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Past Funding Opportunities

Since 2017, PSCR has announced and awarded more than ten competitive federal funding opportunities ranging across portfolios. This has led to 83 unique awards with universities, start ups, and corporations around the world, totaling more that $90M in extramural research. From supporting basic research and development (R&D) to kick starting commercialization and putting products in the hands of first responders, these federal funding opportunities have made a lasting impact on the public safety communications ecosystem. Learn more about these past funding opportunities and their related award recipients by browsing the table below.

Award Name Award Amount Award Description
Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program 2022 (PSIAP-2022) $10M The FY22 PSIAP-2022 funding opportunity sought applications to accelerate research and development (R&D) around the use of mission critical voice (MCV), location-based services (LBS), and user interface/user experience (UIUX) for improving public safety communication technologies. The PSIAP-2022 funding opportunity supports the emerging Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network and recognizes the urgent need for first responders to have access to the same broadband communications and innovative technologies that consumers on commercial networks now expect.

PSIAP Artificial Intelligence for IoT Information Prize Competition (PSIAP-AI3)

$1.2M The FY21 PSIAP-AI3 cooperative agreement sought applications from prize administrators to develop and implement a competition related to first responder situational awareness data. Currently, there is an incompatibility between sensor hardware outputs and the visualization system that reads the input data. The purpose of the AI3 Prize Competition is for participants to create an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that can identify, categorize, and distribute data from disparate sources and make it actionable for first responders.
Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program - Public Safety Radio Data (PSIAP-PSRD) $900K The intent of the FY21 PSIAP-PSRD is for the award recipient to collect public safety LMR usage data and make the datasets available for research related to the comparison of LMR to LTE. The award recipient partnered with multiple   public safety organizations (PSOs) located within the United States for the collection of data necessary for conducting research relevant to the comparison of LMR to LTE. The award recipient will make the collected data publicly available for the conduct of such research.
Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program - Augmented Reality (PSIAP-AR) $9.7M The FY20 PSIAP-AR funding opportunity aimed to implement technology that will enable researchers to test and develop user interfaces to enhance public safety. Projects funded under the PSIAP-AR program helped achieve this by creating new technology or applying current technology to a specific public safety use case. Award recipient focus ranged from the use of AR hardware and applications including cybersecurity, usability, and human-computer interaction.
Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program - First Responder 3D Indoor Tracking Prize (PSIAP-FR3D) $8M

 The FY20 PSIAP-FR3D Prize competition aimed to achieve game-changing performance of sensors and systems for localization and tracking of first responders operating indoors in a variety of building environments without any benefit of pre-deployed dedicated infrastructure.

Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program - Mission Critical Voice Test Equipment (PSIAP-MCV TE) $6.5M

The FY19 PSIAP-MCV TE funding opportunity aimed to support R&D around the creation of a simulator system which will enable the necessary testing of Mission Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT) technology. The simulator will be expected to support standardized MCPTT test cases, and award recipients will be encouraged to write public safety test cases as part of their final deliverables. Additional research goals may include the testing of Mission Critical Data and Mission Critical Video.

Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program - iAxis (PSIAP-iAxis) $600K The FY18 PSIAP i-Axis sought to initiate a multi-year outreach effort that will work with public safety practitioners to answer questions regarding indoor mapping and tracking of first responders, and accelerate the adoption of potentially transformational location-based technologies, information, and services into their decision-support systems.
Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program - Mission Critical Voice Quality of Experience (PSIAP-MCV QoE) $5.6M

The FY18 PSIAP-MCV QoE funding opportunity sought to measure the impact of impairments to mission critical voice systems and quantify the quality of experience (QoE) for first responders. Award recipients created test devices and infrastructure to simulate these impairments, develop a test capability/methodology for human testing, and apply these tests to a diverse pool of first responders representing multiple disciplines, regions, and demographics while performing critical tasks in realistic operating conditions.

Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program – Point Cloud City (PSIAP-PC2) $809K

The FY18 PSIAP Point Cloud City funding opportunity aimed to generate an extensive catalog of annotated 3D indoor point clouds that can be used to advance research and development in the areas of indoor mapping, localization and navigation for public safety, as well as to demonstrate the potential value of ubiquitous indoor positioning and location-based information.

Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program - User Interface (PSIAP-UI) $6.4M The FY18 PSIAP-UI aimed to accelerate research, development, production, and testing of user interface technologies and capabilities through the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program (PSIAP-2017) $38M

The FY17 original PSIAP Funding Opportunity awarded $38 million to 33 R&D projects aimed at advancing broadband communications technologies for first responders. This funding opportunity focused on six key technology areas that have the potential to transform the future of public safety communications and operations: Mission Critical Voice, Location Based Services, Public Safety Analytics, Public Safety Communications Demand Model, Research and Prototyping Platforms, and Resilient Systems.

Measurement Science and Engineering (MSE 2017) $2.6M The MSE 2017 was intended for small short-term efforts, especially in support of PSCR planning.  Examples included exploratory / proof-of-concept research, or hosting research workshops.

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Created August 7, 2018, Updated March 2, 2023