facilitates the fulfillment of First Responder capability gaps through the use of existing and emerging technologies, knowledge products, and the acceleration of standards. The FRG focuses on: 1) developing tools, technologies, methodologies, standards, protocols, and guidance to enable improved communications interoperability for First Responders; 2) providing First Responder solutions for high-priority capability gaps through rapid prototyping; 3) maintaining a Web portal that enables First Responders to easily access and leverage Federal web services; and 4) overseeing the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory, which provides a test and evaluation capability for DHS-developed technologies and systems.

The ability to identify trends, patterns, and important content from large volumes of information from multiple sources (including non-traditional sources) to support incident decision-making. Improvements in this Capability can: (1) Prevent incident command and general staff from being overloaded with unmanageable amounts of incident data; (2) Allow incident commanders to synthesize and analyze information to make informed operational decisions. Capability Requirements: (1) Tools to analyze incoming incident data in real-time to identify trends, patterns and anomalies; (2) Policies and standards to utilize such information to inform and improve decision making.

The ability to share video from incident scene to medical services personnel in a remote location. Improvements in this Capability can: (1) Gather EMS color requirements for compressed video; (2) result in improved compression for video streaming in order to transmit it over the limited available wireless bandwidth. Capability Requirements: (1) applications must retain color truth throughout the video system.

The ability to analyze the performance of a video system's transport component. Improvements in this Capability can: (1) use different types of cameras (e.g., high definition, low definition) to identify the limits of camera use for streaming video (with or without compression) on a given network; (2) help define network bandwidth requirements for a video applications. Capability Requirements: (1) efficient use of bandwidth for a specific video application on a user's given device.

The ability to better understand how the public will respond to alert and warning messages on mobile devices. Improvements in this Capability can: (1) Improve understanding of the public's response to alerts and warnings, including how to optimize message content, message frequency, education and training, communicating to special populations, message diffusion throughout the public, and trust and validation of messages; (2) Take into consideration current Commercial Mobile Alert Service (CMAS) regulations proposed by the CMSAAC and supported by the FCC, including enhanced geo-targeting features; (3) Understand the use of social media and public participation in origination and dissemination of alerts and warnings including research and testing in the areas of standardization, aggregation and analysis, behavioral response, best practices, and privacy. Capability Requirements: (1) Consideration of current CMAS regulations as proposed by the CMSAAC and supported by the FCC.

The ability to better determine when more granular geo-targeting (i.e. below the County level as currently implemented) is appropriate as well as how broadly targeting should be extended from the point of incident. Improvements in this Capability can: (1) Accelerate geo-targeting standardization; (2) Enable the creation and establishment of best practices and standard operating procedures for adoption; (3) Focus on areas such as addressing messages across boundaries between targeted regions, differing coverage areas across multiple mobile carrier networks, the challenges of in-building geographies such as airports, and other enhancements to improve the geo-targeting of mobile alerts and warnings using cell broadcast. Capability Requirements: (1) Geo Targeting (i.e., below the County level as currently implemented)

HSARPA is interested ideas for novel applications of new and emerging technology that can radically alter the mission space of the Department of Homeland Security as well as the extended homeland security enterprise. With rapid changes in technology come unanticipated opportunities for DHS to advance our capabilities. For example, a new lightweight material might be used to rapidly develop a new class of micro UAV's using a 3D printing process to improve border security. These technologies should be relatively new discoveries for which experimental knowledge has been sufficiently collected to support application concepts that can be realized with modern manufacturing processes. In this topic area, we are not looking for open ended research and development.

