SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- Multi-modal Signal and Fusion Processor Request for Information (RFI) February 2015
- Notice Date
- 2/18/2015
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- ACC-APG - Aberdeen Division A, 6001 COMBAT DRIVE, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005-1846
- ZIP Code
- 21005-1846
- Solicitation Number
- W56KGU-15-R-A025
- Response Due
- 4/6/2015
- Archive Date
- 5/6/2015
- Point of Contact
- Myong Parker, 443-861-4638
- E-Mail Address
-
ACC-APG - Aberdeen Division A
(myong.h.parker.civ@mail.mil)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Multi-modal Signal and Fusion Processor Request for Information (RFI) February 2015 This is a Request for Information (RFI) synopsis. This RFI is for planning purposes only. This is NOT a request for Quotations or Proposals. No solicitation document exists and formal solicitation may or may not be issued by the Government as a result of the responses to this RFI. The Government will not pay for any response expenses. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response. Background Over the last decade, combat operations necessitated an overwhelming focus on short-term reactive Processing Exploitation & Dissemination (PED) with evolutionary improvements narrowly targeted at immediate capabilities. PED activities support intelligence operations by converting and refining collected information for reporting to commanders, decision makers, intelligence analysts, and other consumers. Without appreciation for broader capability alignments, integration into the PED enterprise, or Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), traditional PED methodologies represent a critical flaw in producing actionable intelligence in a timely manner. The future for combat forces, both asynchronous engagements and traditional force-on-force actions, require the capability to conduct PED information collected in the terrestrial, aerial, and space layers to generate intelligence and combat information for commanders and staff in any environment and in all phases of unified land operations (Figure 1). The inability to adequately perform PED limits the commander's situational awareness. It impairs operational planning and execution. This hinders the capability to conduct prioritized information-collection missions. The future of effective combat operations requires a refinement in every aspect of PED, a strategic reevaluation of traditional investments, and a focus on delivering actionable intelligence in light of the exponentially increasing volume of sensor data available. Automated processing and semi-automated exploitation of collected information, with broadcast dissemination of relevant combat information and intelligence has become a critical tool in empowering the Soldier with a Common Operational Picture (COP). The ultimate goal is to process all collected information, make it accessible and discoverable through a standards-based data management framework, and reduce the processing and exploitation time between sensor and analyst. Description The US Army has multi-sensor platforms that are able to capture multiple sources of intelligence data for tactical operations using airborne platforms, such as the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS), and vehicles, such as Vigilant Pursuit. These platforms contain sensors that collect data of different modalities, such as imagery, full motion video, audio via SIGINT, and various forms of radar data. Applying multi-modal fusion to this data could produce tips, cross-cues, filtering, object extraction, tags, fire requests, and alerts. Currently multi-modal fusion of sensor data occurs at fixed site locations. This approach introduces additional communication traffic over intermittent links along with latency. Instead, multi-modal fusion should be performed on the sensor platforms and on platforms in proximity of the recipients of the actionable intelligence and situation awareness produced by the fusion. U.S. Army Communications-Electronic Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC), Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate (I2WD) is conducting this RFI to determine potential capability and innovative approaches for a common architecture for performing multi-modal fusion within signal processors, on the payload of sensor platforms, on maneuvering vehicles, and at fixed site locations. This common architecture will be aligned with a Distributed Process Exploitation Dissemination (DPED) Army enterprise across echelons and adjacent units. To this end, the Army is seeking PED applications that accelerate the processing of intelligence, increase the richness of exploitation, facilitate dissemination, expedite and enhance analyst RFI fulfillment, and improve commander situational awareness. Applications may lend themselves to either real-time or forensic use or both. Examples of such algorithms include (but are not limited to) the following: Real-time algorithms will reside directly on the sensor platform, with the purpose of rapidly processing, correlating, and reducing multi-INT data for immediate situational awareness as well as maximizing available bandwidth to a ground station or PED cell. Forensic algorithms take advantage of the wider range of data available on the cloud along with the increased processing power available to provide enhanced products with full situational and historical context. The primary focus of this request is the enhancement of real-time user workflow. Technologies must be mature enough to be implemented as a service-oriented application in a cloud-based framework. Objective: Describe new, existing, and/or enhancements of capabilities to achieve one or more of the following objectives: 1.Platform agnostic onboard real-time cueing, cross-cueing and tipping. 