Annual Report on Technology Transfer:

Approach and Plans, Fiscal Year 2022 Activities and Achievements

U.S. Department of Commerce

Report prepared by:

National Institute of Standards and Technology

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

Institute for Telecommunication Sciences

Pursuant to the

Technology Transfer Commercialization Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-404)

June 2023
ii

This page is intentionally left blank.
iii

FOREWORD

This report summarizes technology transfer activities and achievements of the Department of 

Commerce’s (DOC) federal laboratories for fiscal year (FY) 2022, and provides statistical 

information from FY 2018 through FY 2022. At DOC, technology transfer is a significant part 

of the mission and programmatic activities of the National Institute of Standards and Technology 

(NIST), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National 

Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication 

Sciences (ITS). Accordingly, this report focuses on the activities of these agencies.

This report has been prepared as required by 15 U.S.C. § 3710(f). All federal agencies that 

operate or direct one or more federal laboratories, or conduct other activities under 35 U.S.C. §§

207 and 209, are subject to the requirements of this statute. 

NIST, NOAA, and NTIA’s ITS technology transfer offices have contributed to the organization 

and preparation of the material reported. An electronic version of this report and versions from 

previous fiscal years are available online.
iv

This page is intentionally left blank.
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Department of Commerce Overview ................................................................................... 1

1.1 Statutorily Required Combined Metric Tables........................................................... 3

1.2 Other Performance Measures Deemed Important ..................................................... 6

2 National Institute of Standards and Technology................................................................ 7

2.1 Approach and Plans for Technology Transfer ............................................................ 7

2.2 Statutorily Required Metric Tables ............................................................................. 8

2.3 Other Important NIST Performance Measures........................................................ 10

2.4 Success Stories Demonstrating Downstream Outcomes From NIST Technology 

Transfer Activities .................................................................................................................. 26

3 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ........................................................ 34

3.1 Approach and Plans for Technology Transfer .......................................................... 34

3.2 Statutorily Required Metric Tables ........................................................................... 36

3.3 Other Important NOAA Performance Measures ..................................................... 38

3.4 Success Stories Demonstrating Downstream Outcomes From NOAA Technology 

Transfer Activities .................................................................................................................. 40

4 National Telecommunications and Information Administration: Institute for 

Telecommunication Sciences...................................................................................................... 47

4.1 Approach and Plans for Technology Transfer .......................................................... 47

4.2 Statutorily Required Metric Tables ........................................................................... 48

4.3 Collaborative Relationships for Research and Development................................... 50

4.4 Other Important NTIA ITS Performance Measures................................................ 51

4.5 Success Stories Demonstrating Downstream Outcomes from NTIA ITS 

Technology Transfer Activities.............................................................................................. 56

5 SUMMARY.......................................................................................................................... 63
vi

This page is intentionally left blank.
1

1 DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE OVERVIEW

Technology transfer plays an important role in the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) mission to 

promote job creation, economic growth, sustainable development, and improved standards of 

living for all Americans. DOC works in partnership with businesses, universities, other Federal 

agencies and their laboratories, state, tribal and local governments, and communities to promote 

innovation and improve the nation’s overall competitiveness in the global economy. DOC

pursues these objectives through policies and programs directed at strengthening the nation’s 

economic infrastructure, facilitating the development of cutting-edge science and technology, 

providing critical scientific information and data, and managing national resources. 

DOC conducts research and development (R&D) in areas of science and technology at the 

laboratory facilities of NIST, NOAA, and NTIA’s ITS. Technology transfer, which is a key part 

of the programmatic activities in these laboratories, connects technological advances of DOC’s 

science and engineering programs to the U.S. economy.

DOC is also responsible for organizing technology transfer activities across federal agencies.

DOC through NIST supports the interagency technology transfer community by serving as CoChair of the National Science and Technology Council's Lab-to-Market Subcommittee (L2M), 

host agency for the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC), and convener of the Interagency 

Working Group for Technology Transfer (IAWGTT) and the Interagency Working Group on 

Bayh-Dole (IAWGBD). 

DOC through NIST serves as a Co-Chair and the Executive Secretariat for the National Science 

and Technology Council’s Lab-to-Market subcommittee. L2M sets the high-level strategy for 

increasing the efficiency at which federally funded technologies move out of the laboratories and 

into the market. Strategies currently include identifying administrative and regulatory 

impediments, increasing engagement with innovation ecosystems, sponsoring innovative 

technology transfer tools and services, and finding gaps in the R&D continuum. Implementing 

these strategies is accomplished through the work of several other groups such as the FLC, 

IAWGTT, IAWGBD, and SBIR Policy Committee. 

DOC coordinates the IAWGTT through NIST-hosted interagency discussion on policy, new 

approaches to technology transfer, and lessons learned from agency technology transfer 

programs.

1 The IAWGTT was established in 1987 by Executive Order 12591, Section 7, to 

“convene an interagency task force comprised of the heads of representative agencies and the 

1 Agencies participating in the IAWGTT, established pursuant to Executive Order 12591 of April 10, 1987, include 

the Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, 

Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Interior, 

Department of Transportation, Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, and National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration.
2

directors of representative Federal laboratories, or their designees, in order to identify and 

disseminate creative approaches to technology transfer from Federal laboratories.”

NIST also serves as the host agency for the FLC, which provides a network for federal labs to 

develop strategies and opportunities for linking technologies and expertise with the marketplace.

The FLC operates as a quasi-governmental body, founded in statute (15 U.S.C. § 3710), that 

shares technology transfer best practices, develops promotional materials, facilitates 

partnerships, and organizes networking events. The mission of the FLC is “to increase the impact 

of federal laboratories’ technology transfer for the benefit of the U.S. economy, national security 

and society.”

2

As the agency tasked with promulgating the Bayh-Dole regulations, DOC through NIST also 

coordinates the IAWGBD.3 The IAWGBD reviews and discusses issues related to Bayh-Dole, 

including potential amendments to the Bayh-Dole regulations and aligning agency policies. Over 

the last two years, the IAWGBD has been focused heavily on the implementation of changes to 

the iEdison reporting system. iEdison is an interagency system used by dozens of agencies and 

bureaus to facilitate the reporting of inventions and patents that were conceived or first actually 

reduced to practice using extramural federal research funding. The new NIST-managed system, 

modernizing and updating the system previously managed by NIH, launched on August 9, 2022.

NIST’s improvements to iEdison are expected to bring increased reporting compliance and 

improved tracking of the utilization of these federally funded inventions including information 

on where resulting products are being manufactured. 

More information about DOC technology transfer is available on the following websites:

NIST | NOAA | ITS

This annual report provides comprehensive statistics on technology transfer activities of DOC

laboratories, including information regarding invention disclosures, intellectual property (i.e., 

patents and licenses), cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs), and other 

technology transfer mechanisms. Examples of successful downstream results, such as 

commercially significant technologies from technology transfer activities, are also highlighted.

Section 10 of the Technology Transfer Commercialization Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-404, codified at

15 U.S.C. § 3710(f)), requires each federal agency that operates or directs one or more federal 

laboratories or conducts activities under 35 U.S.C. §§ 207 and 209 to report annually to the 

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the agency’s technology transfer activities. The 

2 https://federallabs.org/about/who-we-are/mission-vision

3 The IAWGBD was formed to facilitate a response to 35 U.S.C. 206 and included representatives from across the 

federal government including individuals from 14 federal agencies, the Executive Office of the President, and the 

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. 
3

OMB’s Circular A-11 also requires this information. The tables in the following sections present 

the required data.

4

1.1 STATUTORILY REQUIRED COMBINED METRIC TABLES

Table 1: DOC Invention Disclosures and Patenting

4

In April 2020, the Interagency Working Group on Technology Transfer released the document, Guidance for 

Preparing Annual Agency Technology Transfer Reports Under the Technology Transfer Commercialization Act.

Agencies independently decided whether to implement the new guidance in their FY 2020 and FY 2021 reports. 

DOC decided to implement the new guidance in its FY 2020 report. In this report, the statutorily required metrics 

only report FY 2020 data due to the new guidance’s metrics and redefinitions. The additional metrics still display 5 

years’ worth of data because their definitions did not change. Technology transfer data is typically adjusted over 

time to account for new information resulting from changes in reporting procedures, patent decisions, programmatic 

changes, and the like. With the new metrics and definitions, previous years’ data will not be added or updated. The 

metrics outside the statutory requirements were adjusted, where necessary, to reflect the most accurate estimates for 

each year reported. 

Metric FY2022

Invention Disclosures Received 72

Total Patent Applications Filed 27

U.S. 27

Foreign 0

Total Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Applications 

Filed 8

Total Patents Issued 26

U.S. 26

Foreign 0
4

Table 2: DOC Licensing

Metric FY 2022

Invention Licenses, Total Active 42

New Invention Licenses 11

New Invention Licenses Granted to Small 

Businesses 8

Income Bearing Licenses, Total Active 33

New Income Bearing Licenses 0

Exclusive, Total Active 15

Partially Exclusive, Total Active 0

Non-Exclusive, Total Active 18

Other Licenses, Total Active 0

New Other Licenses 0

New Other Licenses Granted to Small 

Businesses 0

Elapsed Amount of Time for Granting Invention Licenses

Average (months) n/a

Minimum (months) n/a

Maximum (months) n/a

Licenses Terminated for Cause 0
5

Table 3: DOC Income from Licensing5

Table 4: DOC Collaborative Relationships

5 Aggregate DOC-level data on Earned Royalty Income (ERI) are not available due to aggregate values reported by 

DOC bureaus. Bureau-level data are available within each bureau’s chapter of this report.

Metric FY 2022

Invention License Income $210,610

Other License Income $0

Total Earned Royalty Income (ERI) $210,610

ERI from Top 1% of Licenses n/a

ERI from Top 5% of Licenses n/a

ERI from Top 20% of Licenses n/a

Minimum ERI n/a

Maximum ERI n/a

Median ERI n/a

Disposition of ERI

Average Percentage Distributed to Inventors n/a

Average Percentage Distributed to Lab/Agency n/a

Metric FY 2022

Total Active CRADAs 2,240

New CRADAs 1,814

New CRADAs Involving Small Businesses 929

Other Collaborative Agreements 2,739
6

1.2 OTHER PERFORMANCE MEASURES DEEMED IMPORTANT6

1.2.1 Scientific and Technical Publications

Technology transfer mechanisms include more than just counting CRADAs, patents, and 

licenses. Scientific and technical publications are also included and counted as technology

transfer. In FY 2022, NIST, NOAA, and ITS researchers published 2,957 scientific and 

technical papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Table 5: DOC Scientific and Technical Publications7

6 To improve consistency across reports published by DOC and other federal agencies, NIST is reviewing how it

reports data on the technical areas of federal patents and publications. These efforts are ongoing and future reports 

will update this information.

7 This report revises previously reported values for the number of publications for NIST and the department total for 

FY 2020 and FY 2021. Previously, the number of NIST publications was reported as 1,345 for FY 2020 and 1,509 

for FY 2021, these numbers are revised to 1,509 for FY 2020 and 1,419 for FY 2021. Additionally, the department 

total is revised from 3,114 in FY 2020 and 3,323 in FY 2021 to 3,278 in FY 2020 and 3,233 in FY 2021.

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

NIST 1,415 1,396 1,509 1,419 1,160

NOAA 1,794 1,895 1,755 1,804 1,783

ITS 11 11 14 10 14

Department Total 3,220 3,302 3,278 3,233 2,957
7

2 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY

NIST has a broad mission: to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by 

advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic 

security and improve our quality of life. 

Rapidly evolving sectors like nanotechnology, biotechnology, homeland security, information 

technology, and advanced manufacturing need sophisticated technical support systems in order 

to flourish and grow. Therefore, an important part of accomplishing NIST’s mission is to 

anticipate future measurement and standards needs of U.S. industry. NIST laboratories develop 

measurement techniques, test methods, standards, reference materials, reference data, and other 

technologies and services that support U.S. industry, scientific research, and the activities of 

many other federal agencies. In carrying out its mission, NIST works directly with industry 

partners (individual companies and consortia), universities, standards organizations, other 

domestic and foreign associations, and other government agencies.

2.1 APPROACH AND PLANS FOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

NIST designs its technology transfer activities to disseminate the results of fundamental 

research, measurements, and standards research to industry and other interested parties. In order 

to provide leading-edge scientific and technical work, NIST is required to have expertise in 

multiple disciplines, maintain high levels of collaboration with organizations and people with 

diverse capabilities, and have highly specialized facilities and tools. For more than a century, 

laboratories at NIST (and its direct predecessor agency, the National Bureau of Standards) have 

successfully collaborated with others to provide the measurement techniques and technical tools 

needed by America’s innovators. 

NIST broadly defines technology transfer as the overall process by which NIST knowledge, 

facilities or capabilities in measurement science, standards and technology promote U.S. 

innovation and industrial competitiveness in order to enhance economic security and improve

quality of life.8

NIST’s definition of technology transfer reflects the many ways NIST reaches its external 

partners. The definition includes, inter alia: 1) the act of transferring knowledge from one 

individual to another by means of mentoring, training, documenting, or collaborating; and 2) 

commercialization, which allows the adoption of a technology into the private sector through a 

business or other organization.

NIST designed its technology transfer program to improve processes and work products directly 

through collaborations. 

8 https://www.nist.gov/director/congressional-and-legislative-affairs/fy-2019-presidential-budget-request-summary1
8

The mission of NIST’s Technology Partnerships Office (TPO) is to serve its NIST customers by 

leading technology transfer processes that NIST researchers use to develop innovations from 

concept to practical application. TPO structures collaborative relationships between NIST 

researchers and regional, national, and global partners, fosters entrepreneurship and small 

business growth, and provides economic analysis to support the process. TPO serves its

interagency customers by leading collaborative and consensus-building efforts for developing 

frameworks and best practices that enable all federal technology transfer offices to succeed in 

advancing their missions through partnerships and transferring technologies from lab to market.

TPO’s vision is to facilitate the best possible outcome for each NIST research innovation and 

provide dynamic interagency leadership for technology transfer policy and analysis.

The following summarizes different technology transfer mechanisms NIST uses to promote 

innovation and to disseminate technologies that result from its research. 

2.2 STATUTORILY REQUIRED METRIC TABLES

Table 6: NIST Invention Disclosures and Patenting

Metric FY 2022

Invention Disclosures Received 69

Total Patent Applications Filed 27

U.S. 27

Foreign 0

Total Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Applications 

Filed 8

Total Patents Issued 25

U.S. 25

Foreign 0
9

Table 7: NIST Licensing9

9

“Active” means an agreement in force at any time during the fiscal year. Invention licenses include licenses to 

pending patent applications. Elapsed Amount of Time for Granting Invention Licenses is defined as the time 

between the date of license application and the date of license execution. The date of license application is the date 

the laboratory formally acknowledges the written request for a license from a prospective licensee and agrees to 

enter into negotiations.