Apex was recently launched to address specific and urgent S&T needs for the Department. Apex projects are focused on enhancing DHS Operational Component partner capabilities to secure the homeland. Apex projects: 1) Rapidly develop and deliver analyses and innovative technologies solutions to DHS components 2) Are closely collaborated with the DHS components throughout planning and execution 3) Use rigor to define the problem, needs and capabilities to enhance DHS Component's mission 4) Develop a complete system that includes system analysis 5) Deliver technologies that integrate in to the DHS component's operations 6) Use a multidisciplinary team to leverage the breadth of S&T knowledge 7) Are 24 months from project inception through operational testing

The current Apex project has one technology goal: Implement new technologies to upgrade and increase the DHS Component's ability protect people and things. This includes emerging technologies that are lightweight, efficient, modular, and easily transportable. The technology solutions proposed must integrate with existing technologies used by the DHS Component, and be acceptable to the DHS Component.

Information Resources: Develop, test, evaluate information systems and analytical tools to enhance preparation, facilitate decision making, and improve incident response capabilities. Develop, test, and evaluate software tools to more efficiently exploit intelligence and surveillance data.

Communications, Surveillance and Reconnaissance: Develop, test, and evaluate surveillance and communication systems/sensors that enhance the protection of personnel and mitigate threats.

Individual Protection: Develop, test, and evaluate enhancements to the protection of personnel during blast and ballistic events. Develop and test technologies that improve the performance of body armor by reducing weight and optimizing material performance.

Mobile security: Enhance personnel protection during mobility (vehicular, etc.) operations.

With increasing data sets from a variety of expanding information sources, effective capabilities to store, retrieve, manage and analyze heterogeneous collections of data in the face of privacy and security constraints are sought. HSARPA's APEX program to address Big Data Architecture and Analytics is focused on discovering, understanding and assessing emerging technologies that can be used to create open platform solutions that enable the generation of homeland security analytics solutions and acquisitions to improve mission performance. Solutions should be robust and commercially supported with reasonably low licensing and lifecycle costs. There is little interest in solutions that become legacy systems with high switching costs, escalating licensing fees, or that require very rare technical skills. Current interests in Big Data capabilities include but are not limited to: 1) Emerging commercial open standard secure scalable distributed architectures and storage solutions; 2) Emerging hardware architectures for improving analytic response times to large data collections; 3) Easy to use bolt-on production analytics solutions that can be easily configured, tailored and maintained by operational components; a) High utility configurable text, tabular and visual interfaces for Big Data Analytics 4) Scalable cross-language text matching for short semi-structured text fields in multiple languages; 5) High accuracy entity resolution capabilities across cultures and languages; 6) Performance metrics, datasets, and evaluation methodologies for assessing Big Data Architectures and Analytics;

Behavior-based methods, models, trainings and technologies to enhance community resilience in the face of human- or nature-caused catastrophes through such means as better understanding of risk perception; improved risk communication by emergency responders and public officials; pre-event education and training; and applied theoretical and empirical research into the properties of resilient social networks and communities to include elements of social media and crowd sourcing..

Research and development to improve the detection, analysis, understanding, and mitigation of the threats posed by violent extremists. Knowledge, tools and technologies to determine when individuals, groups, and movements are likely to engage in violence, and what ideological, organizational, and contextual factors may influence violent action.

Methods for non-invasively identifying deceptive and suspicious behavior within a time constrained, low-base rate, screening environment, and methods for identifying interactive strategies optimal for eliciting disguise-resistant indicators of deceptive and suspicious behavior, including technologies that automate or aid in such identification. Protocols and technologies to minimize insider threats and to identify insider threat behavior when it occurs, especially in settings like transportation security or at a border are of interest as well.

Improvements in biometrics, including real-time positive verification of individual identity using multiple biometrics; mobile biometrics screening capabilities, high-fidelity ten print capture, non-cooperative biometric technologies for identification and the development of standards and test/evaluation protocols.

Surveillance Systems are of interest including video analytics, fusion algorithms, and intelligent filtering algorithms to identify, recognize, and track potential threatening events, behaviors, and individuals in a high density operational environment such as an aviation- or ground-based mass transit portal. These systems can also provide early detection and warning of earthquake, wild fire and other natural hazards to disaster management agencies, the general population and critical infrastructure owners/operators. Integrating multiple types of sensing technologies and intelligent algorithms and processing data will allow for more efficient acquisition and interpretation of data and move complex systems towards more efficient enterprise deployments.

Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure: Enhance security, resilience, and recovery of the 18 critical infrastructure sectors for retrofit applications. Develop key critical infrastructure components that can easily transition to user application, are affordable (in acquisition as well as operations and maintenance), highly transportable, and offer robust solutions for use during manmade and natural disruptions. Integrate infrastructure protection design with sustainable technologies and methodologies; reducing the consumption of energy, promote clean water, decrease pollutant emissions, and aiming to conserve resources over the life of the component. Key critical infrastructure component design should consider use of high-performance green materials that are self-monitoring, self-healing should stand the test of time; and should resist blast, earthquake, floods, and wind. Developing infrastructure that is sustainable means thinking differently about how we build, what we build, and whether we build at all. It means designing and maintaining infrastructures that are both highly efficient and all-hazard-resistant. Additionally, this portfolio addresses solutions that offer innovative risk/threat/consequence analysis processes, and methodologies to support the evaluation of national resilience against all hazard events.

Agile Decision Aid Analytics to include mathematical methods, computational algorithms, and software/hardware architectures for discovering, comprehending, fusing and manipulating diverse, disparate data or information and applying the resulting knowledge to assess threats and consequences, anticipate terrorist incidents and natural or manmade catastrophic events, and guide response and recovery activities. Analytical capabilities that can operate on relatively small data sets to provide useable just-in-time response strategies (logistics, resource requirements) to improve resilience are of interest.

Modeling, Simulation, and Gaming technologies: Concepts, techniques, methodologies, algorithms, and innovative tools and applications to significantly enhance the quality of system analysis and reduce the time/cost of conducting system analyses. Develop modeling tools for a wide range of decision makers, from local law enforcement to governors to the White House, to evaluate alternative policies and actions to deal with emergencies and anticipate cascading effects across interdependent systems. Tools for real-time decision support in emergencies capable of integrating and assimilating multiple types of information, processing that information, and presenting it in a manner useful to decision makers. Capabilities sought include the following: (1) Simulation Based Exercise, Training, Education in both real time and non-real time (2) Dynamic, on-Demand, and Real-time Information Processing and Visualization; (3) Innovative model integration technologies and standards (4) Simulation Based Response Doctrine, Policy/Guidance Analysis, Exercise, and Training; (5) Mobile, Light-weight, and portable device integration into Modeling and Simulation Environments

Geospatial and Remote Sensing: Geospatial technologies enhancing situational awareness for the disaster management and protection of critical infrastructure resulting in improved incident management at the Federal, State, and local and tribal levels. Develop image processing and spatial analytical techniques that exploit remote sensing measurements resulting in improving the detection of specific phenomena of interest to public safety and first responders. Using analytics and automation software that will allow for data integration, develop mathematical methods, computational algorithms, and hardware architectures for discovering, comprehending, and manipulating diverse, diffuse data or information and applying the resulting knowledge to develop baseline assessments, assess threats and consequences, anticipate terrorist incidents and natural or manmade catastrophic events, and guide response and recovery activities. Integrate capability into web services that improves analytical capability using cloud computing or distributive architectures to provide critical products to all levels of incident command.

Emergency Management: Advances to improve protection of or enhance performance of emergency responders as they carry out life-saving tasks. Develop technologies that will fully enable emergency managers and responders to effectively cope with multi-hazard emergencies-technologies such as integrated advanced materials for protective clothing that report on the health of the first responder; decision support systems that provide real-time logistical tracking and management of emergency supplies, equipment, and personnel; advanced precision indoor/outdoor tracking technologies; integrated simulation-based incident planning and response capability to analyze all-hazard disaster response and recovery operations, tactics, techniques, plans, and procedures for use in a real-time environment for simulation-based training. Advanced algorithms, tools, and infrastructures for sensor data fusion and visualization for improved situational awareness and emergency response to include wireless communications, both in secure and quasi-secure environments.

