NSF/TIP: Breaking Low Ideas Lab Preliminary Proposals due 4/18
The National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) recently announced an exciting funding opportunity to address critical architectural, technical and technological issues that must be resolved and to provide the necessary low-latency performance that is required for the success of key emerging vertical industries.
For more information, please see the links listed below.
- News article: New $12M funding opportunity seeks to break the low-latency barrier for next generation of wireless network applications
- Program website: Ideas Lab: Breaking the Low Latency Barrier for Verticals in Next-G Wireless Networks (Breaking Low)
- Webinar: Introduction to Breaking Low Ideas Lab
Since this is coming from NSF’s new TIP directorate, there is a strong emphasis on use-inspired research translation and industry partnership vs the traditional NSF emphasis on more basic research. The program will use an Ideas Lab workshop to refine the requirements and flesh out specific approaches to attain them. Please note that preliminary applications are limited to 2 pages (plus bio, etc.) and contact sjayawee@nsf.gov if you have any questions.
Two paragraphs in the program description are:
The innovations sought are across the entire network, compute and application stack, considering the availability and use of computational resources in the cloud and/or edge, including but not limited to artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. The brainstorming facilitated by the Ideas Lab setting will stimulate fresh out-of-the-box thinking and innovative approaches that will provide a fertile ground for new and bold ideas on the design of architecture, components and protocols of next-generation advanced wireless networks and edge-cloud systems…
The goal is for researchers, engineers, technology entrepreneurs and stakeholders (from wireless telecom, vertical application and cloud computing sectors) who are experts in their respective domains to come together and form collaborative teams during the Ideas Lab workshop. The teams will formulate innovative and transformative ideas that will eventually be submitted as full proposals to develop and demonstrate low-latency communications technologies that can potentially be standardized and commercialized….
Two other paragraphs from the solicitation are:
NSF encourages submission of preliminary proposals from both academia and industry (from wireless cellular and WLAN networks, low-latency vertical applications, cloud/distributed computing and edge-device platforms), including researchers, R&D leads, stakeholders from low-latency vertical industries, technology developers and tech entrepreneurs so that during the Ideas Lab workshop participants have a good chance to collaboratively develop comprehensive solutions that can be realized in practice.
Ultra-low latencies are also critical for some of the emerging vertical applications including, for example, extended reality (XR) applications such as holographic/immersive communications, intelligent/autonomous transportation systems, emergency services, telemedicine/remote healthcare, real-time haptics including wearable medical devices and remote surgery, tactile internet, electrical power transmission and distribution systems, the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and cyber-physical/distributed automation (e.g. factory automation). For example, latencies on the order of a millisecond or less are seen as a requirement in industrial automation applications involving precision motion and machine control.
NSF’s TIP Directorate is inviting responses from all relevant parties, including to folks in industry, startups, etc. who may not normally monitor NSF solicitations. It will be especially important to include those with expertise in specific applications, who are knowledgeable with respect to the least stringent real world network requirements, i.e., the specs that may not be all that people dream of — but would be sufficient to jump-start new applications and/or features that cannot be fielded on current day networks/clouds.
Preliminary proposals are required. The due date is April 18, 2024. See the full solicitation here.
