MODIFICATION
A -- Military Networking Technology for Global Information Exchange (GIE)
- Notice Date
- 9/12/2007
- Notice Type
- Modification
- NAICS
- 541710
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences
- Contracting Office
- Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514, UNITED STATES
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-BAA--03-15-IFKA
- Point of Contact
- Renee Arcuri, Contracting Officer, Phone (315) 330-4777, Fax (315) 330-8094,
- E-Mail Address
-
Renee.Arcuri@rl.af.mil
- Description
- The purpose of this modification is to republish the original announcement pursuant to FAR 35.016(c). This republishing also includes the following changes: (a) removes the following evaluation criteria "consideration will be given to past and present performance on recent Government contracts, and the capacity and capability to achieve the objectives of this BAA"; (b) updates Ombudsman information; (c) removes Grants.gov information; (d) adds a FY 08 recommended date for white papers; and (e) changes the link to the BAA Guide for Industry. Previous modifications are incorporated into this republishing. No other changes have been made. Technical POC/ Program Manager, Mr. David E. Krzysiak, AFRL/IFGA, 525 Brooks Rd, Rome, NY, 13441-4505, telephone: (315) 330-7454, email: David.Krzysiak@rl.af.mil. Contracting POC: AFRL/IFKA, Lori L. Smith, Contracting Officer, 26 Electronic Parkway, NY 13441-4514, telephone: (315) 330-1955, email: Lori.Smith@rl.af.mil. AFRL Rome Research Site is soliciting white papers for concept developments, experiments, and demonstrations involving new and innovative approaches to support future Air Force networking, services, and information assurance requirements in the context of a Global Information Grid (GIG). The GIG is a globally interconnected, interoperable, and secure system of systems for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating, and managing information on demand to warfighters, policy makers, and support personnel. Leveraging commercial technologies and the potential for dual use by both the military and civilian communities are two additional aspects of this program. This activity is aimed at addressing the scale and complexity of a GIG which will provide new, end-user, multimedia, information services and support, distributed command & control, intelligence, telemedicine and similar applications. These services and applications are vital to the Air Force mission to deploy and sustain forces anywhere in the world. To this end, the ability to send a wide variety of data across a global network comprised of communications channels of varying characteristics, in a secure, survivable manner, is of prime importance. An underlying assumption is that DOD communications will be derived from the commercial, national, and international fiber optic cable infrastructure. However, to reach deployed or airborne units, wireless extension of that infrastructure is necessary. Both terrestrial and satellite transmission systems will be required to support this extension capability and will also be inherent components of these deployed networks. In both instances, they will be required to support large amounts of information throughput. Candidate areas of technical research in support of communications networking, services, and information assurance technology for a GIG are: 1) Implementation and novel Extension of High Speed Large Scale Networks: Effective implementation of networks to support a deployed Joint Forces Air Component Command and below. Efforts should address areas related to security and authentication, survivability and dependability, traffic management and traffic flow control, network management in a virtual network environment, mobile nodes and networks, self reconfiguring, and dynamic routing. Technologies to support network management will provide global management of the entire information infrastructure. Future management systems must provide for this overall management capability. This infrastructure includes numerous resources such as communications equipment, network switching equipment, distributed operating systems, and user applications. Encouraged are new and innovative ideas in management systems technologies including visualization techniques, network emulation, artificial intelligence, and any other appropriate technology. Also encouraged is technology to provide specific management techniques for heterogeneous network environments, as well as cooperating management entities. Effective extension of network technology developments to provide launch points from high speed networks into highly constrained deployed networks. 2) Interoperability: For interoperability of an increasingly diverse set of transmission systems, work is encouraged but not limited to; development and demonstration of theater (deployed) fiber optic and high bandwidth RF (including satellite links) networking technology for high bandwidth communications between multi-media display systems that provide an interactive, common picture of battlespace to Theater and Component Commanders. The network should be scaleable, modular, survivable, secure, and provide for interoperability with global commercial communications infrastructure. Examples of enhancing the bandwidth capacity are: Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM), ultra short pulse Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Optical Code Division Multiplexing (OCDMA) and a hybrid of such schemes. Examples of devices are: integrated transmitters and receivers, amplifiers, switches (SONET, ATM, Packet), synchronizers, frequency translators, filters, and routers. 