Metric FY 2022

Invention Licenses, Total Active 36

New Invention Licenses 11

New Invention Licenses Granted to Small 

Businesses 8

Income Bearing Licenses, Total Active 27

New Income Bearing Licenses 0

Exclusive, Total Active 14

Partially Exclusive, Total Active 0

Non-Exclusive, Total Active 13

Other Licenses, Total Active 0

New Other Licenses 0

New Other Licenses Granted to Small 

Businesses 0

Elapsed Amount of Time for Granting Invention Licenses

Average (months) 11

Minimum (months) 1

Maximum (months) 29

Licenses Terminated for Cause 0
10

Table 8: NIST Income from Licensing

Table 9: NIST Collaborative Relationships10

2.3 OTHER IMPORTANT NIST PERFORMANCE MEASURES 

In addition to the previously discussed methods of transferring technology (i.e., patents, licenses, 

and CRADAs), NIST researchers routinely transfer technological innovations through the 

mechanisms discussed below. 

2.3.1 Scientific and Technical Publications

NIST research results are published in a variety of formats including technical papers and 

reports, data, and software. These research outputs are made available to industry, academia, 

other agencies, and the public through various repositories and websites.

10 CRADAs include: bilateral agreements, consortia agreements, industry-led agreements, NVLAP accreditations, 

and calibrations. Other Collaborative Agreements include: material transfer agreements and guest researcher 

agreements.

Metric FY 2022

Invention License Income $98,022

Other License Income $0

Total Earned Royalty Income (ERI) $98,022

ERI from Top 1% of Licenses $22,029

ERI from Top 5% of Licenses $22,029

ERI from Top 20% of Licenses $22,029

Minimum ERI $173

Maximum ERI $22,029

Median ERI $6,250

Disposition of ERI

Percentage Distributed to Inventors 43%

Percentage Distributed to Lab/Agency 57%

Metric FY 2022

Total Active CRADAs 2,181

New CRADAs 1,795

New CRADAs Involving Small Businesses 917

Other Collaborative Agreements 2,738
11

NIST authors published 1,160 manuscripts in fiscal year (FY) 2022 in peer-reviewed journals. 

The number of times that a manuscript is cited by other authors serves as an indicator of 

technology transfer. In calendar year (CY) 2022, NIST-authored manuscripts that were 

published in peer-reviewed journals during the past five years (CY 2018–2022) garnered 28,621

citations.11

Table 10: NIST Publishing Activities – Papers12

NIST is the self-publisher of over 15 Technical Series publications (TechPubs) consisting of 

technical reports, recommendations, practice guides and standards, industry handbooks, and 

other documents. NIST produced 290 TechPubs in FY 2022. The number of times that a 

publication is downloaded serves as an indicator of technology transfer. In CY 2022, NIST 

TechPubs that were published during the past five years (CY 2018–2022) were downloaded over 

3.1 million times.13 Of these publications, those with the subject area of computer and 

information security standards and guidelines were downloaded thousands of times every day.

14

Table 11: NIST Publishing Activities - Technical Report Series

NIST researchers published 123 data products in FY 2022, including datasets and software. The 

volume of downloaded data products serves as an indicator of technology transfer. In CY 2022, 

there were 36 terabytes15 (TB) of data downloaded from NIST datasets located in the NIST Data 

11 NIST peer-reviewed publication data were retrieved from queries of the Web of Science (WoS) database on 

November 14, 2022. These data do not represent a comprehensive count of all NIST publications. This reporting 

includes only NIST-authored publications that are captured by the WoS search queries. Publications that are not 

indexed in the WoS database are not included in this reporting.

12 Data as of November 14, 2022.

13 Download statistics of NIST Technical Series Publications consist of the number of unique visitors (“downloads”) 

for each publication, for instance, a count of requests to display PDF content from a unique IP address. Requests 

from spiders and web crawlers are not used to determine visitors.

14 NIST is responsible for developing information security standards and guidelines, including minimum 

requirements for federal information systems per statutory responsibilities under the Federal Information Security 

Modernization Act (FISMA), 44 U.S.C. § 3551 et seq., Public Law (P.L.) 113-283. 

15 Download statistics of NIST datasets are derived directly from usage metrics generated on the NIST Data Portal. 

FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Number of NIST Papers 1,509 1,419 1,160

Number of NIST Paper Citations (CY) n/a 36,882 28,621

FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Number of NIST TechPubs Published 232 225 290

Number of NIST TechPubs Downloads (CY) n/a 2,840,058 3,114,035
12

Portal. The number of repositories added to the NIST Open-Source Code Portal, where public 

users search and explore open-source software developed by NIST and collaborators, serves as 

an indicator of technology transfer. In FY 2022, 95 repositories16 were added to the NIST OpenSource Code Portal. These data products are generated as part of the NIST mission, spanning 

multiple disciplines of scientific, engineering and technology research.

Table 12: NIST Publishing Activities – Data and Software17

NIST also publicizes its planned, ongoing, and recently completed work in outlets followed by 

the organizations with interests aligned to NIST’s research and services, such as the trade and 

technical press. In addition to news releases, websites, social media posts, and contacts with the 

media, NIST issues a bi-weekly e-mail roundup of its latest news, called Tech Beat.

2.3.2 Participation in Documentary Standards Committees

Documentary standards are shared sets of rules that specify, for example, a test method or 

measurement method, a product’s properties, or standard practices. Econometric studies have 

reported that standards contribute significantly to economic growth, and a significant study 

concluded, development of standards is integral to innovation; documentary standards contribute 

to economic growth at least as much as do patents; and the macroeconomic benefits of the 

development of standards extend beyond the benefits to the companies that use the standards.18 

During FY 2022, 579 members of the NIST staff were involved with 328 standards 

organizations. Such participation helps NIST respond to the needs of the private sector and 

enables its scientists and engineers to bring NIST technology and know-how directly into 

standards-setting bodies. 

16 NIST Open-Source Code Portal Repository data were retrieved from the Repo Creation History chart. These data 

do not represent a comprehensive count of all NIST data repositories. These data refer to the number of repositories 

added to the portal in the reporting fiscal year; it is not a cumulative number.

17 Data as of November 16, 2022.

18 Peter Swann, G.M., Report for the UK Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS), 2010 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/economics-of-standardisation-update-to-report.

FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Number of NIST Datasets & Software Published 132 128 123

Quantity of NIST Data (direct download) from 

NIST Data Portal (CY) n/a 14 TB 36 TB

Number of Repositories added to the NIST OpenSource Code Portal 143 68 95
13

Table 13: NIST Participation in Documentary Standards19

The NIST Standards Coordination Office (SCO) maintains the Standards Committee 

Participation Database for employees to report their participation, including leadership positions 

within standards organizations.

2.3.3 Standard Reference Data

NIST’s Standard Reference Data (SRD) Program provides critically evaluated numeric data to 

scientists and engineers for use in technical problem solving, research, and development. Many 

types of reference data are extremely important in engineering structures, optimizing chemical 

processes, and other industrial applications. NIST extracts SRD from scientific and technical 

literature or develops them from measurements conducted at its laboratories that are carefully

evaluated for accuracy and reliability. NIST currently maintains 65 SRD databases that cover 

many areas of science, including analytical chemistry, atomic and molecular physics, 

biotechnology, and materials sciences.

In FY 2022, the NIST SRD Program distributed 2,842 e-commerce orders, 7,999 units sold via 

distributor, 124 active distributor agreements, 17 active site licenses, 81 active internet 

subscriptions, 20 units shipped to the user, and 3,805 products downloaded from the NIST 

website (1,618 free downloads, 2,187 paid downloads).

19 Starting in FY 2021, the data for the reported number of participianting NIST staff and number of standard 

organization with NIST participants come from a new database platform.

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Number of Participating NIST Staff 423 440 400 547 579

Number of Standard Organizations with NIST 

Participants 116 112 112 350 328
14

Table 14: NIST Standard Reference Data Program20

2.3.4 Standard Reference Materials

Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) are a definitive source for various measurements in the 

United States. Measurements made using SRMs can be traced to a common and recognized set 

of basic standards that provide the basis for measurement compatibility among different 

laboratories. The certified property values for SRMs often depend on the development of unique 

measurement capabilities within NIST. In FY 2022, NIST made available 1,121 SRMs and from 

these, sold 28,777 units.

Table 15: NIST Standard Reference Materials

2.3.5 User Facilities – Research Participants

NIST operates two unique and valuable laboratory facilities that support U.S. industry, academic 

institutions, and other NIST and government laboratories. These facilities, the Center for 

Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) and the NIST Center for Neutron Research 

20 NIST reviewed the classification of its available SRD products in FY 2022. NIST determined that 65 of the 

products available were correctly classified as SRDs while the other products were reclassified as non-SRD products 

(e.g., data compilations, bibliographic collections). Of the 65 SRD-classified products, 49 were free downloads or 

web portals and 14 were fee-based products.

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Products Available (Databases) 92 90 74 74 65

E-Commerce Orders 2,670 2,613 2,908 3,200 2,842

Units Sold via Distributor 8,413 9,880 7,905 8,499 7,999

Active Distributor Agreements 157 125 115 118 124

Active Site Licenses 17 30 15 19 17

Active Internet Subscriptions 50 41 140 69 81

Units Shipped via UPS 146 82 57 50 20

Products Downloaded from the NIST Website 3,910 3,812 4,578 4,449 3,805

Free Downloads 1,099 1,100 1,484 1,369 1,618

Paid Downloads 2,811 2,712 3,094 3,080 2,187

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Units Available 1,140 1,130 1,114 1,116 1,121

Units Sold 31,503 29,955 27,319 28,065 28,777
15

(NCNR), allow NIST customers to tap directly into NIST measurement expertise to solve 

problems.

21

The CNST supports the development of nanotechnology from discovery to production. It

operates in a national shared-use nanofabrication and measurement facility (the NanoFab), 

complemented by a multidisciplinary research staff creating next-generation tools for advancing 

nanotechnology. The NCNR is a national user facility that provides cold and thermal neutron 

measurement capabilities to researchers from academia, industry, and other government 

agencies.

NIST user facility “research participants” are those who directly participate in an NCNR

experiment or CNST project. Research participants include those who use the facility on-site or 

remotely, and their collaborators on the experiment or project. In FY 2019, CNST began 

reporting the number of distinct facility users versus the previously reported number of research 

participants.22 In FY 2022, there were 198 distinct facility users at CNST and 1,857 research 

participants at NCNR. 

Table 16: NIST Research Participants

2.3.6 Postdoctoral Researchers

Technology transfer includes the people who perform the actual research and development. 

NIST postdoctoral researchers, or “postdocs,” play an important role in transferring NIST 

technology and expertise. NIST adheres to the National Science Foundation’s Proposal and 

Award Policies and Procedures Guide’s standard of a postdoctoral researcher. In FY 2022, NIST 

hosted 120 postdocs. Of these, 71 were based at the NIST Gaithersburg, Maryland campus; 44

were located in Boulder, Colorado; 1 was located at Hollings Marine Laboratory; and the 

remainder were located at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophyics (JILA). 

21 The NCNR was shut down on February 3, 2021, in response to an incident where a single fuel element overheated 

and was damaged. On March 10, 2023, the Nuclear Regulatory Comission concluded that NIST had satisfied the 

safety requirements to restart the reactor and authorized NIST to restart the NCNR research reactor. 

22 The change in reporting is due to organizational restructuring. CNST merged with the Physical Measurement 

Laboratory in FY 2019. 

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

CNST 3,415 314 230 184 198

NCNR 2,742 2,923 3,068 2,576 1,857
16

Table 17: NIST Postdoctoral Researchers

(a) Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) was founded in 1962 as a joint institute of CU-Boulder 

and NIST. JILA is located at the base of the Rocky Mountains on the CU-Boulder campus in the Duane 

Physics complex. 

(b) The Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) was founded in September 2006 as a collaboration between the 

University of Maryland and NIST, with additional support from the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, a 

government facility in College Park. 

(c) The Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) is a world-class research facility in Charleston, South Carolina. 

HML’s mission is to provide science and biotechnology applications to sustain, protect, and restore coastal 

ecosystems, with emphasis on links between environmental condition and the health of marine organisms 

and humans. 

(d) The Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) is a joint research enterprise created to 

enhance collaboration among the University of Maryland College Park, the University of Maryland 

Baltimore, and NIST. 

(e) The Joint Initiative for Metrology in Biology (JIMB) is co-led by Stanford University and NIST and is 

designed to enable significant improvements in the accuracy and comparability of vital data used to make 

important research, regulatory, clinical, and manufacturing quality control decisions. 

The number of postdocs is a significant measure of technology transfer; at the conclusion of their 

tenure, they take what they have learned and apply it to their next employment. NIST surveyed

54 FY 2022 NIST National Research Council (NRC) program postdocs. Of these, 57% 

continued research careers with NIST,

23 22% percent moved to the private sector, 15% pursued 

other opportunities such as becoming independent researchers, and 6% moved to non-NIST

government agencies. No surveyed postdocs moved to academia in FY 2022.

23 Researchers who left their postdoc positions and stayed at NIST became career conditional / term employees or

non-career conditional or term employees (i.e. contractors or guest researchers).

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

NIST Postdocs, Total (NRC) 153 165 154 132 120

Gaithersburg campus 91 110 103 94 71

Boulder campus 44 35 40 33 44

Joint Institute for Laboratory 

Astrophysics (a) 10 13 7 5 4

Joint Quantum Institute (b) 3 1 0 0 0

Hollings Marine Laboratory (c) 1 3 4 0 1

Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology 

Research (d) 3 2 0 0 0

Joint Initiative for Metrology in Biology(e) 1 1 0 0 0
17

Figure 1: Tracking NIST Researchers after Initial Postdoc Tenure at NIST (FY 2022)

2.3.7 Guest Researchers

In addition to postdocs, each year thousands of researchers visit NIST to participate in 

collaborative projects. NIST hosts many term appointment researchers and non-NIST employees 

working as guest researchers, collaborators, and student fellows. Similar to postdoctoral 

researchers, many guest researchers seek career opportunities in academia, the private sector, or

federal agencies after their tenure at NIST. While some guest researchers’ NIST projects may 

result in inventions, all guest researchers leave NIST with technical and research skills that place 

them on the cutting edge of their disciplines. Each researcher takes the skills and knowledge and 

aspires to apply them in innovative ways in their careers. Paramount among these skills are the 

knowledge requirements and processes needed to collaborate with federal laboratories and the 

federal resources available to assist companies in creating and developing new and improved 

technologies. 

In FY 2022 there were 2,498 guest scientists and engineers working at NIST. Fewer guest 

researchers visited NIST due to the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions.

Table 18: NIST Guest Researchers

2.3.8 Accreditation Services

The NIST National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) is a voluntary, feesupported program to accredit private sector laboratories’ competency to perform measurement

tests or calibrations. In FY 2022, NVLAP accredited 623 laboratories.

