SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- ARCHITECTURES FOR COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING (ACIP)
- Notice Date
- 1/21/2004
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- Contracting Office
- Other Defense Agencies, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Contracts Management Office, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203-1714
- ZIP Code
- 22203-1714
- Solicitation Number
- BAA04-14
- Response Due
- 1/21/2005
- Archive Date
- 2/5/2005
- Point of Contact
- Robert Graybill, Program Manager, DARPA/IPTO, Phone none, Fax 703-741-7804,
- E-Mail Address
-
rgraybill@darpa.mil
- Description
- A. Overview Information I. Federal Agency Name: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Information Processing Technology Office II. Funding Opportunity Title: Architectures for Cognitive Information Processing (ACIP) III. Announcement Type: Initial Broad Agency Announcement IV. Funding Opportunity Number: BAA 04-14 V. CFDA Number: 12.910 VI. Key Dates a. Initial Closing: 12:00 Noon (ET), March 19, 2004 b. Final Closing: 12:00 Noon (ET), January 21, 2005 c. All administrative correspondence and questions on this solicitation, including requests for information on how to submit a proposal to this BAA, must be received at one of the administrative addresses below by 12:00 Noon (ET) December 23, 2004 B. Full text of announcement I. Funding Opportunity Description The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) is soliciting proposals for the first phase of a new program in Architectures for Cognitive Information Processing (ACIP). The goal of the ACIP program is to develop a new generation of computing architectures (both hardware and software) that will enable revolutionary advances in cognitive information processing algorithms and systems for real-time DoD applications. Current systems implementations of cognitive information processing typically rely on COTS processing elements originally designed for general-purpose data processing. To enable the effective deployment of powerful cognitive information processing systems in dynamic, real-time, data-intensive, multiple-mission-specific environments requires fundamental changes in system architecture components and integration. The ACIP program seeks to address this issue by developing processing architectures that are uniquely optimized for cognitive computing. Further, these solutions must be developed such that their future embedded implementation in DoD platforms and devices will be compatible with size, weight, and power constraints, and thus must be composed of highly integrated and efficient cognitive computing components and devices. This announcement addresses Phase I of what is anticipated to be a three phase program. Phase I is a comprehensive concept study comprising requirement analysis, concept development and analysis, and technology assessment, all in the context of representative challenge problem(s). Specifically, Phase I will address the following technical topics: (a) the definition of cognitive information processing components, algorithms, and systems to be considered; (b) their architectural, computing and memory resource, communication bandwidth, and run-time requirements (this should include identification of key computational, memory, and communication bottlenecks, as well as dynamic run-time requirements); (c) advanced architecture concepts, goal-oriented programming techniques, models, and evaluation methodologies for addressing these requirements and identified bottlenecks, and for assessing the quality of the proposed solution; and (d) a complete technology roadmap for research and development leading to deployed cognitive information processing systems on dedicated computing architecture for multiple DoD missions. This announcement solicits advanced architectural concepts that are thoroughly validated through analysis. Offerors should propose studies that address both cognitive information processing and advanced computer architectures with the following tightly-interrelated study components: 1. A representative set of DoD relevant challenge problems that fairly represent the key classes of reasoning, learning, and knowledge representation techniques that may be used in fully integrated cognitive systems. 2. A description of a cognitive information processing system that addresses the above challenge problems and is sufficiently general to be applicable to a wide range of cognitive applications. 3. A robust concept description of an integrated architecture, including hardware and software, that will efficiently support the proposed cognitive information processing system as well as a wide variety of other run-time components. 4. A detailed plan that elaborates how the cognitive information processing system and integrated architecture can be designed and implemented in a synergistic fashion to produce revolutionary architectural concepts and implementations, describes the members and roles of a multi-disciplinary team for execution, provides a detailed evaluation framework, success criteria, and milestones. As stated above, the proposed cognitive challenge problems must have sufficient diversity and scope to enable revolutionary progress in both high-level algorithms and in computing architectures. The desire is to have a cognitive computing architecture that will support a reasonable spectrum of reasoning, learning, and knowledge representation techniques yet not so general purpose as to prohibit the end product?s practical use in embedded applications. Example reasoning, learning, and knowledge representation tasks could include (but are not limited to) the following: 1. Reasoning on large-scale problems. Various reasoning techniques, including resolution theorem proving; forward chaining, including RETE-type algorithms; backward chaining; logic programming; greedy local search for propositional satisfiability; and others have been developed. Typically, these techniques exhibit exponential behavior on the size of the input. Methods for effectively parallelizing such techniques or methods for applying dynamic reconfigurable architectures to increase the size of addressable problems are of interest. 