Monica Jackson
The General Services Administration has awarded separate Small Business Innovation Research Phase III contracts to The Perduco Group and Discovery Machine to support the efforts of two different U.S. Air Force organizations.
Under a $150M procurement vehicle, The Perduco Group will assist the service’s Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation Office in developing an infrastructure roadmap to ultimately boost the acquisition processes of the Air Force and the Defense Department, GSA said Thursday.
The service aims to enable modeling, simulation and analysis tools, data, people processes and partnerships to influence procurement decisions.
The effort follows work performed under the first phase of the SBIR program.
Meanwhile, Discovery Machine’s $2.2M contract covers the continued development of a virtual instructor pilot system for the Air Education and Training Command’s Pilot Training Next program.
The VIPER platform will allow pilots in training to individually practice maneuvers using artificial intelligence and machine learning technology.
GSA Administrator Emily Murphy said the SBIR pilot program helps the agency to deliver modern technologies to partner organizations with the aim of reforming the government’s procurement, research and development, and deployment strategies.
The Small Business Administration spearheads the program.