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Guest Scientists and Engineers 3,221 3,180 2,701 2,371 2,498
18

Table 19: NIST Accreditation Services

2.3.9 Calibration Services

The NIST laboratories provide unique physical measurement services for their customers, 

including calibration services, special tests, and measurement assurance programs. NIST designs 

its calibration services to help manufacturers and users of precision instruments achieve the 

highest possible levels of measurement quality and productivity. NIST calibrations often serve 

as the basis for companies that provide commercial calibration services and calibration 

equipment. The NIST on a Chip project established in 2018 aims to streamline a host of 

calibration services by making chip-scale calibration technologies available to end-users, with 

the goal of reducing the need for traditional calibration services provided on-site at NIST. In FY 

2022, NIST performed 14,013 calibration tests.

Table 20: NIST Calibration Services

2.3.10 Education Outreach Programs and Partnerships

NIST has received recognition as a vital contributor to the efforts to improve science, 

technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States. As part of its 

mission, and to help create a long-term and well-qualified workforce for standards and 

measurement research, NIST has several educational outreach programs and partnerships that 

enrich basic research programs such as:

• the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program;

• the Summer High School Internship (SHIP) program;

• the Pathways Program;

• the NIST Summer Institute for Middle School Science Teachers; and

• the Professional Research Experience Program (PREP).

In FY 2022, 156 students participated in the SURF program, 44 students participated in SHIP, 56

students participated in the Pathways Program, 23 individuals participated in the Summer 

Institute for Middle School Science Teachers, and 531 students participated in PREP. 

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

NVLAP Accreditations 674 674 644 650 623

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Number of Calibration Tests Performed 11,771 11,519 9,225 13,568 14,013
19

Table 21: NIST STEM Education Participation

(a) NIST did not hold the SURF or SHIP programs in FY 2020.

(b) NIST did not hold the Summer Institute for Middle School Science Teachers in FY 2018.

2.3.11 Conferences, Seminars, and Workshops

Some of the most important mechanisms for technology dissemination are communication, 

education, and interaction among researchers, developers, and users of technology. NIST hosts 

numerous conferences, workshops, and other meetings each year to facilitate the transfer of 

technology. 

In FY 2022, the NIST Conference Program arranged 35 conferences, both in person and virtual,

that attracted 23,706 researchers to NIST’s facilities in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Boulder, 

Colorado. NIST’s Office of Weights and Measures, which promotes uniformity in U.S. weights 

and measures laws, regulations, and standards, trained 1,294 weights and measures 

administrators, laboratory metrologists, and field enforcement officials. In addition to formal 

trainings, NIST staff respond to email, telephone, and mail inquiries from researchers requesting 

information and details about NIST technical developments and research results.

Table 22: NIST Conferences, Seminars, and Workshops24

24 This report revises the number of Total Students and Workshop Attendance reported for FY 2021. The number of 

Total Students in FY 2021 was previously reported as 2,083 and is now revised to 2,084. The value of Workshop 

Attendance in FY 2021 was previously reported as 129 but is revised to 130.

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

SURF(a) 212 173 0 146 156

SHIP 64 55 0 54 44

Pathways Program 85 71 77 48 56

Summer Institute for Middle School Science 

Teachers(b) 0 24 23 24 23

PREP 200 360 174 425 531

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

NIST Conference Center

Conferences and Workshops 101 78 74 40 35

Attendance 8,772 8,596 7,747 17,943 23,706

Office of Weights and Measures - Metrology Training 

Total Students 902 666 2,057 2,084 1,294

Seminar Attendance 523 441 101 0 125

Webinar Attendance 379 225 1,948 1,954 1,134

Workshop Attendance 0 0 8 130 35
20

2.3.12 Trends in Technology Transfer Office Activity

To better understand the year-to-year activity of its technology transfer office, NIST tracks the 

average number of days to both file a patent application and approve a CRADA. In FY 2022, the 

average number of days between the receipt date of an invention disclosure and the filing date of 

the first non-provisional patent application was 612 days. In most cases, NIST files a provisional 

patent application before a non-provisional filing. Therefore, the duration reported here reflects a 

time period that starts with an invention disclosure, includes the filing of a provisional patent 

application, and ends with the filing of a non-provisional patent application, which usually

occurs close to 365 days after the provisional application filing date. The average CRADA 

approval time was 76 days. 

Table 23: NIST Activity Trends

(a) The time between the receipt date of an invention disclosure and the filing date of the first non-provisional 

patent application filed by NIST. 

(b) The time between the receipt of the memo related to the award of a CRADA and the time of approval for the 

memo.

2.3.13 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)

NIST’s SBIR program funds science and technology-based small businesses in the United 

States. The program offers qualified small businesses the opportunity to propose innovative ideas 

that align with NIST research and development and have the potential for commercialization. In 

FY 2022, NIST awarded 12 Phase I SBIR awards and 7 Phase II SBIR awards. Additionally, 

NIST awarded 4 Fast-Track awards, which are a combination of Phase I and Phase II awards.

Table 24: NIST SBIR Award Count

2.3.14 Economic Assessment

Economists at NIST published two peer-reviewed articles relating to technology transfer in FY 

2022:

1. Hall MJ (2022). “New technology transfer metrics for the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology.” The Journal of Technology Transfer. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-

022-09947-9

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Average Number of Days to File a NonProvisional Patent Application(a) 337 408 450 488 612

Average Number of Days to Approve a 

CRADA(b) 91 129 109 92 76

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

Phase I SBIR Awards 12 12 12 11 12

Phase II SBIR Awards 10 7 8 6 7

Fast-Track Awards 0 0 0 0 4
21

Abstract: New technology transfer metrics relevant to the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology (NIST) are presented in this paper. From a public sector management 

perspective, these metrics are important because they extend the current measures of 

technology transfer to include metrics that are unrelated to the size of the federal 

laboratory in question. This extension allows for a more meaningful comparison of some 

aspects of technology transfer activities at federal laboratories with differing sizes, 

missions, and policies. This paper applies proposed measures of technology transfer to 

data on NIST’s technology transfer activities, compares these metrics across multiple 

organizations, provides suggestions for the interpretation of these metrics, describes 

limitations of these metrics, and suggests areas for future research.

2. Hall MJ, Link AN, Schaffer M (2022). “An economic analysis of standard reference 

materials.” The Journal of Technology Transfer. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-022-

09960-y

Abstract: Standard Reference Materials® (SRMs®) are high-technology infrastructural 

elements developed and distributed by the U.S. national metrology institute, the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology. SRMs are used throughout the economy to 

enhance production efficiency by reducing information asymmetries and thereby 

reducing transaction costs between affected parties. To date, the domestic market demand 

for SRMs in the United States has not been studied. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to 

estimate a market demand model for SRMs; the empirical results show that market 

demand is cyclical, that is it increases with positive changes in multifactor productivity.

In addition to the NIST economists’ assessments, NIST contracted with an independent, thirdparty research firm to conduct an economic impact analysis of NIST’s Communications 

Technology Laboratory (CTL) Public Safety Communication Research (PSCR) division’s $300 

million in research investments from the Public Safety Trust fund. The analysis focuses on how 

the R&D investments by NIST PSCR to perform critical public safety communications R&D 

translate into broader impacts to the United States, including jobs, earnings, value added, and 

total economic output. PSCR’s R&D investments resulted in economic output in 33 of the 50 

states, for a total economic output of $807.1 million (in 2022 dollars) and 6,043 new jobs. For 

more information about the NIST PSCR Economic Impact Analysis and to view the 33 state 

profiles and report, please visit: https://www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr/commercialization/economicimpact. 

2.3.15 Challenge and Prize Competitions

NIST’s Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL) and Engineering Laboratory (EL) host 

prize competitions under the America COMPETES Act authority (15 U.S.C. § 3719) to spur 

ideation and innovation from public solvers. The laboratories use prize competitions to advance 

manufacturing robotics (EL) and public safety communications (CTL) research by engaging 

individuals, industry, academia, and organizations in a rapid, more collaborative means than 

traditional funding opportunities. In FY 2022, NIST awarded 209 cash prizes totaling $2,452,500 

to 161 teams. NIST launched or completed the following nine prize competitions in FY 2022: 
22

1. Differential Privacy Temporal Map Challenge

2. The Mobile Fingerprinting Innovation Technology (mFIT) Challenge

3. First Responder UAS Triple Challenge: 3.1 FastFind - UAS Search Optimized

4. First Responder UAS Triple Challenge: 3.2 LifeLink - UAS Data Relay

5. First Responder UAS Triple Challenge: 3.3 Shields Up! Securing Public Safety UAS

Navigation and Control

6. First Responder UAS Indoor Challenge

7. CommanDING Tech Challenge: Command Dashboard Integrating Next-Gen Technology 

Challenge for Public Safety

8. First Responder Smart Tracking Challenge

9. 2022 Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC)

Several of the above prize challenges had culminating phases focused on contestants developing 

a business or commercialization strategy surrounding their prototypes. Some prize challenges 

provided additional awards to help finalists connect to commercialization resources and advance 

their early-phase innovations.

NIST also aided the United States and United Kingdom’s joint government-partnership to deliver 

a set of prize challenges to unleash the potential of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) that 

enables organizations to analyze sensitive data while providing improved privacy protections. In 

FY 2022, the first phase of the PETs Prize Challenge: Advancing Privacy-Preserving Federated 

Learning occurred, with three awards made to the U.S. teams totaling $55,000 in prizes.

2.3.16 Commercialization Programs and Support for External Researchers

NIST’s Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL) has piloted two commercialization 

programs to support the commercialization of external researchers’ technology:

1. Federal Funding Opportunity Focused on Commercialization:

NIST offered a unique federal funding opportunity—2020-NIST-PSIAP-TABA-01, NIST 

Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program (PSIAP) – Follow-on Funding for 

Technical and Business Assistance and Demonstration Projects with Public Safety 

Agencies—focused on advancing early phase prototypes to more advanced technology 

readiness levels. 

Acknowledging the technology development and life cycle gap from early-stage research 

and prototypes to publicly available technology, NIST provided this funding opportunity 

to entities with a previous federal award to advance awardees’ research and prototypes 

further and accelerate needed improvements in communications technology for first 

responders. The funding opportunity provided additional funding to entities to either: (1) 

more rapidly advance their prototypes through needed technical and business assistance 

or (2) conduct a demonstration project with a partnering public safety agency to provide 

additional testing and research. 
24

NIST awarded 10 recipients and their partnering public safety agencies, totaling 

$1,997,602 in funding to advance their communication technology for public safety. All 

recipients are currently scheduled to wrap-up their demonstration projects by end of FY

2023. 

2. Virtual Accelerator for Public Safety Communications Technology

NIST designed the Pulse Accelerator to help emerging communications technology 

companies accelerate growth and development that supports the public safety and first 

responder sectors. Working together in a collaborative program, the 28 selected 

participants, across three rounds of the accelerator (FY 2021 and FY 2022), engaged 

directly with specialists and experts from business, technology and public safety to 

develop a commercialization plan for their technology innovation. A comprehensive 

questionnaire designed to assess what impact the Pulse Accelerator had on the 

participating businesses will wrap-up in FY 2023. Preliminary results have shown that 

following their participation in the Accelerator, 10 of the 28 participants have received 14 

SBIR/STTR awards totaling more than $3,487,655 in funding from other federal 

agencies. These SBIR and STTR awardees will further develop their innovative 

communication technology while they conduct innovative research with the federal 

government. Additionally, it is anticipated that one Accelerator participant’s planned 

business expansion with the State of Colorado will create 372 new jobs with an average 

salary of $143,000 annually.

2.3.17 Awards

In its simplest form, technology transfer is achieved through dissemination of research results via 

publication, participation in professional societies, and other activities. As part of these activities

and in addition to the NIST and DOC awards, NIST staff received the following prestigious 

awards during FY 2022:

USRA Q2B Applied NISQ Computing Paper 

Award for 2021

Lucas Brady

2022 Neutron Scattering Society of America 

Service Award

Paul Butler

ASHRAE Fellow

W. Stuart Dols

Dave Tree Distinguished Service Award

Piotr Domanski

Proulx Early Career Award

Ryan Falkenstein-Smith

Leadership in Forensic Science Award from the 

Washington Academy of Science for Leadership 

in Forensic Science

Barbara Guttman 

Johns Hopkins University Outstanding Instructor 

Award

William Healy

Department of Commerce FY 2021 Real Property 

Portfolio Award

Adam Jacoff

Washington Academy of Sciences (WAS) 2022 

Leadership Award in Manufacturing Engineering

Kevin Jurrens
25

Fellow of the Washington Academy of Science 

Raghu Kacker

Johns Hopkins University Outstanding Instructor 

Award

Mark Kedzierski

Fellow of the Neutron Scattering Society of 

America

Susan Krueger

ASTM International Additive Manufacturing 

Young Professional Award

Brandon Lane

Elected ASCE Structural Engineering Institute 

Fellow

Marc Levitan

Engineering New Record - Top 25 Newsmakers of 

2021 - Award of Excellence

Marc Levitan

ASME 2022-2023 Early Career Leadership Intern 

Program to Serve Engineering (ECLIPSE) 

Lin Lingnan

ASTM Additive Manufacturing Award of 

Excellence in Research

Yan Lu

Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Senior 

Professional

Chuck Majkrzak

Distinguished Member of the American Society of 

Civil Engineers

Therese McAllister

2021 ASTM Additive Manufacturing Award of 

Excellence in Standardization

Shawn Moylan

Clifford G. Shull Prize

Dan Neumann

President of the ASCE Geo-Institute

Sissy Nilolaou

Excellence in Research in Applied Mathematics 

Award from the Washington Academy of Science

Paul Patrone

Fellow of the Neutron Scattering Society of 

America

Don Pierce

SME 30 Under 30

Maxwell Praniewicz

2022 Neutron Scattering Society of America 

Service Award

William Ratcliff

The Ret. General Michael V. Hayden Lifetime 

Achievement Award 

Ron Ross

Fellow of the Washington Academy of Science

Kamran Sayrafian

Department of Commerce FY 2021 Real Property

Portfolio Award

David Schmitt

Elected to the 2022 Class of the AIMBE College of 

Fellows

Ram D. Sriram

2022 Women in Biometrics Award, Security 

Industry Association

Diane Stephens

ASTM Award of Appreciation

Paul Stutzman

Physics World 2021 Breakthrough of the Year, 

First Place

John Teufel, Shlomi Kotler, Ezad Shojaee, Alex 

Kwiatkowski, Shawn Geller, Scott Glancy, and 

Manny Knill

Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, Cross-Field

Hui Wu

2022 Washington Academy of Science (WAS) 

2022 Excellence in Research Award in Chemical 

Engineering

Jiann Yang
26

DOC SEE Ambassador

David Yashar

ASTM International Award of Merit

Robert Zarr

Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, Chemistry

Wei Zhou

Service and Leadership Award at the 2022 

Federal Identity Forum

NIST's Information Technology Image Group

2022 Communicators Award of Distinction for 

Video Animation and Communicators Award of 

Distinction in the Technology for Online Video 

from Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts

NIST’s Public Affairs Office and Information 

Technology Laboratory

2.4 SUCCESS STORIES DEMONSTRATING DOWNSTREAM OUTCOMES FROM NIST

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER ACTIVITIES

2.4.1 The Journey to Commercialize Cutting-Edge Sensor Technology

In the early 2000s, Abhishek Motayed found his way to the NIST campus as a contractor, 

working in what became the Material Measurement Laboratory (MML). Abhishek completed his 

PhD in electrical engineering and transitioned over to the NIST post-doctoral, guest research 

staff. His work shifted toward a focus on advanced sensors and nanotechnology. The program 

around this research grew from the ground up, papers were published, and patents were filed. 