2. Reasoning and inference on large knowledge bases. This might include parallel mechanisms for accelerating reasoning on large structures, techniques for mapping among and integrating disparate ontologies dealing with overlapping domains, methods for automatically incorporating new facts and verifying their self-consistency, partitioning and distributing knowledge bases across processor elements, using very large main memory to store intermediate results (trading space for time), implementing solutions to commonly occurring sub-problems in dedicated hardware, and others. 3. Reasoning under uncertain conditions or under constrained reaction times. Approaches might include decision- and probability-theoretic techniques, inference using Bayesian networks, hidden Markov models, qualitative and default reasoning, belief (or loopy) propagation, and relational dependency networks, among others. 4. Planning and resource management in dynamically changing environments. Approaches could include state-space search, partial-order planning, scheduling with resource constraints, hierarchical planning, conditional and continuous planning, and multi-agent planning. 5. Learning, with prior knowledge, in complex, multi-dimensional environments. Learning is a rich and critical area with many techniques and approaches, including concept learning, learning decision trees, probabilistic relational models, artificial neural networks, Bayesian learning, instance-based learning, genetic algorithms, and combined inductive and analytical learning. Hybrid approaches that integrate multiple learning techniques with reasoning and knowledge representations to synergistically improve both knowledge and learning are of interest. It is anticipated that for some of the above tasks, processing bottlenecks could include search operations, graph operations, data-driven training, front-end perceptual processing, and other operations. Memory access times and memory size may be major factors in scaling up to large-scale problems and systems. In addition, production systems may demand late or dynamic bindings. Because cognitive algorithms typically provide solutions that do not scale well with problem size, this announcement seeks solutions that offer a synergistic combination of both algorithmic and architectural innovations. It is not sufficient to propose architectural solutions that modestly accelerate processing or memory access times for current cognitive systems (e.g., by factors of 10 - 100). Proposed solutions must address ambitious, real world DoD applications, of appropriate scale and complexity, that are beyond the scope of today?s technology and may also require the use of emerging innovative reasoning, knowledge representation, and learning techniques or components. Offerors should provide a complete description of the proposed system architecture, from innovative compute cores, cache and other memory structures, and interconnects/connectivity structures to operating system, languages, and programming environments that will efficiently support a dynamic and diverse set of runtime-directed cognitive components. The proposed solution should offer a deeply integrated co-design of computing architecture, programming models, multiple virtual machine models, supporting software, and specific driving application requirements, but should be sufficiently general to address a range of applications. Please reference the Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP) for the envisioned solutions. Consideration should be given to novel scalable parallel processing concepts; large-scale intelligent memory structures; in-place, fast, data-structured memory access and computation; power-minimization techniques; embeddable packaging; and system scaling. An important element of the ACIP program is the Living Framework Forum (LFF), which will be established during the program to promote and pursue common cognitive computing development environments, tools, common runtime module interfaces and metadata structures across multiple ACIP efforts. ACIP research efforts will be executed in the context of representative cognitive challenge problems. Offerors must address two or more well-defined DoD cognitive applications, including one embedded application for in-context evaluation of proposed solutions. See PIP for examples of representative challenge problems. TEST AND EVALUATION. Performers will test and evaluate their technologies using their own facilities and report results at ACIP PI meetings, potential IPTO sponsored cognitive workshops, and Living Framework Forums. Within each effort, the performer must quantify the capability to be realized through the proposed cognitive architecture concepts. Specific multilevel metrics and goals relevant to DoD missions and the cognitive functional component requirements, constraints, and development goals being pursued must be established. Advances in cognitive computing capabilities must be quantified against today?s systems. Concise clearly stated Phase I success criteria and metrics must be spelled out in the proposal and will be used to track the maturity of the concepts developed under Phase I. An Independent Metrics and Evaluation Team (IMET) will be formed to work with the ACIP teams to develop a common set of spanning kernels and metrics. This will enable a common evaluation process and analysis/evaluation for the ACIP program supported by this common library of kernels and metrics. All ACIP contractors will be expected to work collaboratively with this separately funded and neutral ACIP effort. PROGRAM SCOPE DARPA. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches and techniques that lead to or enable revolutionary advances in the state-of-the-art. Proposals are not limited to the specific strategies listed above, and alternative visions will be considered. However, proposals should be for research that substantially contributes towards the goals stated. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in minor evolutionary improvement to the existing state of practice or focuses on special-purpose systems or narrow applications. The full ACIP program is anticipated to be comprised of three phases: 1) Early Architecture Concepts and In-Context Evaluation, 24 months; 2) Full-Scale Implementation and Demonstration, 48 months; 3) Cognitive Technology System Transitions to DoD, 24 months. The Phase I deliverables are defined in the Proposer Information Pamphlet . II. Award Information Awards for Phase I efforts are expected to be made during the first half of calendar year 2004. It is anticipated that there will be multiple awards for ACIP Phase I. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received. Proposals identified for funding may result in a contract, grant, cooperative agreement, or other transaction depending upon the nature of the work proposed, the required degree of interaction between the parties, and other factors. If warranted, portions of resulting awards may be segregated into pre-priced options. III. Eligibility Information 1. Eligible Applicants Proposers should propose a multi-organizational but integrated team comprising a Lead Study Integration (LSI) function and a set of Technology Contributors (TC's). Since this is a concept development effort, innovative teaming strategies that maximize overall team efficiency are strongly encouraged. The LSI should provide overall project management, system integration, and concept evaluation and validation. Offerors should propose a well-balanced team that fully covers the topics of interest in this BAA and that provides appropriate diversity within each topic area. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit a proposal that shall be considered by DARPA. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Institutions (MIs) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of this research for exclusive competition among these entities. Awards made under this BAA may be subject to the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All offerors and proposed subcontractors must affirmatively state whether they are supporting any DARPA technical office(s) through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the offeror supports, and identify the prime contract number. Affirmations should be furnished at the time of proposal submission. All facts relevant to the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in FAR 2.101, must be disclosed in Section II, I. of the proposal, organized by task and year. This disclosure shall include a description of the action the Contractor has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize, or mitigate such conflict. 2. Cost Sharing or Matching Cost sharing is not required for this particular program; however, cost sharing will be carefully considered where there is an applicable statutory condition relating to the selected funding instrument (e.g., for any Technology Investment Agreement under the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2371). IV. Application and Submission Information 1. Address to Request Application Package This announcement contains all information required to submit a proposal. No additional forms, kits, or other materials are needed. [NOTE: See Paragraph 6, ?Other Submission Requirements,? for reference to the PIP.] 2. Content and Form of Application Submission This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) requires completion of a BAA Cover Sheet for each Proposal prior to submission. This cover sheet can be accessed at the following URL: http://www.dyncorp-is.com/BAA/index.asp?BAAid=04-14 After finalizing the BAA Cover Sheet, the proposer must print the BAA Confirmation Sheet that will automatically appear on the web page. Each proposer is responsible for printing the BAA Confirmation Sheet and attaching it to every copy. The Confirmation Sheet should be the first page of the Proposal. If a proposer intends on submitting more than one Proposal, a unique UserId and password must be used in creating each BAA Cover Sheet. Failure to comply with these submission procedures may result in the submission not being evaluated. SECURITY INFORMATION NOTE: The Government anticipates that proposals submitted under this BAA will be unclassified. In the event that a proposer chooses to submit a classified proposal or submit any documentation that may be classified, the following information is applicable. Security classification guidance on a DD Form 254 will not be provided at this time since DARPA is soliciting ideas only. After reviewing incoming proposals, if a determination is made that the award instrument may result in access to classified information, a DD Form 254 will be issued and attached as part of the award. Proposers choosing to submit a classified proposal must first receive permission from the Original Classification Authority to use their information in replying to this BAA. Applicable classification