This information is used to identify contractors with expertise in areas of interest to DoD and to avoid DoD duplication of industry research and development efforts. It is easy to use and allows downloads in either text or Excel format. RaDiUS is available to industry or academia for an annual fee. Its main shortcoming is that it has no option to download the abstracts it finds, other than copy and paste. Look in the Results and Publications sections under Databases and Web Services.
Performance is quirky.
For example, a search for 'laser' would turn up perhaps 40,000 citations, while a search for 'solid state laser' might turn up zero. There are no instructions for formulating search requests. Download via copy and paste. The FPDS summarizes who bought what, from whom, and where. It does not contain information about current procurement opportunities.