Abhishek and his team carved the path for leading-edge, sensor technology.

The foundation was built, but Abhishek wanted to tackle a new challenge in that of 

commercialization. It requires a mountain of effort to propel a technology to market, but he felt 

that he had the in-depth, subject matter expertise to transform the associated patents into 

products. Abhishek thought that this technology would greatly benefit society and felt that others 

might not appreciate the impact of the technology as much as the inventor himself. So, in 2012, 

Abhishek left NIST to become his own spokesperson and developed a start-up company, N5 

Sensors, to license the technology. An inter-institutional agreement was soon formed, negotiated 

by the University of Maryland, leading to the intellectual property being owned by multiple 

hosts.

Abhishek knew that a start-up tech company required many levels of funding to succeed. As N5 

Sensors began to grow from concept to a brick-and-mortar facility, Abhishek pursued all 

available avenues to ensure continued progress. Since he had previously worked at NIST, he was 

eligible to apply for the NIST-Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Program (N-STEP). NSTEP, a program that was developed through a NIST/TEDCO partnership, provides a funding 

platform for NIST alum who want to further pursue their translational research and the 

commercialization of NIST technologies.

Abhishek felt like N-STEP was a great fit for his sensor-based technology as it would allow him 

to expand upon his business acumen and would provide him an additional funding channel, 

which was extremely critical in advancing the technology toward the commercialization stage. 
27

Being a first-time entrepreneur is quite challenging and commercializing a product is very 

difficult, especially with early validation and manufacturing.

As N5 Sensors continued to grow, Abhishek decided to pivot the business from a focus on 

manufacturing sensors to a focus on solutions to better society by implementing their sensors 

into new technologies. Two major solutions were created out of the base technology: a rugged, 

networked wildfire detection and air quality monitoring system and a wearable chemical threat 

detection system for the military and emergency responders.

Abhishek plans to continue to expand and grow N5 Sensors by providing solutions for societal 

problems using cutting-edge technology. From concept to practical application, Abhishek has 

taken his technology from the drawing board to the manufacturing facility, showing that the 

commercialization journey doesn’t end once the lab coat is put away.

2.4.2 NIST Launches New iEdison System for Reporting Federally Funded Inventions

To promote the transfer of technology from laboratory to marketplace, NIST has redesigned the 

online platform where organizations report their taxpayer-funded inventions. The new 

Interagency Edison system, or iEdison, includes a modernized user interface and new 

functionality and security features that will make it easier for government grantees and 

contractors to comply with the reporting requirements of the Bayh-Dole Act.

The Bayh-Dole Act requires that awardees inform the federal government of inventions arising 

from federal support. In addition to reporting their inventions, organizations use iEdison to 

request extensions and waivers, report progress and inform the government of its limited use 

rights to patents on taxpayer-funded inventions.

“The inventions listed in iEdison create immense economic value for the nation, support jobs and 

improve our quality of life,” said Mojdeh Bahar, NIST’s associate director for innovation and 

industry services. “The new upgrades to the iEdison system will help inventors, awardees and the 

government manage these investments efficiently and transparently.”

The updated iEdison system includes a modernized user interface and new messaging features 

that make it easier for organizations to communicate with their funding agencies. It also includes 

an expanded application programming interface, or API, that will allow organizations to 

automate some reporting tasks. In addition, the new system is integrated with information 

systems at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for easier updating of patent information.

“These upgrades will make it easier for recipients to comply with their reporting obligations and 

for federal agencies protect the public’s investment in research and development,” said Bethany 

Loftin, NIST’s project leader for the iEdison system and interagency and iEdison specialist 

within the Technology Partnerships Office at NIST.

NIST began working on the update in December 2019. The legacy NIH system shut down on 

August 2, 2022, and the new system, hosted by NIST, went live on August 9.
28

2.4.3 NIST Researchers Link Cutting-Edge Gravity Research to Safer Operation of 

Construction Cranes

Stephan Schlamminger—a physicist at NIST—and his colleagues describe a surprising link 

between their equation for G, the gravitational constant that determines the strength of the 

attraction between massive objects, and the maneuvers required for crane operators at a 

construction site to safely and quickly transport heavy loads, in an article posted online on 

February 17, 2022, in the American Journal of Physics.

The equation that Schlamminger derived provides guidance about how to minimize or quickly 

dampen the amount by which the wire twists back and forth. If the amount is small, it’s easier to 

locate and measure the position of the wire, which translates into a more accurate measure of G. 

Schlamminger was eager to immediately publish the result. But then he got to thinking: The 

finding would interest only a small number of people, those who measure G using the torsional 

pendulum method. 

Schlamminger, of course, wasn’t initially thinking about construction cranes. But he remembered 

a conversation he had when he was a postdoc about 15 years ago, while working on a similar 

project to measure G at the University of Washington in Seattle. Schlamminger’s advisor had 

asked him if he knew about the tricks of the crane operator.

Operating a crane isn’t for the faint-hearted. Swing a thousand-pound chunk of steel too fast or 

too far and someone can get killed. But in just two carefully choreographed maneuvers, a skilled 

crane operator can pick up a heavy load and bring it to a dead stop, without any dangerous 

swinging, to exactly the right destination. Moreover, a crane’s cable and the load can be modeled 

as a vertical pendulum that moves to and fro in a manner similar to the way that a torsional 

pendulum twists and untwists. The time that it takes for the pendulum to complete one cycle of 

this motion is called the period.

Applying the equation he had derived for the torsional pendulum, Schlamminger found he could 

predict the strength and timing of the changes in velocity crane operators need to apply to the 

trolley—the wheeled mechanism that moves loads horizontally along a rail.

If a crane operator transports a load that’s at rest and moves it a relatively short distance, the 

equation suggests this prescription for stopping the load at the right spot: The operator should 

initially apply a velocity opposing the motion of the crane’s trolley and then apply exactly the 

same velocity in the opposite direction exactly one pendulum period later.

If the operator has to pick up a load initially at rest and move it a relatively large distance—tens 

of meters—the equation provides different guidance to account for the crane’s larger swinging 

motion in this scenario: The operator should initially apply a force that accelerates the crane 

trolley from rest to a certain velocity and then apply a second change in trolley speed, doubling 

that velocity, half a period later.

Things get more complicated if the load has some initial swinging motion of its own, 

independent of the crane. In such cases, the two times at which the operator applies a force to 
29

bring the load under control are no longer exactly half a period or one period apart, but the 

equation still provides the appropriate times for action.

“I believe that well trained operators can perform these maneuvers,” to more safely transport 

construction loads, said NIST engineer Nicholas Dagalakis, who developed the mathematical 

models and optimized the design of NIST’s RoboCrane. Dagalakis was not a coauthor of the 

study.

Although veteran crane operators instinctively know about the strategies the NIST researchers 

developed, and computerized control of the trolley incorporates these motions, this appears to be 

the first time the crane maneuvers have been described by a mathematical formalism, per 

Schlamminger. “This is really a rich application that is worth sharing with the world,” he added.

2.4.4 NIST Develops Genetic Material for Validating Mpox Tests

In an effort to help speed the expansion of mpox testing in the U.S., NIST produced a material 

that can help ensure the accuracy of tests for the disease. NIST made the material, which 

contains gene fragments from the virus that causes the disease but is noninfectious and safe to 

handle, freely available for use by test manufacturers and testing laboratories.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is spread by close contact and can cause fever, flu-like 

symptoms and skin lesions. More than 3,500 cases of mpox have been confirmed in the United 

States since the outbreak began in late May, and the World Health Organization declared mpox 

to be a global health emergency.

Testing is necessary to identify the extent of an outbreak and contain it, and to properly care for 

people who have caught the disease and those who may have been exposed. The mpox test, like 

the most sensitive test for COVID-19, uses a technique called polymerase chain reaction, or 

PCR, to detect genetic sequences from the virus that causes the disease. 

Because the material from NIST contains those genetic sequences, laboratories can use it as a 

positive control—that is, a sample that should cause a positive result if their test is working 

properly. As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked to expand the 

nation’s testing capacity, the material from NIST filled a growing need.

“Positive control materials are critical for ensuring the reliability of diagnostic tests,” said 

Victoria Olson, the CDC’s deputy director of laboratory science and safety. “Having a reliable 

supply of high-quality control material from a trusted source like NIST will help us mount an 

effective testing program more quickly.”

NIST made this material freely available to any test manufacturer or testing laboratory 

worldwide. Technical information and instructions for requesting the material are available on 

the NIST website.

2.4.5 Nanomagnets Can Choose a Wine, and Could Slake AI’s Thirst for Energy

Human brains process loads of information. When wine aficionados taste a new wine, neural 

networks in their brains process an array of data from each sip. Synapses in their neurons fire, 
30

weighing the importance of each bit of data—acidity, fruitiness, bitterness—before passing it 

along to the next layer of neurons in the network. As information flows, the brain parses out the 

type of wine. 

Scientists want artificial intelligence (AI) systems to be sophisticated data connoisseurs too, and 

so they design computer versions of neural networks to process and analyze information. AI is 

catching up to the human brain in many tasks, but usually consumes a lot more energy to do the 

same things. Our brains make these calculations while consuming an estimated average of 20 

watts of power. An AI system can use thousands of times that. This hardware can also lag, 

making AI slower, less efficient and less effective than our brains. A large field of AI research is 

looking for less energy-intensive alternatives. 

Scientists at NIST and their collaborators have developed a new type of hardware for AI that 

could use less energy and operate more quickly—and it has already passed a virtual wine-tasting 

test—in a study published in the journal Physical Review Applied. 

As with traditional computer systems, AI comprises both physical hardware circuits and 

software. AI system hardware often contains a large number of conventional silicon chips that 

are energy thirsty as a group: Training one state-of-the-art commercial natural language 

processor, for example, consumes roughly 190 megawatt hours (MWh) of electrical energy, 

roughly the amount that 16 people in the U.S. use in an entire year. And that’s before the AI does 

a day of work on the job it was trained for.

A less energy-intensive approach would be to use other kinds of hardware to create AI’s neural 

networks, and research teams are searching for alternatives. One device that shows promise is a 

magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), which is good at the kinds of math a neural network uses and 

only needs a comparative few sips of energy. Other novel devices based on MTJs have been 

shown to use several times less energy than their traditional hardware counterparts. MTJs also 

can operate more quickly because they store data in the same place they do their computation, 

unlike conventional chips that store data elsewhere. Perhaps best of all, MTJs are already 

important commercially. They have served as the read-write heads of hard disk drives for years 

and are being used as novel computer memories today.

Though the researchers have confidence in the energy efficiency of MTJs based on their past 

performance in hard drives and other devices, energy consumption was not the focus of the 

present study. They needed to know in the first place whether an array of MTJs could even work 

as a neural network. To find out, they took it for a virtual wine-tasting. 

Scientists with NIST’s Hardware for AI program and their University of Maryland colleagues 

fabricated and programmed a very simple neural network from MTJs provided by their 

collaborators at Western Digital’s Research Center in San Jose, California. 

Just like any wine connoisseur, the AI system needed to train its virtual palate. The team trained 

the network using 148 of the wines from a dataset of 178 made from three types of grapes. Each 

virtual wine had 13 characteristics to consider, such as alcohol level, color, flavonoids, ash, 
31

alkalinity and magnesium. Each characteristic was assigned a value between 0 and 1 for the 

network to consider when distinguishing one wine from the others. 

“It’s a virtual wine tasting, but the tasting is done by analytical equipment that is more efficient 

but less fun than tasting it yourself,” said NIST physicist Brian Hoskins.

Then it was given a virtual wine-tasting test on the full dataset, which included 30 wines it hadn’t 

seen before. The system passed with 95.3% success rate. Out of the 30 wines it hadn’t trained on, 

it only made two mistakes. The researchers considered this a good sign. “Getting 95.3% tells us 

that this is working,” said NIST physicist Jabez McClelland. 

The point is not to build an AI sommelier. Rather, this early success shows that an array of MTJ 

devices could potentially be scaled up and used to build new AI systems. While the amount of 

energy an AI system uses depends on its components, using MTJs as synapses could drastically 

reduce its energy use by half if not more, which could enable lower power use in applications 

such as “smart” clothing, miniature drones, or sensors that process data at the source. 

“It’s likely that significant energy savings over conventional software-based approaches will be 

realized by implementing large neural networks using this type of array,” said McClelland.

2.4.6 With Fuzzy Nanoparticles, Researchers Reveal a Way to Design Tougher Ballistic 

Materials

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Columbia 

Engineering have discovered a new method to improve the toughness of materials that could lead 

to stronger versions of body armor, bulletproof glass and other ballistic equipment.

In a study published in Soft Matter, the team produced films composed of nanometer-scale 

ceramic particles decorated with polymer strands (resembling fuzzy orbs) and made them targets 

in miniature impact tests that showed off the material’s enhanced toughness. Further tests 

unveiled a unique property not shared by typical polymer-based materials that allowed the films 

to dissipate energy from impacts rapidly.

The polymers that constitute most of the high-impact plastics today consist of linear chains of 

repeating synthetic molecules that either physically intertwine or form chemical bonds with each 

other, forming a highly entangled network. The same principle applies to most polymer 

composites, which are often strengthened or toughened by having some nonpolymer material 

mixed in. The films in the new study fall into this category but feature a unique design. 

The films are made of tiny glass spheres, called silica nanoparticles, each covered with chains of 

a polymer known as polymethacrylate (PMA). To produce these polymer-grafted nanoparticles 

(PGNs), Sanat Kumar’s—Columbia University professor of chemical engineering and study coauthor—lab grew PMA chains on the curved surface of the nanoparticles, rendering one end of 

each chain stationary. 

Shorter, or lower molecular mass, chains on the PGNs are constrained by neighboring chains. 

The lack of motion means they do not interact much. But higher molecular mass polymers, 
32

which fan out farther from the spherical nanoparticles, have more elbow room to move, until 

they become entangled with other chains. Between these two lengths, there is an intermediate 

molecular mass where polymers are free to move but are also not long enough to knot up. 

This phenomenon was useful for the material’s initial purpose, which was permitting gases to 

move through it quickly. But Edwin Chan—NIST materials research engineer and study coauthor—and others at NIST sought to find out how this unique property would affect toughness. 