2.Pro-Active Real-time alerting. 3.Fusion algorithms for entity detection and tracking. 4.Open common modular system architecture for performing levels 1 - 4 fusion. A single system architecture for all operating environments, such as aerial platforms, ground platforms, vehicles, ground stations, and operating bases. The system architecture supports adding, removing, and reconfiguring modules to address the system and operational requirements of the operating environment. 5.Multi-level security (MLS) on a single hardware platform. Fusing multiple data sources from a lower security level can result in data at a higher security level. A single multi-modal fusion node can have several fusion functions that each generates results at different security levels. 6.Receiving and transmitting multi-modal data over multiple communication channels (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, satellite, radio and other military communication channels). Multi-modal fusion requires the ability for a single node to receive various types of data (video, audio, imagery, radar data, tracks, or text) in various forms (raw, normalized, or processed). The modalities will vary by platform. Likewise, the modalities of the data sent from the multi-modal fusion node will vary per platform. 7.Distributed multi-modal fusion - the interconnection of multiple nodes that perform multi-modal fusion on different platforms serving different echelons. Solutions for resolving problems that arise from interconnecting multiple nodes, such as disambiguation, synchronization, bandwidth limitations, coordination, administration and communication disruptions. The descriptions should address the following concerns. Size, weight, power, and cooling (SWAP-C) reduction Cross-domain communication Secured communication Threat protection Low bandwidth and disconnected communication Virtualization, provisioning, and orchestration Testing and evaluation in a virtual simulation environment Existing Army Enterprise Integration. Response We are asking industry to provide a response to this RFI that includes: Provide a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimate for the effort per year for five years. Propose a commercial software licensing approach that minimizes license management costs and leverages GOTS and COTS products availability under DoD enterprise license vehicles. Articulate how your solution applies to the tactical enterprise at various domains and echelons. Describe the risk areas from a cost, schedule and technical approach with your rationale. Only Us Citizens may reply-No Foreign National submissions will be accepted. Responses to this RFI are to be unclassified and received no later than 45 days after date of release. All interested parties shall respond in as clear manner as possible to each of the areas listed above. Information is preferred in soft-copy form in Microsoft Word and shall not exceed 10 pages. You may forward your responses via email address to: usarmy.apg.cerdec.mbx.i2wd-tcil-industry-day@mail.mil ; Subject Line: Multi-modal Signal and Fusion Processor RFI. All information must be in writing or via email; telephone requests for additional information will not be honored. You may forward responses to US Army, RDECOM, CERDEC, I2WD, Bldg. 6003 Combat Drive, APG, MD, 21005, ATTN: RDER-IW-IT (Mr. Kesny Parent) or the following e-mail address: usarmy.apg.cerdec.mbx.i2wd-tcil-industry-day@mail.mil. Acknowledgement of receipt will be issued. If you choose to submit proprietary information, mark it accordingly. Classified information will be accepted by mail only, but please mark it accordingly and send it via proper channels. Classified information can be sent to US Army, RDECOM, CERDEC, I2WD, Bldg. 6003, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, 21005, ATTN: Security Office. The inner wrapping shall be addressed to: ATTN: RDER-IW-IT, ISP.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/e0126cad991f4cc673e9bb623ce791ce)
- Place of Performance
- Address: ACC-APG - Aberdeen Division A 6001 COMBAT DRIVE, Aberdeen Proving Ground MD
- Zip Code: 21005-1846
- Zip Code: 21005-1846
- Record
- SN03644569-W 20150220/150218234613-e0126cad991f4cc673e9bb623ce791ce (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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