guide(s) should be submitted to ensure that the proposal is protected appropriately. NEW REQUIREMENTS/PROCEDURES: The Award Document for each proposal selected and funded will contain a mandatory requirement for submission of DARPA/IPTO Quarterly Status Reports and an Annual Project Summary Report. These reports will be submitted electronically via the DARPA/IPTO Technical-Financial Information Management System (T-FIMS), utilizing the government-furnished Uniform Resource Locator (URL) on the World Wide Web (WWW). Further details may be found in the Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP). PROPOSAL FORMAT Proposers must submit an original and 3 copies of the full proposal and 2 electronic copies (i.e., 2 separate disks) of the full proposal (in PDF or Microsoft Word 2000 for IBM-compatible format on a 3.5-inch floppy disk, 100 MB Iomega Zip disk or cd). Mac-formatted disks will not be accepted. Each disk must be clearly labeled with BAA 04-14, proposer organization, proposal title (short title recommended) and Copy number of 2. 3. Submission Dates and Times The full proposal (original and designated number of hard and electronic copies) must be submitted in time to reach DARPA by 12:00 NOON (ET) Friday, March 19, 2004, in order to be considered during the initial evaluation phase. However, BAA 04-14, ACIP will remain open until 12:00 NOON (ET) Friday, January 21, 2005. Thus, proposals may be submitted at any time from issuance of this BAA through Friday, January 21, 2005. While the proposals submitted after the Friday, March 19, 2004, deadline will be evaluated by the Government, proposers should keep in mind that the likelihood of funding such proposals is less than for those proposals submitted in connection with the initial evaluation and award schedule. DARPA will acknowledge receipt of submissions and assign control numbers that should be used in all further correspondence regarding proposals. 4. Intergovernmental Review ? N/A 5. Funding Restrictions Authorization of precontract costs will be considered in situations of genuine urgency where programmatic benefits will accrue from their use. 6. Other Submission Requirements Proposers must obtain the BAA 04-14 Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP), which provides further information on the areas of interest, submission, evaluation, funding processes, and proposal formats. This pamphlet will be posted directly to FedBizOpps.gov and may also be obtained at URL address http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/Solicitations/solicitations.htm. Proposals not meeting the format described in the pamphlet may not be reviewed. This notice, in conjunction with the BAA 04-14 PIP and all references, constitutes the total BAA. No additional information is available, nor will a formal RFP or other solicitation regarding this announcement be issued. Requests for same will be disregarded. V. Application Review Information 1. Criteria (listed in descending order of relative importance): (1) Overall Scientific and Technical Merit. (2) Innovative Technical Solution to the Problem. (3) Potential Contribution and Relevance to DARPA/IPTO Mission. (4) Offeror's Capabilities and Related Experience. (5) Plans and Capability to Accomplish Technology Transition. (6) Cost Realism. 2. Review and Selection Process It is the policy of DARPA to ensure impartial, equitable, comprehensive evaluation of all proposals and to select the source (or sources) whose offer meets the Government?s technical and policy goals. Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished through a scientific review of each proposal, using the above criteria which are further detailed in the PIP. Proposals will not be evaluated against each other, since they are not submitted in accordance with a common work statement. DARPA's intent is to review proposals as soon as possible after they arrive; however, proposals may be reviewed periodically for administrative reasons. Restrictive notices notwithstanding, proposals may be handled for administrative purposes by support contractors. These support contractors are prohibited from competition in DARPA technical research and are bound by appropriate non-disclosure requirements. Input on technical aspects of the proposals may be solicited by DARPA from non-Government consultants /experts who are also bound by appropriate non-disclosure requirements. However, non-Government technical consultants/experts will not have access to proposals that are labeled by their offerors as ?Government Only?. Use of non-government personnel is covered in FAR 37.203(d). VI. Award Information Administration 1. Award Notices Principal Investigators will receive a letter informing them of the disposition of their proposal via U.S. mail. 2. Administrative and National Policy Requirements Proposers may wish to visit DARPA?s Contracts Management Office (CMO) website (http://www.darpa.mil/cmo/pages/modelgrantagreement.htm) for model grant and cooperative agreement terms and conditions. 3. Reporting Post-award reporting requirements are set forth in Section B.I, Funding Opportunity Description. Additional details are contained in the Proposer Information Pamphlet. The DARPA/CMO website referenced above also provides general information about reports required specifically for grants and cooperative agreements. VII. Agency Contacts Fax: (703) 741-7804 Addressed to: DARPA/IPTO, BAA 04-14 Electronic Mail: BAA04-14@darpa.mil Electronic File Retrieval: http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/Solicitations/solicitations.htm Mail to: DARPA/IPTO ATTN: BAA 04-14 3701 N. Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203-1714
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