With the help of Kumar’s lab, the researchers tested samples of varying molecular masses. 

At NIST, the researchers opened fire on the PGN composite films of different molecular masses 

with a technique known as Laser-Induced Projectile Impact Testing, or LIPIT. These highvelocity impact tests involved propelling 10-micrometer-wide (about four-thousandths of an 

inch) spherical projectiles toward the targets at velocities of nearly 1 kilometer per second (more 

than 2,200 miles per hour) with a laser. 

They determined the velocity of the projectile in transit and on impact through images captured 

with a camera and strobe light flashing every 100 nanoseconds (billionths of a second). From 

there, the team had what it needed to calculate the energy it took to tear through the film, a 

quantity directly tied to toughness. 

The authors of the study found that the PGN composite films were generally tougher than solely 

PMA. But what was perhaps more interesting was that intermediate molecular mass yielded the 

toughest film.

In purely polymeric materials, longer chains tend to create a greater number of tangles. And 

more tangles translate to greater toughness, up to the point where the material is completely tied 

up. However, the LIPIT tests revealed that the films could defy traditional polymer behavior. 

The toughest samples had chains far shorter than the length for full entanglement, meaning that 

tangles were not the only factor driving toughness. 

Chris Soles—NIST materials research engineer and study co-author—and his colleagues 

suspected that the reason was the decreased packing between the chains at the intermediate 

molecular masses, which could have created a situation where polymers could wriggle about 

more freely and create friction with neighboring chains — a potential avenue for dissipating 

energy from a high impact. 

Seeking to pin down the underlying source of the toughness and test their hypothesis, the team 

members used equipment at the NIST Center for Neutron Research to assess the motion of the 

polymers. 

These tests confirmed that the intermediate molecular mass chains attached to the nanoparticles 

displayed an ability to move and then reach a relaxed state in just a few picoseconds (trillionths 

of a second). These enhanced movements of the intermediate chains dissipated energy more 

readily than either the short (no tangles) or long (highly entangled) PMA chains. This finding 

backed the team’s intuition, especially when taken along with the LIPIT tests. 
33

The results of this study hint at the existence of a sweet spot with respect to the length of 

polymers fixed to the curved surface of particles that could boost material toughness. The finding 

may not be limited to PMA either.
34

3 NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) mission is to understand and 

predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts; to share that knowledge and information 

with others; to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources. This mission 

will become ever more critical in the 21st century as national issues related to climate change, 

limited freshwater supply, ecosystem management, and homeland security intensify.

The NOAA technology and innovation enterprise consists of more than 50 laboratories, 

programs, and offices headquartered in Silver Spring, MD, and staffed across the United States, 

supporting NOAA’s four service-based Line Offices: the National Marine Fisheries Service, the 

National Ocean Service, the National Weather Service, and the National Environmental Satellite, 

Data, and Information Service, as well as thematic programs including Climate, Aquaculture, 

Arctic, Ocean Exploration and Research, Weather and Air Quality, and Ocean Acidification. 

While the service-based Line Offices each have an R&D component, the entire enterprise is also 

supported by a dedicated R&D Line Office: the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.

Research across NOAA’s laboratories is primarily aimed at improving the ability of the 

operational components to accomplish their respective missions. Recent examples 

demonstrating the direction of NOAA’s research are severe storm (hurricane, tornado, derecho 

winds) and drought forecasting; forecasts for renewable energy siting; predicting freshwater 

resources; tsunami warnings; air quality measurement; solar emission forecasting; monitoring 

and estimating of fish stocks and species health; coastal habitat monitoring and pollution; 

invasive species monitoring; coral reef health; ocean acidification; coastal/ocean disaster 

response and restoration; charting ocean bottom topography; and a wide variety of climate 

research and the impacts of a changing climate on human health, coastal zone management, and 

oceans. Research results are routinely transitioned to NOAA’s operational components to 

improve prediction, management, and other mission activities.

NOAA supports a network of 20 Cooperative Institutes at 70 universities and research 

institutions across 28 states and the District of Columbia. Some Cooperative Institutes are 

located near NOAA laboratories or science centers, creating a strong, long-term collaboration 

between federal and university scientists. The work done through the Cooperative Institutes 

directly supports NOAA’s mission activities and results in similar technology transfer 

opportunities. NOAA’s Technology Partnerships Office (TPO) works closely with the 

technology transfer offices from the Institutes to jointly manage intellectual property and seek 

out licensing partners.

3.1 APPROACH AND PLANS FOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

The vast majority of NOAA’s transfer of technology outside of the organization happens through 

peer-reviewed scientific publications and the provision of data and software-based decisionsupport tools which are delivered directly to the public and stakeholders in service to the NOAA 

mission of protecting lives and property. The remainder of NOAA’s technology transfers are the 
35

result of partnerships, grants, and other formal technology transfer mechanisms such as patent 

license agreements. 

The following is an overview of NOAA’s technology transfer activity, both formal and informal, 

during FY 2022. 

3.1.1 Program and Portfolio Management

The NOAA TPO, housed under the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research 

(OAR), manages a central technology transfer program for all NOAA Labs, Centers, Programs, 

and external partners. 

In 2017, the NOAA TPO developed a revised five-year strategic plan to ensure the program is 

effectively serving its customers and management. The Plan was refined in 2018 to more closely 

align with the Department of Commerce Strategic Plan and was included in our annual report. 

The NOAA TPO will likely update this strategic plan again in FY 2023 to better align with 

NOAA goals.

The following are selected reports of progress accomplished in FY 2022:

Goal 1: Enhance Innovation within NOAA and the Nation

Activity 1.2: Increase the number of CRADAs with U.S. Private Sector 

Progress Update:

NOAA CRADA activity rebounded further in FY 2022 to pre-pandemic numbers. 

Active CRADA numbers have slightly decreased from FY21 as some projects that were 

delayed during COVID were able to be completed. The NOAA TPO continues to 

educate staff internally and to engage with the U.S. private sector at selected events. The 

NOAA TPO has also been directly engaged in the execution of NOAA’s new Science 

and Technology Focus Area Strategies to support public-private partnerships.

Goal 2: Enhance Job Creation within the U.S. Economy

Activity 2.2: Increase adoption rate for NOAA technologies

Progress Update:

The NOAA TPO has been a key driver in the internal effort to standardize NOAA’s 

approach to licensing software and data products. The NOAA TPO has submitted a 

revised draft of the NOAA Administrative Order on Cooperative Research and 

Development and Invention Licensing Agreements Under the Federal Technology 

Transfer Act of 1986 for approval. This new Order outlines the general principles NOAA 

will follow for technology dissemination. 

The NOAA TPO has also been directly engaged in the development of a new NOAA 

Administrative Order which provides guidance for software licensing and public 

distribution. The Order has been drafted and is in the review and approval phase.
36

Both documents will lead to a more coherent and coordinated approach to releasing 

NOAA’s software and data products to industry and to the public. 

Goal 3: Enhance Resilience and Security

Task 3.2: Increase public private partnerships in Aquaculture

Progress Update:

Currently, 18 of NOAA’s 51 active CRADAs (35%) are in Aquaculture. 

We have had a lot of success growing the number of CRADAs in this area and we will 

continue to assist with developing CRADAs and Facility Use Agreements to grow our 

public private partnerships in Aquaculture in our role of supporting partnerships across 

the NOAA Science and Technology focus areas. 

Goal 4: Improve Integration, Function, and Profile of the NOAA TPO

Task 2: Increase NOAA TPO input to Intra and Interagency Groups

Progress Update:

The NOAA TPO participates in each of the five new strategy teams and leads one of the 

strategy teams under the Lab to Market subcommittee of the National Science and 

Technology Committee within the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The NOAA 

TPO has been actively engaged with the NOAA Science Council and actively engaging 

in different committees where appropriate to bring awareness to our activities.

3.2 STATUTORILY REQUIRED METRIC TABLES

NOAA was awarded one (1) patent, and three (3) provisional applications were filed in 2022.

NOAA researchers disclosed three hardware inventions.

The licensing portfolio consists of six (6) active invention licenses, two of which have been 

executed through university partners. The NOAA-issued invention licenses include three 

exclusive licenses, and three non-exclusive licenses, all of which are income-bearing. NOAA 

now maintains an active portfolio of ten patented technologies, seven of which are being 

marketed for licensees or are being actively commercialized.

Table 25: NOAA Invention Disclosures and Patenting
37

Table 26: NOAA Licensing

FY 2022

Invention Disclosures Received 3

Total Patent Applications Filed 0

U.S. 0

Foreign 0

Total Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Applications 

Filed 0

Total Patents Issued 1

U.S. 1

Foreign 0

FY 2022

Invention Licenses, Total Active 6

New Invention Licenses 0

New Invention Licenses Granted to Small 

Businesses 0

Income Bearing Licenses, Total Active 6

New Income Bearing Licenses 0

Exclusive, Total Active 1

Partially Exclusive, Total Active 0

Non-Exclusive, Total Active 5

Other Licenses, Total Active 0

New Other Licenses 0

New Other Licenses Granted to Small 

Businesses 0

Elapsed Amount of Time for Granting Invention Licenses

Average (months) n/a

Minimum (months) n/a

Maximum (months) n/a

Licenses Terminated for Cause 0
38

Table 27: NOAA Income from Licensing

Table 28: NOAA Collaborative Agreements

3.3 OTHER IMPORTANT NOAA PERFORMANCE MEASURES 

3.3.1 Publications:

In FY 2022, peer-reviewed publications by NOAA federal scientists totaled 1783.25 The 

following charts show the breakdown of publications, including publications from NOAA and 

NOAA-funded sources. Table 29 shows the number of publications by research unit as a 

25

 NOAA publications data for 2022 were derived on December 13, 2022, using queries through the Web of 

Science database. As a result of variations in titles and nomenclature, these data do not provide a comprehensive 

measure of all NOAA publications. This reporting includes only those publications by NOAA scientists that were 

captured by the search queries. 

FY 2022

Invention License Income $112,588

Other License Income $0

Total Earned Royalty Income (ERI) $112,588

ERI from Top 1% of Licenses $102,388

ERI from Top 5% of Licenses $102,388

ERI from Top 20% of Licenses $102,388

Minimum ERI $10,200

Maximum ERI $102,388

Median ERI $56,294

Disposition of ERI

Percentage Distributed to Inventors 31%

Percentage Distributed to Lab/Agency 69%

FY 2022

Total Active CRADAs 51

New CRADAs 17

New CRADAs Involving Small Businesses 12

Other Collaborative Agreements 1
39

percentage of all NOAA-authored publications in FY 2022.26 A single publication with authors 

from one or more line offices is counted as a publication for each line office.

Table 29: NOAA Publications

3.3.2 Science on a Sphere®

Science On a Sphere® (SOS) is a roomsized, global display system (US Patent 

6,937,210) that uses computers and video 

projectors to display planetary data onto a 

six-foot diameter sphere, analogous to a 

giant animated globe. Researchers at 

NOAA developed Science On a Sphere® as 

an educational tool to help illustrate Earth 

System science to people of all ages. 

Animated images of atmospheric storms, 

climate change, and ocean temperature can 

be shown on the sphere, which is used to 

explain complex environmental processes in a way that is simultaneously intuitive and 

captivating.

Table 30: SoS Installations

26 Due to a delay in indexing in Web of Science, not all Q4 articles are included in this report.

Quarter 

(FY 2022)

Authored 

Articles

Q1 793

Q2 821

Q3 813

Q4 763

Total FY 2022 3,190

FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 FY 2022

SOS Installations

Total Number in Operation 155 165 169 177 183

 New Domestic 3 7 5 4 4

 New International 8 8 3 4 6

 Total New Installs 11 15 8 8 10
40

3.3.3 NOAA-Funded (Extramural) R&D - NOAA Sea Grant

The National Sea Grant College Program was established by the U.S. Congress in 1966 and 

works to create and maintain a healthy coastal environment and economy. The Sea Grant 

network consists of a federal/university partnership between the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and 34 university-based programs in every coastal and 

Great Lakes state, Puerto Rico, and Guam. The network draws on the expertise of more than 

3,000 scientists, engineers, public outreach experts, educators, and students to help citizens better 

understand, conserve and utilize America's coastal resources. 

3.4 SUCCESS STORIES DEMONSTRATING DOWNSTREAM OUTCOMES FROM 

NOAA TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER ACTIVITIES

The following is an overview of NOAA’s technology transfer activity, both formal and informal, 

during Fiscal Year 2022.

Partnership with Jupiter Intelligence to advance ecosystem models, and water level 

predictions

NOAA and climate analytics company, Jupiter Intelligence, signed a formal agreement to 

advance understanding of coastal ecosystems, precipitation, and water level predictions. The goal 

of the partnership is to support the community response to coastal risks to mitigate the effects of 

climate change.

Through a new agreement to explore research areas of joint interest, NOAA scientists will 

provide scientific data and expertise related to ecosystem changes, with a focus on the use of 

nature-based solutions in coastal restoration. Jupiter will explore cutting-edge approaches to 

scale local study results and test hypotheses on expanded geographical areas.

The partnership will also focus on methods to improve seasonal and annual precipitation and 

coastal water level predictions. Jupiter will offer expertise on cloud computing and numerical 

methods that NOAA will seek to apply in operations.

Jupiter provides physical climate analytics for risk management and resiliency planning in the 

public and private sectors. Customers use Jupiter’s climate analytics for applications that include 

capital planning, risk management, site selection, design requirements, supply chain 

management, investment and asset valuations, and shareholder disclosures.

NOAA and Jupiter share the goal of improving resilience for the most vulnerable and underresourced populations.

Exploring the Pacific Arctic Seasonal Ice Zone with Saildrone USVs

More high-quality, in situ observations of essential marine variables are needed over the seasonal 

ice zone to better understand Arctic (or Antarctic) weather, climate, and ecosystems. To better 

assess the potential for arrays of uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) to provide such observations, 
41

five wind-driven and solar-powered Saildrones were sailed into the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas 

following the 2019 seasonal retreat of sea ice. They were equipped to observe the surface 

oceanic and atmospheric variables required to estimate air-sea fluxes of heat, momentum and 

carbon dioxide. Some of these variables were made available to weather forecast centers in real 

time. Our objective here is to analyze the effectiveness of existing remote ice navigation 

products and highlight the challenges and opportunities for improving remote ice navigation 

strategies with USVs. We examine the sources of navigational sea-ice distribution information 

based on post-mission tabulation of the sea-ice conditions encountered by the vehicles. The 

satellite-based ice-concentration analyses consulted during the mission exhibited large 

disagreements when the sea ice was retreating fastest (e.g., the 10% concentration contours 

differed between analyses by up to ∼175 km). 

Attempts to use Saildrone observations to detect the ice edge revealed that in situ temperature 

and salinity measurements varied sufficiently in ice bands and open water that it is difficult to 

use these variables alone as a reliable ice-edge indicator. Devising robust strategies for remote 

ice zone navigation may depend on developing the capability to recognize sea ice and initiate 

navigational maneuvers with cameras and processing capability onboard the vehicles.

