Air Force SBIR Phase II

An airman working on an aircraft has both hands on the job. Checklists, maintenance content and command and control media live somewhere else, on paper or a screen that has to be touched, so the work stops every time the procedure has to be read.

The Phase II called for gaze and motion controlled access to that content in an immersive display, so an airman can move through a procedure without putting down a tool.

• Vehicle: AFWERX SBIR Phase II, contract FA8649-23-P-0466.
• Value: $1,150,000.
• Period: February 2023 to April 2024.
• Prime and awardee: Quantum Interface LLC, Austin, Texas.
• Our role: Frank Robles was brought onto the proposal team, the proposal won, and he served as development lead on the engineering effort.

The work started from zero code. Frank specified a team of six and, for a long stretch, built the application alone, then hired a Unity developer and added a part-time designer. In his own words, he took a product idea with zero code completed to a working solution, meeting or exceeding numerous deliverables for the Air Force.

The delivered capability put checklists, maintenance content and command and control media under gaze and motion control, in an immersive display, for a user whose hands are busy.

• Unity
• C#
• Gaze control
• Motion control
• Immersive display

• We help proposals win. A technical lead on the proposal team who can describe the build credibly, because he is the one who will build it.
• We deliver from a blank page. Phase II money buys a working system, not a better slide deck. This one was built from nothing and met its deliverables.
• We carry the work forward. The ideas proved out here became SPARC, a platform Robles Industries owns outright, which is the commercialization path an SBIR program is meant to produce.
• We work under a prime or alongside a small business. Development lead, technical volume, architecture and delivery, sized to your program.