Information Sharing: Supports improved situational awareness and decision making across Federal, state, local, tribal and territorial public safety organizations, as well as non-governmental agencies, private sector partners organizations and the public and communities. Seeks concepts, prototypes and technologies that improve the capability to collect, process, analyze, visualize, share, and protect information across the Homeland Security Enterprise.

Performance specification standards for biological detection technologies according to capability (i.e., screening tools, autonomous monitors, portable and laboratory based PCR assays)

Development of proficiency testing protocols in concert with users.

Development of standard test methods for performance of biological detection technologies - both in the laboratory and field operations.

Development of standard operational guidance and training curricula

Development of conformity assessment guidelines for validation of biological detection technologies.

Performance specification standards for PPE technologies according to capability (i.e., Respiratory protection, thermal protection, communications)

Development of standard test methods for performance of protection technologies - both in the laboratory and field operations.

Development of operational guidance and training curricula

Development of conformity assessment guidelines for validation of protection technologies.

Performance specification standards for chemical detection technologies according to capability (i.e., screening tools, autonomous monitors, portable and laboratory based detectors)

Development of proficiency testing protocols in concert with users.

Development of standard test methods for performance of chemical detection technologies - both in the laboratory and field operations.

Development of standard operational guidance and training curricula

Development of conformity assessment guidelines for validation of chemical detection technologies.

Standard calibration procedures and standards test materials for use by DHS components and partners. Standards optimize both the screening protocols and detection technology effectiveness.

Standard test materials and standard test protocols for next generation deployed explosives detection equipment, including new and emerging explosive threats.

Development of standard protocols for screening technology in the hands of users, development of standard training materials, training aids, stimulants and other support elements to optimize the use of technologies in the field by users.

Radiation safety standards for the next generation of X-ray scanners for personnel, baggage, and cargo screening applications

Standard test methods to evaluate and measure mobility of robots in various terrains.

Standard test methods to evaluate and measure robot manipulation capabilities.

Standard test methods to evaluate and measure robot sensors, communications, and mapping.

Standard test methods to evaluate and measure human robot interfaces and operator proficiency.

Standard test methods to measure and evaluate logistics and safety parameters

Image standards for Biometric Technologies govern the characteristics of acceptable images (i.g. face, fingerprint, and iris images)

Interchange/Exchange Standards for biometric Data, covering the sharing of biometric data between databases, agencies and systems. Security of biometric data and biometric systems is also included in this area.

Standards for biometric services - technologies, systems and protocols for collection, distribution and sharing of biometric data.

Standard protocols for the testing and evaluation of biometric technologies, processes and systems supporting a test and evaluation program.

Performance and equipment standards for cargo security; including but not limited to physical characteristics standards, component or system level performance standards, standards for portable devices affixed to vehicles, reader devices or sensor systems deployed at cargo facilities.

Data standards for the secure sharing of cargo security data between databases, agencies and systems. Security standards for data and systems are also included in this area.

Standard test protocols for the evaluation of technologies, processes and systems for cargo security equipment. In general, these systems should support test and certification models like the Customs and Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CT-PAT).

Standards for planning, training and responding to emergencies; including but not limited to preparedness for organizations, buildings or facilities. All-hazards preparedness and resiliency are key elements in planning and training.

Standards for physical security systems, standards for systems that estimate needs and costs related to physical security systems

Response and recovery standards, which relate to the response by any level, beginning with a single event, scaling to larger needs for facility, city or regional planning. These standards should include an emphasis on the coordinated response by various federal, state and local assets. Training and exercise curricula and pilot projects for such training are also of interest.

Sensor data standards, data interchange standards, data formatting standards and information exchange standards - including National Information Exchange Model conformance.

Data interface standards - hardware or software based standards to support system interface requirements; Includes security of sensor systems, and security of data exchange processes.

Standard protocols for the testing of sensor data systems, standard testbeds and testing systems testing protocols are of interest.

standards for location based systems