NOAA teams up with Viking to conduct and share science aboard new Great Lakes 

expedition voyages

NOAA plans to expand its research in the Great Lakes region as the agency teams up with the 

travel company Viking to carry scientists aboard new expedition voyages planned to begin in 

2023.

As part of the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, NOAA scientists will join 

Viking expeditions in the Great Lakes to conduct research focused on changes in the region’s 

weather, climate, ecosystems and maritime heritage resources. NOAA scientists will also serve 

on the Viking Scientific Advisory Committee.

Eruption highlights how NOAA technological innovation powers public safety, economic 

development, and scientific discovery

When a volcano in the South Pacific Ocean erupted in January 2022, NOAA researchers were 

well-equipped to study the multi-hazard event by sky and by sea. Key technologies and strategic 

partnerships made it possible for NOAA to issue warnings that saved lives around the world, 

while also collecting scientific data that will improve forecasting models and disaster response 

for future events. 

Blasts from the Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai volcano launched ash and toxic gas high into the 

stratosphere to altitudes above 30 km. The plume of material formed an umbrella cloud 500 km 

wide and triggered record-breaking amounts of lightning strikes. The violent eruption provided a 

rare opportunity for scientists to learn more about sulfur dioxide gas emissions in the 

stratosphere.
42

As the sulfur plume traveled westward, researchers from NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, 

CIRES, and the University of Houston gathered on La Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, about 

8,000 miles away from the initial volcanic blast. The plan was to use specially-designed balloons 

to lift lightweight aerosol sensors high up into the stratosphere, where they could collect air 

quality data as the plume passed overhead. NOAA’s satellites tracked the movement of the 

volcanic cloud, and the scientific team worked quickly to prepare. 

The scientific sensors attached to the balloons were Portable Optical Spectrometers, or POPS. 

POPS were invented at NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory and then licensed to a small 

manufacturing company called Handix Scientific. Licensing the technology meant that the 

device could be improved, commercialized, and made available to researchers worldwide in 

large quantities. Thanks to this successful technology transfer, NOAA scientists were able to 

quickly order and ship many units of POPS and complete their mission. 

A week after the explosion, the plume arrived above the island’s high-altitude Maïdo 

Atmospheric Observatory. The research team was ready with their equipment. Scientists 

successfully launched the balloons and are now using the data to refine atmospheric models. This 

series of events marked the quickest scientific response to a volcanic eruption to date, and the 

data will improve researchers’ collective understanding of how volcanic explosions affect the 

Earth’s atmosphere. Without the licensing agreement in place, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity 

would have been lost. 

The Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted on 15 January 2022. Source: Tonga Geological 

Services
43

Meanwhile, half a world away in the Pacific Ocean Basin, the eruption generated ocean waves 

that rippled around the planet and set off widespread tsunami advisories. The alerts were 

triggered by a network of Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoys, 

which are positioned strategically throughout the ocean and send real-time data to tsunami 

warning centers. After the volcanic eruption, DART buoys recorded the propagating tsunami 

waves and prompted critical tsunami alerts for many coastlines that were later flooded. 

The DART buoy system was originally designed and developed at the NOAA Pacific Marine 

Environmental Laboratory. The system was patented and licensed to a private company, Science 

Applications International Corporation, so they could market and sell DART buoys worldwide. 

This invaluable network has been in place for decades and is a critical component of the lifesaving NOAA Tsunami Warning System. 

At the time of the volcano eruption, while the DART buoy network recorded tsunami wave data, 

two uncrewed ocean drones happened to be positioned in the Pacific Ocean collecting data for a 

NOAA research mission. The mission was one of many ongoing collaborations between NOAA 

and the drone manufacturer, Saildrone. NOAA’s public-private research partnership with 

Saildrone allows the two collaborators to share ideas, expertise, and other materials while they 

jointly conduct research and further develop drone technologies that benefit society. This 

research partnership has produced significant economic benefits for Saildrone, and has provided 

the basis for ongoing NOAA missions using Saildrone vehicles. 

DART buoys detect tsunami waves and transmit real-time sea level information measurements back to 

the Tsunami Warning Centers. Source: NOAA
44

The Saildrones that were deployed in the Pacific Ocean during the volcanic explosion were able 

to detect jumps in atmospheric pressure and capture crucial information in an observationallysparse region of the ocean. This data is particularly valuable because only about 5% of tsunamis 

are generated from volcanic activity, rather than earthquakes. The high-resolution measurements 

from the drones, coupled with the records from the DART buoys, will help scientists better 

understand these types of rare events and incorporate volcano-induced tsunamis into the model 

used to inform hazard response to tsunamis.

Impacts of climate change are affecting communities worldwide, and scientists predict that many 

types of natural disasters and hazards are likely to become even more intense in the coming 

decades. A core part of NOAA’s mission is to build a Climate Ready Nation, in which people 

share an understanding of climate change and work together to address the climate crisis. 

Innovative technologies and strategic research partnerships are central to accomplishing this 

mission because they allow NOAA to deliver cutting-edge research and science-driven services 

that help build community resilience, promote economic growth, and keep people safe.

A Saildrone collects data beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, alongside a NOAA research vessel. 

Source: Saildrone
45

Technologies and research partnerships enabled NOAA’s multifaceted, unprecedented response 

to the Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption. The NOAA Technology Transfer 

Program within the Technology Partnerships Office helps NOAA scientists set up cooperative 

research agreements, such as the collaboration with Saildrone. These partnerships allow NOAA 

scientists and private sector partners to work together to conduct research and transform new 

science into products and services that benefit the public.

NOAA uses array of marine and air uncrewed tools to improve hurricane forecast models

Throughout the 2023 hurricane season, NOAA will work with numerous partners to gather 

coordinated air-sea and atmospheric measurements in a hurricane from uncrewed ocean and 

aerial drones. NOAA will use a suite of innovative technologies to sample the ocean and 

atmosphere near each other in real-time and collect high-resolution data from all parts of the 

hurricane environment. This data could help forecasters better understand the forces that drive 

hurricanes so they can warn communities earlier.

Technologies involved in these unprecedented sampling efforts include Saildrones and Altius600 drones. The Saildrones involved in this research mission were specially modified to support 

hurricane research and developed through a CRADA partnership between NOAA and Saildrone, 

Inc. The Altius-600 drone was created by a small business called Area I, supported by SBIR 

research and development funding from the Department of Defense. The drone technology was 

later procured and further developed through a NOAA SBIR Phase III award.

Map showing the positions of DART buoys, NOAA Saildrones, and the POPS launch, relative to the 

Hunga Tonga volcano. Source: NOAA
46

NOAA technology used to research deep-sea volcanic and hyrdothermal activity

As part of the ongoing Tonga Eruption Seabed Mapping Project, a team of scientists conducted a 

deep-water survey to better understand the impacts of the January 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga 

Ha’apai volcanic eruption on the ocean environment. The research team used a technology 

developed by NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab (PMEL) to determine the level of 

ongoing volcanic and hydrothermal activity within the post-eruption caldera. The Miniature 

Autonomous Plume Recorder (MAPR) instruments made it possible for scientists to capture 

direct measurements of the water column up to 300 meters deep. This is the first time that such a 

survey has been conducted entirely remotely, using an uncrewed surface vessel that was operated 

and monitored by engineers and scientists located across the globe.

A SeaKit engineer on the dock in Tonga mounting the PMEL MAPRs onto a specifically designed cage 

to fit on the USV Maxlimer. Source: Sea-Kit International/NIWA/Nippon Foundation
47

4 NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION 

ADMINISTRATION: INSTITUTE FOR TELECOMMUNICATION 

SCIENCES

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) is the nation’s spectrum and 

communications lab. ITS manages the telecommunications technology research and engineering 

programs of NTIA. ITS basic research in radio science provides the technical foundation for 

NTIA’s policy development and spectrum management activities and enhances scientific 

knowledge and understanding in cutting-edge areas of telecommunications technology. ITS also

serves as a principal federal resource for solving telecommunications concerns of other federal 

agencies, state and local governments, private corporations and associations, and international 

organizations through Interagency Agreements (IAAs) and CRADAs. Roughly three-quarters of 

ITS research programs are undertaken under such agreements. This includes assisting the FCC 

and federal defense, public safety, and other agencies that use federal and non-federal spectrum.

4.1 APPROACH AND PLANS FOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

ITS efforts in technology transfer and commercialization foster cooperative telecommunications 

research in areas where U.S. companies can directly benefit from improved competitiveness and 

market opportunities. ITS uses three principal means for achieving technology transfer: 

• Cooperative research and development through CRADAs and IAAs;

• Technical publications, open data,s and open source software tools; and

• Leadership and technical contributions in the development of telecommunications 

standards

Over the past several years, ITS has adopted a multimodal approach to transferring proven 

technical methods into widespread use within the wider spectrum community. “Technical 

publications” under this approach include both traditional peer-reviewed manuscripts published 

as Technical Reports, journal articles, or conference papers as well as peer-reviewed video 

journal articles and NTIA technical videos.

For 20 of the past 24 years, ITS has also hosted the International Symposium on Advanced 

Radio Technologies (ISART), a U.S. government–sponsored conference that brings together 

government, academia, and industry leaders for the purpose of collaborating on groundbreaking 

developments and applications of advanced radio technologies. Presentations, video archives, 

and proceedings are available online.

The theme of ISART 2022 was Evolving Spectrum-Sharing Regulation through Data-, Science-, 

and Technology-Driven Analysis and Decision-Making. The fully virtual conference was held 

over four days in June 2022 and attracted a record 280 attendees
48

4.2 STATUTORILY REQUIRED METRIC TABLES

Since FY 2008, ITS no longer licenses software technology. Instead, software is made available 

via open-source download. ITS reports zero licensing and income from licensing activity.

Table 31: NTIA ITS Invention Disclosures and Patenting

Metric FY 2022

Invention Disclosures Received 0

Total Patent Applications Filed 0

U.S. 0

Foreign 0

Total Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Applications Filed 0

Total Patents Issued 0

U.S. 0

Foreign 0
49

Table 32: NTIA ITS Licensing27

27 Since FY 2008, ITS no longer licenses software technology. Instead, software is made available via open-source 

download. ITS reports zero licensing and income from licensing activity.

Metric FY 2022

Invention Licenses, Total Active 0

New Invention Licenses 0

New Invention Licenses Granted to Small Businesses n/a

Income Bearing Licenses, Total Active 0

New Income Bearing Licenses 0

Exclusive, Total Active 0

Partially Exclusive, Total Active 0

Non-Exclusive, Total Active 0

Other Licenses, Total Active 0

New Other Licenses 0

New Other Licenses Granted to Small Businesses n/a

Elapsed Amount of Time for Granting Invention Licenses

Average (months) n/a

Minimum (months) n/a

Maximum (months) n/a

Licenses Terminated for Cause n/a/
50

Table 33: NTIA ITS Income from Licensing

4.3 COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

ITS is authorized under the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 (FTTA) to enter into 

CRADAs with private industry, universities, and other interested parties. ITS CRADAs protect 

proprietary information, grant patent rights, and provide user licenses to private entities. They 

also provide the legal basis for shared use of government facilities and resources with the private 

sector. 

In FY 2022, as it has for decades, ITS participated in CRADAs with private-sector organizations 

to design, develop, test, and evaluate advanced telecommunication concepts. The CRADAs

provide ITS with insights into industry’s needs for productivity growth and competitiveness. 

This enables ITS to adjust the focus and direction of its programs for effectiveness and value.

The private industry partner benefits by gaining access to the results of research in commercially 

important areas that it would not otherwise be able to undertake.

Table 34: NTIA ITS Collaborative Agreements

Metric FY 2022

Invention License Income n/a

Other License Income n/a

Total Earned Royalty Income (ERI) n/a

ERI from Top 1% of Licenses n/a

ERI from Top 5% of Licenses n/a

ERI from Top 20% of Licenses n/a

Minimum ERI n/a

Maximum ERI n/a

Median ERI n/a

Disposition of ERI

Percentage Distributed to Inventors n/a

Percentage Distributed to Lab/Agency n/a

Metric FY 2022

Total Active CRADAs 8

New CRADAs 2

New CRADAs Involving Small Businesses 0

Other Collaborative Agreements 0
51

4.4 OTHER IMPORTANT NTIA ITS PERFORMANCE MEASURES 

4.4.1 Technical Publications

Publication has historically been the means through which ITS has transferred research results to 

other researchers, the commercial sector, and government agencies. ITS technical reports and 

monographs published by NTIA and peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals have become 

standard references in several telecommunications areas. Technical publication remains a 

principal means for ITS technology transfer, but “publication” has come to encompass multiple 

media. ITS has released peer-reviewed video journal articles and NTIA technical videos,

software packages, and datasets for download. Downloads of traditional manuscripts have been 

decreasing as downloads in other categories increase. 

Technical publications are released after an internal peer review process; manuscript release is

managed by the ITS Editorial Review Board (ERB). In FY 2022, 57% of manuscripts released 

through the ERB process were published in scientific journals or conference proceedings and 

43% were published as NTIA reports. While official NTIA publications allow greater in-depth 

analysis of research results, journal articles and conference papers often have greater reach in 

transferring new tools and discoveries.

Led by the ERB, ITS is finalizing procedures for technical peer review of technical publications 

in non-traditional media. 

4.4.1.1 Technical Publications Downloaded or Viewed

ITS makes all of its publications available to the public through its web site and provides online 

users with advanced search capabilities to locate relevant publications by keyword. To ensure a 

meaningful and realistic metric, ITS counts actual downloads of traditional manuscript PDFs 

rather than pageviews of the bibliographic summaries. Video publications not published in peerreviewed scientific video journals are published on the NTIA YouTube channel. Software and 

data sets are made available either through the ITS website or the NTIA GitHub repositories. In 

FY 2022, ITS technical publications of all kinds in all media were downloaded or viewed 16,792 

times.

4.4.1.2 Multimodal Transfer of Technical Methods

High-precision measurements are key to creating and validating radio propagation models. ITS 

and its predecessors have been collecting measurement data for more than a century, creating a 

unique expertise in measurement science and techniques which has been leveraged by other 

agencies seeking data needed to coordinate with commercial entrants into spectrum bands being 

opened for federal-nonfederal sharing. Using a multimodal approach to technical publication 

allows ITS to target audiences of differing scientific literacy through different media to amplify 

the reach of the best practices in measurements message and expand message penetration.

The complementary series of publications aimed at dissemination of measurement best practices 

began with NTIA Special Publication SP-09-460 “Seminar Series on Spectrum Measurement 

Theory and Techniques,” first published in FY 2009 and originally distributed on CD. It is now 

available on YouTube. Each of the 20 one-hour videos in this series combines a tutorial on a 
52

particular aspect of radio spectrum measurement technique or theory with a hands-on 

demonstration using actual measurement hardware and radio signals.