3) User Network Services: The goal is to formulate innovative ideas for user services which use high bandwidth global networks, low bandwidth battlesite networks, airborne segments, and combinations of the these, experiment with them, and possibly develop promising ideas into demonstrable prototypes. Future services will provide the capability for day-to-day mission planning/execution in a distributed C2 coalition environment and assist commanders in making critical decisions in heavy stress situations. Past work in this area has centered around interactive, interpersonal communications services (workstation video windows, video conferencing, shared workplace graphics, multimedia presentation, multimedia conferencing, imagery dissemination) that provide the capability of collaboration among distributed users, both fixed and mobile. Also encouraged are new and innovative ideas for communications services which will support emerging technologies such as visualization and distributed virtual reality, and technologies which support new and innovative communications services such as data compression techniques or others. Also encouraged is work addressing the psychology of individuals and groups in the decision making process in distributed military C2 and the definition of new communications services which support that process. 4) Ultra-wide- bandwidth, multi-channeled, air and space-based communications networks on and between platforms: Efforts should develop and define optical/electronic network architecture, system and subsystem (transmitter, receiver, switch, optical mux and demux, optical amplifiers, etc.) requirements for multi gigabit per second optical/electronic networks on-board air and space platforms and other AF/DOD applications. Design and develop passive and active optical/electronic chip scale networking components (transmitters, receivers, switches) for Wave-length Division Multiplexing, RF, Code Division Multiple Access, etc. communications. Implement photonics modules for optical/electronic networking architectures utilizing Integrated Optical Circuits (IOCs) in hybrid and monolithic format. 5) Network Modeling and Simulation: Efforts should research and develop modeling and simulation tools that are trustworthy to predict, with known and characterizable accuracy, network behavior over a broad range of time scales, network sizes and technology composition. This solicitation also seeks research on appropriate online network measurement methodologies, which in conjunction with modeling and simulation tools will provide the basis for online network analysis and control. Deliverables should include technical reports, and when appropriate, software and/or advanced technology demonstrations. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION. DO NOT SUBMIT A FORMAL PROPOSAL AT THIS TIME. Offerors are required to submit three (3) copies of a three (3) to five (5) page white paper summarizing their proposed approach/solution. The purpose of the white paper is to preclude unwarranted effort on the part of an offeror whose proposed work is not of interest to the Government. The white paper will be formatted as follows: Section A: Title, Period of Performance, Cost of Task, Name of Company; Section B: Task Objective; and Section C: Technical Summary. Multiple white papers within the purview of this announcement may be submitted by each offeror. Offerors must mark their white papers/proposals with the restrictive language stated in FAR 15.609(a). All white papers/proposals shall be double spaced with a font no smaller than 12 pitch. In addition, respondents are requested to provide their Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) number, a fax number, and an e-mail address with their submission. All responses to this announcement must be addressed to ATTN: David E. Krzysiak, 525 Brooks Rd., Rome, NY 13441-4505 and reference BAA-03-15-IFKA. This BAA is open and effective until 30 Sep 08. It is recommended that white papers be received by the following dates to maximize the possibility of award. White papers for FY 03 should be submitted by 15 Aug 03. White papers for the out years should be submitted as follows: FY 04 should be submitted by 31 Aug 03; FY 05 by 1 May 04; FY 06 by 1 May 05; FY 07 by 1 May 06; and FY 08 by 1 May 08. White papers will be accepted at any time, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective Fiscal Year after the dates cited. Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. Such invitation does not assure that the submitting organization will be awarded a contract. The cost of preparing proposals in response to this announcement is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resulting contract or any other contract, but may be an allowable expense to the normal bid and proposal indirect cost specified in FAR 31.205-18. The following criteria will be used to determine whether white papers and proposals submitted are consistent with the intent of this BAA and of interest to the Government, which are listed in equal order of importance: (1) Overall Scientific and Technical Merit -- Including the approach for the development and/or enhancement of the proposed technology and its analysis, (2) Related Experience -- The extent to which the offeror demonstrates relevant technology and domain knowledge and (3) Best Value --Reasonableness and realism of proposed costs and fees (if any). Individual white papers/proposals will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria without regard to other white papers and proposals submitted under this BAA. No further evaluation criteria will be used in selecting white papers/proposals. White papers and proposals will be evaluated as they are received. All responsible organizations may submit a white paper/proposal which shall be considered. Awards of efforts as a result of this BAA will be in the form of contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, or other transactions depending upon the nature of the work proposed. Options are discouraged and unpriced options will not be considered for award. Complete instructions for proposal preparation will be forwarded with the invitations for proposal submissions. Individual awards will not normally exceed 36 months with dollar amounts ranging between $100,000 to $1M per award. The anticipated funding to be obligated under this BAA is broken out by fiscal year as follows: FY 03 - $150K; FY 04 - $2M; FY 05 - $8M; FY 06 - $8M and FY 07/08 - $5.850M. Total funding for this BAA is approximately $24.0M. Depending on the work to be performed, the offeror may require a TOP SECRET facility clearance and safeguarding capability; therefore, personnel identified for assignment to a classified effort must be cleared for access to TOP SECRET information at the time of award. In addition, the offeror may be required to have, or have access to, a certified and Government-approved facility to support work under this BAA. Data subject to export control constraints may be involved and only firms on the Certified Contractor Access List (CCAL) will be allowed access to such data. Foreign allied participation is allowed of the following countries: France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom. Questions, clarification, or concerns from offerors or potential offerors during the proposal development phase of this acquisition should be communicated directly to the IFKA Contracting Officer, Lori Smith, telephone (315) 330-1955 or e-mail Lori.Smith@rl.af.mil. Questions prior to the submission of a proposal can be addressed to the technical POC, Mr. David E. Krzysiak, telephone: (315) 330-7454 or email David.Krzysiak@rl.af.mil. The email must reference the title and solicitation number of the acquisition. For additional information, a copy of the AFRL/Rome Research Sites "Broad Agency Announcement (BAA): A Guide for Industry," April 2007, may be accessed at: http://www.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/AFRLRRS/Reference%2DNumber%2DBAAGUIDE/listing.html The Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate has contracted for various business and staff support services, some of which require contractors to obtain administrative access to proprietary information submitted by other contractors. Administrative access is defined as "handling or having physical control over information for the sole purpose of accomplishing the administrative functions specified in the contract or order, which do not require the review, reading, or comprehension of the content of the information on the part of non-technical professionals assigned to accomplish the specified administrative tasks." These contractors have signed general non-disclosure agreements and organizational conflict of interest statements. The required administrative access will be granted to non-technical professionals. Examples of the administrative tasks performed include: a. Assembling and organizing information for R&D case files; b. Accessing library files for use by government personnel; and c. Handling and administration of proposals, contracts, contract funding and queries. Any objection to administrative access must be in writing to the contracting officer and shall include a detailed statement of the basis for the objection. Prospective offerors are advised that only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. In accordance with AFFARS 5315.90, an Ombudsman has been appointed to hear and facilitate the resolution of concerns from offerors, potential offerors, and others for this acquisition announcement. Before consulting with an ombudsman, interested parties must first address their concerns, issues, disagreements, and/or recommendations to the contracting officer for resolution. AFFARS Clause 5352.201-9101 Ombudsman (Aug 2005) will be incorporated into all contracts awarded under this BAA. The AFRL Ombudsman is as follows: Susan Hunter Building 15, Room 225 1864 Fourth Street Wright-Patterson AFB OH 45433-7130 FAX: (937) 225-5036; Comm: (937) 255-7754 This BAA is open and effective until 30 Sep 08.
- Record
- SN01404050-W 20070914/070913073534 (fbodaily.com)
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