In FY 2019, ITS published TM-19-535 “Best Practices for Radio Propagation Measurements,” a 

traditional NTIA Technical Memorandum which was adopted by the Defense Spectrum 

Organization’s (DSO) Spectrum Sharing Test & Demonstration (SST&D) program as a required 

resource to reduce the uncertainties of propagation measurement campaigns by commercial 

entrants seeking to coordinate sharing with DOD. In FY 2020 and FY 2021, ITS published in a 

peer-reviewed video journal two video-illustrated articles that delve deeply and in detail into 

specific radiofrequency measurement techniques described in TM-19-535; these articles 

garnered 7,630 views in FY 2022. 

4.4.2 Software and Data Downloads

Increasingly, technology transfer occurs through the publication of software rather than 

traditional technical reports. ITS makes several software and data tools available via open source 

download. Reliable and robust methods of counting downloads of these tools took some time to 

develop; earlier, simpler software tools were offered as .zip files from the ITS public website, but 

over the past five years ITS increased its use of the GitHub open source code hosting platform, 

and by FY 2022 ITS had published 31 public repositories. While this allows more interaction 

with potential users of the software and can perhaps be said to broaden the audience, the open 

source paradigm also makes it more difficult to understand the impact of the software. As there 

is presently no generally accepted impact metric for GitHub repositories, ITS has added a count 

of the number of public repositories and a count of packages downloaded as proxies until a more 

generally accepted impact metric is defined.

4.4.2.1 Propagation Prediction

ITS is, and has been for decades, a world leader in the development of models and methods for 

accurate prediction of radio propagation. Propagation prediction algorithms are freely shared 

through publication. In addition, software developed to predict propagation for planned 

communications systems through input of specific parameters to these algorithms has been 

developed and shared over the years, and some data sets that can be used to test and validate 

propagation prediction models are also available. The majority of downloads of ITS 

software/data are for propagation prediction tools. Open-sourcing trusted and authoritative 

propagation models meets a critical need for spectrum sharing. 

4.4.2.2 Spectrum Monitoring Software

The NTIA Spectrum Monitoring program is creating a new spectrum monitoring paradigm to 

enable distributed, persistent, and automated monitoring with the following: heterogeneous and 

low cost sensors, standardized interfaces, open source software implementations, common 

metadata, automated provisioning/deployment/maintenance, and data analytics incorporating 

artificial intelligence and machine learning. ITS works to test and integrate new sensing 

technologies and algorithms in the lab and the field and collaborate via open source code 

development. Code repositories released to the public include LTE measurement utilities (grltetrigger), RF measurement metadata best practices (sigmf-ns-ntia), and NTIA software 
53

implementations associated with the IEEE 802.15.22.3 Spectrum Characterization and 

Occupancy (SCOS) standard (scos-sensor, scos-actions, and scos-usrp). In FY 2022, NTIA 

expanded by adding three additional spectrum-monitoring repositories (i.e., scos-tekrsa, tekrsaapi-wrap, and Preselector).

4.4.2.3 Audio Quality Testing

ITS has developed a family of no-reference speech quality and intelligibility estimators and is 

providing software implementations to industry, researchers, and other agencies via GitHub. 

These estimators (called WAWEnets) leverage convolutional neural networks, which are a 

specialized and very efficient type of deep neural network. This allows accurate speech quality 

and intelligibility estimates without access to any reference signal, thus expanding the utility of 

the tool to include real-time endpoint monitoring in the field.

Two earlier ITS-developed objective estimators of speech intelligibility are freely available for 

download from the ITS web site and from GitHub. These tools follow the paradigm of the 

Modified Rhyme Test (MRT) but consume a tiny fraction of the resources required by the 

conventional MRT. The Articulation Band Correlation MRT (ABC-MRT) provides excellent 

estimates of MRT intelligibility results (Pearson correlations of .95–.99) for narrowband speech 

transmissions. The ABC-MRT16, released in FY 2017, not only updated the audition model, but 

also extended the estimator to cover wideband, superwideband, and fullband speech systems.

The ITS web site also offers a large variety of audio recordings that support the use of these 

tools.

4.4.2.4 Video Quality Measurement Software

ITS began researching objective video quality models in FY 1988, to address the needs of U.S. 

industry to understand the complex relationship between digital video technologies, networks, 

and video quality. Rapid advances in video and network technologies make this a moving goal. 

ITS video quality research produces improved methods for human testing as well as objective 

metrics that provide users an inexpensive alternative to human testing. ITS distributes software 

for various tasks related to subjective testing (including subject screening, subjective test control, 

image filtering, color calibration, statistical analyses, and merging multiple subjective datasets 

onto a single scale), as well as software implementing objective metrics.

Objective metrics that predict human perception of video quality in real-time would allow live 

video streams to optimize the tradeoff between bandwidth and quality. This would impact inservice use cases like broadcast video, video surveillance, video conferencing, video analytics, 

telehealth, and online gaming. Early ITS research focused on objective metrics that compare the 

current video to a pristine original, culminating in a series of objective video quality metrics 

(VQM) that are included in ATIS and ITU standards. The VQM software was downloaded 39

times, forked once, and cloned 58 times from GitHub in FY 2022. Downloads of the VQM 

software have been steadily decreasing as its age and changes in technology make it less 

relevant. 
54

Most contemporary video distribution technologies only have access to the current video signal 

(e.g., a pristine original never existed) and this presents a difficult challenge. Despite decades of 

research, existing no reference (NR) metrics remain too inaccurate for U.S. industry applications. 

Part of the problem is that NR metric researchers had not previously considered two key industry 

requirements. First, to be exploitable, NR metrics must provide root cause analysis (RCA). Most 

industry applications for NR metrics involve identifying and mitigating specific impairments. 

Second, the external validity (and thus reliability) of an NR metric depends on its ability to 

assess camera capture impairments.

ITS has intensified research on NR objective metrics over the past five years, but international 

experts agree that widespread collaboration is needed to build reliable NR metrics. In FY 2022, 

ITS expanded the NRMetricFramework public GitHub repository first made available in FY 

2020 to provide additional support for NR metric research. The repository was released to the 

public domain—to support collaborative R&D into NR metrics for image and video quality and 

stimulate an open exchange of ideas, information, and research—to accelerate development of 

the robust and trusted NR metrics industry needs to more efficiently use increasingly crowded 

bandwidth. The NRMetricFramework repository contains all of the tools, information, and 

statistical methods needed to begin research on this difficult problem. This repository has been 

forked twice and downloaded 32 times. 

The NRMetricFramework repository reports on the performance of 36 previously published NR 

metrics on modern camera systems using a robust corpus of 9,833 media files. These 

independent analyses address industry concern that NR metric developers publish exaggerated 

performance claims. The repository contains all of the code and information needed to reproduce 

these analyses. In addition, the repository contains NR metric Sawatch, which was developed by 

ITS as a baseline NR metric for future collaborative development. Sawatch adheres to industry 

specifications of providing RCA and being able to analyze camera capture impairments. Finally, 

the repository contains new statistical methods for analyzing the performance of subjective tests 

and NR metrics.

4.4.2.5 Consumer Digital Video Library Users Downloading Clips

The Consumer Digital Video Library (CDVL), a web site hosted and maintained by ITS, 

provides researchers access to high quality, uncompressed video clips royalty-free for use in 

video processing and video quality product development and testing. CDVL enables an open 

data solution that protects content owners’ rights, hosts large records (up to 0.5 TB), and 

provides generous terms for users. The technical committee for this collaborative project 

includes industry and academic representatives as well as ITS staff. ITS launched the site in 2010 

with 1000 clips; additions by ITS and other collaborators have increased the collection to tens of 

thousands of clips for a total of 12 TB of data available to industry, academic, and government 

researchers.

The CDVL website software was replaced in Q1 of FY 2021 to comply with new security 

policies and to accommodate an increasing volume of data as the site has become increasingly 

important to the wider research community. The updated website allows researchers to share 
55

entire experiments as open data. Significant recent additions include two new experiments 

conducted by ITS to support research of video quality metrics. The first experiment depicts noise 

produced by cameras in low light environments. ITS analyses of existing metrics indicates noise 

quality analysis metrics cannot be used with modern camera systems. The second experiment 

depicts typical compression artifacts produced by modern video streaming systems. These 

experiments will facilitate video quality metric research, by demonstrating impairments that are 

not detected by current metrics. In FY 2022, 740 unique records were downloaded from the new 

website, by a total of 230 users. The total number of media files downloaded by each user is 

difficult to calculate, because 18% of the downloaded records were datasets with hundreds of 

images or videos. ANSI T1.801.01 and ITU-R Rec. BT.802 standard video sequences comprised 

9% of the downloaded records. These videos were filmed in the mid-1990s and are no longer 

available from ATIS or the ITU. Self-reported demographics indicate the applications were 51% 

academic, 32% industry, 1% government, and 16% personal, with the remainder unreported. 

Users must register for each download or upload session. The number of registrants who perform 

downloads each year was selected as the most significant measure of the impact of this resource. 

Table 35: NTIA ITS Software and Data Downloads

4.4.3 Development of Telecommunication Standards

ITS works with industry to apply research results to the development of telecommunication 

performance standards and guidelines. For several decades, ITS has provided leadership and 

technical contributions to organizations, both national and international, responsible for 

developing telecommunication standards. ITS’s technical inputs are relied upon as technically 

advanced and sound, and as unbiased by commercial interests.

ITS works collaboratively with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the 3rd

Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the Wireless Innovation Forum (WInnForum), the 

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and Inter-American Telecommunications Commission 

(CITEL) to develop, interpret, analyze, and implement standards and regulations. This method of 

technology transfer directly addresses improvement and protection of U.S. competitiveness in 

telecommunications. For example, a plurality of the technical recommendations of the

International Communication Union Radiocommunication (ITU-R), a treaty organization, are 

based on research conducted at ITS. Also, key national quality-of-service standards developed 

under the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) T1 committee for video, audio, and 

digital data, incorporate research results obtained at ITS. ITS continues to chair numerous 

Metric FY 2022

Technical Publications Released 14

Technical Publications Downloaded 16,792

Consumer Digital Video Library Users Downloading 230

Video Quality Metric Software Users Downloading 39

Propagation Modeling Software Downloads 1,199

Other Software/Data Downloads 273

Public GitHub Repositories 31
56

committees and working groups in the ITU, 3GPP, and other telecommunication standards 

organizations, providing technical leadership that is trusted by the commercial-sector 

participants.

ITS actively contributes to ITU efforts around best practices for video quality assessment. In FY 

2022, ITS continued to lead and participate in the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG), an 

open venue where technical experts collaborate to develop subjective test methods for new video 

technologies. VQEG independently validates objective video quality metrics, which is a 

necessary step in the standards development process. VQEG meetings are co-located with 

meetings of the Intersector Rapporteur Group (IRG) for Audiovisual Quality Assessment (IRGAVQA) of the ITU. This allows more technical experts to follow and contribute to ITU 

recommendations.

In FY 2022, NTIA staff held 88 positions in 9 standards bodies, including 18 Chair/CoChair/Vice-Chair positions. NTIA staff filled key leadership positions in the ITU-T, including 

Head of the U.S. Delegation to Study Group (SG) 11 (Signalling requirements, protocols, test 

specifications and combating counterfeit products), Chair of the Telecommunication 

Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), and Vice-Chair of Q1/17 (Security standardization 

strategy and coordination). NTIA staff also filled key leadership positions in the ITU-R, 

including Head of the U.S. Delegation to Study Group (SG) 1 (Spectrum management) and SG3 

(Radiowave Propagation); Head of Delegation to SG1 Working Party (WP) 1A; Head of 

Delegation to SG5 WP 5B and 5C; International Chair of SG5 WP 5C and 5D; Deputy Head of 

Delegation to SG7 and SG7 WP 7C; International Chair and U.S. Chair of SG3 WP 3K; U.S. 

Chair of Working Parties 3J and 3L; and Chair of Correspondence Groups CG-3L-7 (Radio 

Noise), CG-3J-11 (Reference Standard Atmospheres), and CG-3K-3M-9 (Aeronautical 

Propagation). Within the Inter-American Telecommunications Commission (CITEL), NTIA 

holds Vice-Chair position within the Permanent Consultative Committee I for 

Telecommunications/ICT (PCC.I) Working Group for the Preparation and Follow-up of the 

WTSA, WCIT and WTDC; Deputy Head of Delegation to the Permanent Consultative 

Committee II (PCC.II) for Radiocommunications; and International Working Group Chair of the 

CITEL PCC.II Working Group relative to CITEL’s Preparation for World Radiocommunication 

Conferences.

4.5 SUCCESS STORIES DEMONSTRATING DOWNSTREAM OUTCOMES FROM NTIA

ITS TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER ACTIVITIES

To date, major contributions to the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), including testing 

and evaluation of Spectrum Access Systems (SAS) and Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) 

sensors; spectrum monitoring; advanced antennas for wireless systems; remote sensing and 

global positioning (GPS) technologies; active holographic sensing with high resolution laser 

radar (lidar); autonomous networks for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs); objective audio and 

video Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics; and broadband air-interface and core network 

capabilities for Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile communications, have been achieved 
57

through CRADAs. These have aided U.S. efforts to rapidly introduce new socially constructive 

communications technologies. 

4.5.1 Table Mountain Research

ITS manages the Table Mountain Radio Receiving Zone of the Research Laboratories of the 

Department of Commerce located in Boulder County, Colorado, an area designated by federal 

and state law as a Radio Quiet Zone. Quiet zones are protected by restrictions on radiofrequency 

radiation in their vicinity so as to minimize possible impact on the research operations that are 

highly sensitive to interference. This quiet zone managed by ITS is the only one presently 

available on a consistent basis for collaborative research among government, academia, and 

industry, and between the different government agencies.

The Advanced Communications Test Site (ACTS) within the quiet zone supports fundamental

research, engineering studies, and experiments into the nature, interaction, and evaluation of 

telecommunication devices, systems, and services. A unique feature of the ACTS is an 

automated system for perform emission measurements on radar systems. 

Of increasing importance to the Nation are CRADAs that ITS occasionally enters into with 

manufacturers of advanced radar systems. NTIA administers the Radio Frequency Spectrum 

Standards applicable to federal radio stations and systems. This includes the Radar Spectrum 

Engineering Criteria (RSEC)—federal regulations that ensure an acceptable degree of 

electromagnetic compatibility among radar systems, and between such systems and those of 

other radio services sharing the radio frequency spectrum to promote efficient spectrum use. 

Interference free spectrum sharing between radars and commercial communications systems has 

emerged as a serious technical challenge to expanding the commercial use of spectrum. 

All U.S. government radar systems must meet emission limits imposed by the NTIA RSEC as 

described in the NTIA Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency 

Management (“Redbook,” incorporated by reference in 47 CFR 300). The ITS-published 

Technical Report “Measurement procedures for the radar spectrum engineering criteria (RSEC)” 

describes the required method for certifying compliance.

ITS enters into CRADAs with manufacturers of new radars to perform emission measurements 

and provide a report which can be used for system certification. This allows ITS to collect 

valuable information on newly emerging radar technologies and ensure that the RSEC are kept 

up to date. The RSEC CRADAs allow NTIA to retain anonymized waveform recordings that are 

used to automate RSEC compliance analysis. The RSEC were last revised in 2005 and are 

currently undergoing revision to incorporate new radar technologies characterized through ITS

RSEC CRADAs.

Annually NTIA, NOAA, NIST, universities, private companies, and other organizations conduct 

research at the ACTS under a variety of agreements (IAAs, Reimbursables, CRADAs). The work 

accomplished at the ACTS provides unique opportunities for cooperative learning and discovery, 

with the outcomes frequently becoming seeds of commercial and Government successes.
58

• In FY 2022, ITS used the ACTS to perform comprehensive measurements to address 

technical concerns about possible interference between 5G base stations operating at 

3700–3980 MHz and radio altimeters (radalts) operating at 4200–4400 MHz. The 

Department of Defense convened many stakeholders from government, industry, 

academia, and standards bodies to peer-review the design of the research program. 

Wideband, wide dynamic range emission spectra and three-dimensional aerial radiation 

patterns of 5G base stations from all the manufacturers known to be deploying this 5G 

equipment in the U.S. were measured using an ITS-developed calibrated airborne 

measurement system. The data indicated that currently deployed 5G base stations are 

filtered effectively against out-of-band emissions in the radalt band and that airborne 

radiation patterns show measurably, significantly less power than is found in 5G base 

station main antenna beams directed toward handsets at ground level. The results of this 

testing were summarized in NTIA Technical Report TR-22-562, “Measurements of 5G 

New Radio Spectral and Spatial Power Emissions for Radar Altimeter Interference 

Analysis.” ITS also published a video showing, even more succinctly, the putative 

problem, the setup for airborne measurements, and a sampling of some of the 

measurements. All of the effective isotropic radiated power data was made publicly 

available at DOI:10.5281/zenodo.7150540. Widespread dissemination of this data, with 

its authoritative provenance and traceability, is supporting the FAA’s development of

recommendations for filtering of radalts used in commercial and civil aviation.

• In FY 2022, ITS continued to expand its support of NOAA’s Radio Frequency 

Interference Monitoring System (RFIMS) program at the ACTS to add capacity for 5G 

testing. ITS continued to assist NOAA in understanding Meteorological Satellite 

(MetSat) radio frequency (RF) downlink technical performance, in the face of spectrum 

sharing requirements with continually evolving commercial systems. The ACTS hosts a 

functionally equivalent MetSat Operations Center that mimics NOAA’s two main 

operational MetSat sites and serves as a testbed to assess the degree to which terrestrial 

cellular interference can affect MetSat data downlink operations. The test bed also allows 

testing of commercial RFIMS systems for compliance with interference protection 

standards defined for the various federal MetSat assets, whether the commercial wireless 

systems seeking to share this spectrum are LTE (4G), 5G, 6G, or beyond. Since the 

mobile network operator has elected to deploy 5G in the RFIMS operating range, system 

enhancements were required. ITS assisted NOAA in verifying these changes as a part of 

the RFIMS 5G Capability Assessment completed in FY 2022. 

• In FY 2022, several companies used the ACTS under CRADAs to safely test and 

demonstrate LIDAR technologies under development in atmospheric conditions and at 

distances relevant to potential applications, and to fully test the functionality of new 

antenna designs during product development. Some CRADA partners conducted scaled 

demonstrations for missions relevant to U.S. government organizations. Applications for 

technologies under test at the ACTS include:

o beam control for directed energy, free space optical communication, and laser 

radar and imaging applications;
59

o millimeter wave communications;

o low power mobile radar systems;

o mobile relay systems for high bit rate data links;

o long distance lidar system performance;

o detection and tracking of crosswinds and wind shear; and

o multi-function digital holographic imaging.

• For the past thirteen years, the University of Colorado’s Research and Engineering 

Center for Unmanned Vehicles has used the ACTS under a CRADA to safely and 

accurately test collective and autonomous sensing and communication technologies, to 

facilitate 4D sight through a ground-to-space sensing column with unmanned aircraft 

systems (UAS) operating in the atmosphere, integrated with ground-based and spacebased observation systems. These capabilities are intended to be applied to a myriad of 

purposes ranging from improved climate and weather forecasting to better-informed 

government policymaking. The program was paused mid FY 2022 due to wildfire 

concerns and is expected to resume as soon as new safety procedures are agreed on.

4.5.2 Innovative Commercial Services

In FY 2022, ITS continued conducting critical research, development, testing, and evaluation 

(RDT&E) of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). ITS research, technology transfer, 

and testing has been critical to the successful commercial deployments of CBRS in the highly 

desirable 3.5 GHz spectrum. A decade of ITS efforts cleared the way for the $4.6 billion auction 

of licenses within CBRS in 2020, from research on technical feasibility of sharing between high 

power radars and commercial services that began in 2010 through conformance and compliance 

testing of the Spectrum Access System (SAS) and Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) 

components of CBRS. This work to address and resolve technical issues of interference 

potentials, protection thresholds, and propagation predictions, widely published and freely 

transferred to Industry, laid the foundation for mid-band sharing and CBRS. 

In FY 2022, ITS continued to work with the FCC (through interagency agreements), industry 

(through CRADAs), and the standards group WInnForum (through membership) to improve the 

SAS certification test system in preparation for delivering the test harness to the FCC. As part of 

the post-3.5 GHz Priority Access License auction (FCC Auction 105) spectrum relocation fund 

programs approved by OMB and Congress, ITS is participating in a multi-year program with 

DoD Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and others aimed at developing tools and 

capabilities to determine the effectiveness of the innovative CBRS sharing arrangements. ITS is 

taking a lead role in the Shared Spectrum Ecosystem Assessment (SEA) project by developing 

the firmware and software for deployable sensor technology. In FY 2022, ITS deployed the first 

prototypes of mobile sensors capable of validating CBRS band spectrum occupancy and 

assessing aggregate spectrum usage; the sensor control and data collection software has been

transferred to the public domain through GitHub and is freely available for use in other bands of 

interest for sharing.
60

In FY 2022, ITS continued a multi-year project with the DOD Chief Information Officer (CIO), 

using 3.45 GHz pre-auction spectrum relocation funds authorized by OMB and Congress, to 

develop plans for improving propagation models for mid-band spectrum. This critically 

important research will continue through FY 2027 with post-auction funds from the successful 

3.45 GHz auction (FCC Auction 110). Improving the ability of propagation models to predict 

how mid-band radio signals propagate through various environments will increase the efficiency 

of spectrum use by both federal and commercial users. ITS’s mid-band propagation 

improvement program will include significant inputs and information sharing with other federal 

agencies, academia, and the commercial sector, and open source sharing of measurements, 

modeling, and code.

4.5.3 Telecommunication Standards

Models used to predict wireless propagation are fundamental to enabling spectrum sharing. The 

International Telecommunication Union – Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), an international 

treaty organization, has as its primary objective to ensure interference-free operations of 

radiocommunications systems. The ITU-R publishes internationally standardized propagation 

prediction models that are used to harmonize spectrum assignments internationally and to 

manage space-related spectrum assignments. Growing spectrum crowding demands increased 

accuracy and granularity of these models, which are developed through the participation of 

technical committees from all the treaty nations. 

ITS leads efforts at ITU-R Study Group 3 (Radiowave Propagation) to ensure that U.S. interests 

and policy objectives are given due consideration by international technical experts and to 

promote informed decisions founded on physics and mathematics. ITS holds two of the four 

International Chairs of Study Group 3, and acts as Head of the U.S. Delegation to the Study 

Group 3 meetings. At the May 2019 meetings of SG3, ITS put forth a major revision of 

Recommendation P.528, A propagation prediction method for aeronautical mobile and 

radionavigation services using the VHF, UHF and SHF bands, along with a corresponding open 

source software implementation of the model—both of which were adopted by Study Group 3. 

ITS released as open source the reference implementation source code, a compiled DLL, and a 

pre-built executable that launches a graphical front end for this software implementation.

Throughout FY 2021, ITS chaired a Study Group 3 Correspondence Group (CG-3K-3M-9) on 

aeronautical propagation, which looked at extending the upper frequency limit of ITU-R P.528 to 

include millimeter wave frequencies. This frequency extension was in support of WRC-23 

agenda items 1.828 and 1.1029, where sharing studies are being performed to examine the 

possibility of new sharing assignments and usage of existing frequency allocations involving 

aeronautical systems. This work culminated in an update to Recommendation ITU-R P.528, 

along with a major release of software products at the July 2021 Study Group 3 meeting. Input 

28 Resolution 171 (WRC-19) and Resolution 155 (Rev WRC-19), https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itur/oth/0c/0a/R0C0A00000D0027PDFE.pdf

29 Resolution 430 (WRC-19), https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-r/oth/0c/0a/R0C0A00000D0010PDFE.pdf
61

was collected from the user community and minor updates released to GitHub, stimulating 

additional collaborative input that is expected to bear fruit as another major release after the July 

2021 SG3 meetings. 

During FY 2021, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) acknowledged the value 

of the ITS-contributed update by incorporating the updated revision of Recommendation P.528 

into updates to their internal frequency assignment software. In addition, members of ICAO 

reach out to ITS for technical assistance with the model, as well as requesting additional 

improvements in Recommendation P.528 to support the diversity of existing aeronautical 

systems—improvements that ITS proposed to Study Group 3 during the August 2020 meetings. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also adopted the ITS P.528 

companion graphical user interface (GUI) software to support their work on frequency sharing 

between NOAA assets and possible future aeronautical commercial cellular systems, such as 

HIBS (High altitude IMT Base Stations). Furthermore, one output of the 2019 World Radio 

Conference (WRC19) was a proposal for sharing studies between existing aeronautical systems 

and newly proposed commercial deployments at select millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies. 

ITS is chairing the Correspondence Group that will be developing and proposing updated air-toground propagation prediction models for millimeter wave frequencies at the next WRC. 

ITS additionally led a Study Group 3 Correspondence Group (CG-3L-3) on radio noise. This 

culminated in a revision to Recommendation ITU-R P.372, Radio Noise, a Recommendation 

which is also cited by the Radio Regulations. Updates to P.372 include information on the 

background levels of radio noise in the frequency range from 0.1 Hz to 100 GHz, taking into 

account radio noise emitted by lightning, atmospheric gases, clouds, rain, the Earth’s surface, the 

galaxy, and man-made sources; updated higher-resolution figures conveying the global levels of 

atmospheric radio noise for different months of the year and hours of the day; and ITS 

contributed software that allows researchers to programmatically obtain atmospheric radio noise 

values given primary location and time of year and day.

Direct participation by ITS in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the dominant 

cellular communications standards development organization, allows NTIA to advance U.S. 

commercial, economic, and government interests by providing technical input to promote strong 

unbiased standards that support fair competition in next generation/5G cellular technologies. For 

a number of years, ITS has provided technical guidance to other government agencies in 

advocating for standardization of service features specific to public safety, emergency 

communications, and transportation. In particular, ITS represents the Department of 

Transportation and the Department of Defense Undersecretary for Research and Engineering’s 

interests in 5G within 3GPP. In FY 2022, ITS continued to provide U.S. Government 

stakeholders a comprehensive understanding of the 3GPP New Radio (5G NR—the global 

standard for the air interface of 5G networks) capabilities, the services 5G NR was built to 

deliver, and deployment scenarios in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum for the evolution to 

5G. In addition, in FY 2022, ITS attended TSG SA1 and SA3 working groups and provided 

briefings on agency-specific concerns with regard to standardization developments with respect 

to spectrum sharing, vehicle-to-everything communication, non-terrestrial networks, unmanned 
62

aerial vehicle and cyber security topics relative to security vulnerabilities in 4G and 5G systems 

architecture.

Direct participation by ITS in IEEE 802.15.22.3 led to standardization of the Spectrum 

Characterization and Occupancy Sensing (SCOS) standard. SCOS will allow broader availability 

and usage of spectrum sensing information from different sources by establishing a high-level 

architecture to support different technologies and deployments. In FY 2021, ITS entered into 

research collaborations with the multi-agency Sharing Ecosystem Assessment (SEA) program

funded by DoD/DISA and coordinated through the National Advanced Communications Test 

Network (NASCTN) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Spectrum Innovation Initiative 

(SII), to explore using widespread SCOS deployments to characterize and assess spectrum 

occupancy and make the data available to support more efficient and effective spectrum use. In 

FY 2022, the NASCTN SEA team designed and installed three prototype SCOS sensors. 

4.5.4 Video Quality Research

Both CDVL and the VQM tools are used by industry and academia for research into new 

techniques for transmitting video. Lack of access to appropriate video footage to test new video 

distribution technologies was a significant impediment to video processing R&D until the launch 

of CDVL. Approximately half of CDVL’s content is contribution quality footage that 

characterizes the broadcast use case. This footage allows users to test codecs, to evaluate new 

display technologies, or to develop and evaluate new standards. For example, ITU-T Study 

Group 12 has used CDVL clips for research into the development of parametric models and tools 

for multimedia quality assessment. 

The remainder of CDVL’s content targets other use cases: 13% standard test sequences and 

experiments from ITU, ATIS, or VQEG; 15% academic experiments distributed as open data; 

and 18% simulated public safety content; real public safety content is nearly impossible to obtain 

for research due to litigation concerns. Since first responders use consumer grade electronics, 

promoting development and standardization of commercial video technologies that meet public 

safety requirements through access to this simulated content has the potential to save lives as 

well as money.

In FY 2022, ITS supported industry discussions within VQEG that pursue new or improved ITU 

Recommendations. First, the ITU-T Rec. P.910 spatial information (SI) and temporal 

information (TI) metrics, developed by ITS in 1994, was recently updated to address ambiguities 

triggered by rapid advances in video technology. U.S. industry wants to continue using SI and TI 

to categorize video content when analyzing the response of new video products and services. To 

support this effort, ITS led discussions and distributes validation test sequences on CDVL. 

Second, ITS participated in ITU discussions on a VQEG vetted, improved method to screen 

human subjects during video quality testing. Third, VQEG will use ITU-T Rec. T.35 to embed 

standard video quality metadata in video streams. These video quality assessments are available 

in most modern video equipment; the missing element is a mechanism to propagate this 

information through the video processing pipeline. 
63

5 SUMMARY

This report details the results of the FY 2022 collaborative technology activities and technology 

transfer successes of the Department of Commerce agency laboratories at NIST, NOAA, and 

NTIA ITS. The report demonstrates that as technology advances and the economy changes, DOC

federal laboratories play a critical role in providing the United States with a competitive 

advantage and bolstering the U.S. economy through the transfer and commercialization of 

innovative technologies. Technology transfer is an essential DOC mission, and the report 

highlights how well the DOC labs are in position to be competitive in the global markets.