SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- The Commander's Virtual Staff (CVS)
- Notice Date
- 2/20/2015
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541330
— Engineering Services
- 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-XXXX
- Response Due
- 3/23/2015
- Archive Date
- 4/22/2015
- Point of Contact
- Nina Bushnell, 443-861-4650
- E-Mail Address
-
ACC-APG - Aberdeen Division A
(nina.m.bushnell.civ@mail.mil)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- RFI Title: The Commander's Virtual Staff (CVS) THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS REQUEST IS FOR PLANNING PURPOSES, AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN INVITATION FOR BIDS, REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS, QUOTES OR AN INDICATION THAT THE GOVERNMENT WILL CONTRACT FOR THE ITEMS CONTAINED IN THIS NOTICE. THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT REIMBURSE RESPONDENTS FOR ANY COST ASSOCIATED WITH THE SUBMISSSION OF THE INFORMATION BEING REQUESTED OR REIMBURSE EXPENSES INCURRED TO THE INTERESTED PARTIES FOR REPONSES. The U.S. Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG), Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005, on behalf of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC), Command, Power, and Integration Directorate (CP&I), is conducting market research to seek information regarding emerging technologies to enable the development of a Virtual Staff capability for Army Commanders and leaders. Background and Description: The U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC), Command, Power, and Integration Directorate (CP&I) is requesting information regarding emerging technologies to enable the development of a Virtual Staff capability for Army Commanders and leaders. Computational technology offers new kinds and degrees of machine power that greatly expand the potential to facilitate and augment human cognitive activities - activities such as mission monitoring, situation assessment, plan generation and adaption and decision making. Capabilities range from advanced data visualization techniques, to intelligent agents that work cooperatively as part of human-intelligent agent teams, to groupware that supports multi-person collaborative work to wearable assistive interfaces for visual, auditory and touch interaction. The Commander's Virtual Staff (CVS) will apply computer automation to assist the commander understand, visualize, describe, and direct tasks for the staff, and apply cognitive/intelligent agents to assist the commander and staff in their execution and management of the operations process, which remains incompletely automated. The scale of implementation ranges from a battalion formation employing CVS to several battalion formations working together with cooperation across instances of CVS to a brigade formation with its associated battalions, where some may not employ CVS up through a division formation. Ideal technologies would be those that address the problem yet are extensible and able to incorporate third party contributions. The central CVS topic has been identified as having several sub-topics that are of interest: 1.Commander/Leader specific tools. Computer capabilities that specifically support leaders perform quote mark art of command quote mark tasks. The concept is to provide hands on tools leaders can use regardless of location (e.g. command post, in vehicles, or dismounted) 2.Commander/staff workflow coordination and collaboration. Tooling to assist in the tasking, tracking, production and sharing of work products and task deliverables regardless of the relative location of the commander or the staff. 3.Data consolidation. Technologies to provide storage, enriching and searching data for a single authoritative and consistent source for Mission Command information and situational awareness that is currently drawn from multiple MC systems and often mentally fused. 4.Planning. An integrated domain-independent planning capability that enables domain-specific knowledge to be added. Ideally the planning capability would produce several models based on previous unit performance in similar situations as well as current unit and environmental state that could be used for wargamming, analysis and driving other computer and human systems. The capability should also provide effects models that predict the outcome of selected operations/tasks. 5.Automated assessments. Provide the commander with continually available computer-assisted running estimates and assessments based on current, future and alternative plans as well as the commander's intent. These should be available for all aspects of every type of mission including, for example, assessing the progress of preparation during the Operations process. 6.Predictions. The ability to recognize and reason about evolving situations based on situational data and the context of the current plan/goals. Predictions should be able to be improved based on lessons learned during after action reviews (AARs) and continual corrections. 7.Recommendations. Automatically produced recommendations, with associated probabilities and confidence levels, and alternatives for consideration based on domain-specific knowledge, goals, and situational awareness. Recommendations should be able to be improved based on lessons learned during AARs. Keywords: Decision Support Capability, Artificial Intelligence, Human-Centered Design, Trust Research, Workflow and Task Analysis, Data Management, Ubiquitous Computing Techniques, Dynamic Network Analysis, natural language processing, supervised machine learning, unsupervised machine learning, rules engine, expert systems The DoD, specifically the U.S. Army is in a unique area where emergent technologies integrated within a networked environment assist Commanders & Key Leaders, decision-making, building cohesive teams, development shared situational understand, which encapsulate the human endeavors culminated under the Mission Command Unified Land Operations concept (complexity of task and human interactions within teams that are socio-cognitive networks interacting with information networks that are built on communication networks). CP&I seeks to understand the state of various technologies that can be combined together in unique and innovated ways to develop Mission Command capabilities outlined in the RFI. Request industry provide information on what technology domain expertise areas are believed to be applicable to the RFI, how it would be applied to the RFI topic and a plan for further developing the advanced technology. CP&I is constructing a Technology Development Strategy on what technologies can be harvested now for a 3-4year technology development timeframe targeting transition into a system of record and future concepts that require a 6-8 year maturation cycle. Understanding cognitive process modeling for decision making, tools and intelligent systems that support collaborative decision making across distributed teams; Context-Sensitive information presentation may been driven by artificial intelligence, dynamic network analysis, natural language processing, multi-modal human integration, data mining and distribution. CP&I solicits industry opinion regarding how capabilities provided by these new technologies could be developed to assist human performance with respect to the RFI concept? This sources sought notice is for planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation for bids/proposals. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government. The Government does not intend to pay for any information provided under this sources sought announcement. Responses will assist the Government in determining potential responsible sources and to determine the technical capability of the domestic production base. Requested Information: The Government is requesting contractors provide sufficient information in the form of a white paper which should include a description of the capabilities, technical expertise, and relevant past experience. In addition interested sources are requested to complete the enclosed questionnaire. All submissions must be in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF (1-inch margins and 12 point Arial or Times New Roman font), e-mailed to Renee Gardner, Contracting Officer at renee.m.gardner6.civ@mail.mil, and Nina Bushnell, Contract Specialist at nina.m.bushnell.civ@mail.mil. Questions regarding this RFI should be directed to these individuals as well, any other means of communication is considered inappropriate. Questions regarding this RFI must be received no later than 6 March 2015. Label the cover page clearly with RFI title: The Commander's Virtual Staff (CVS), respondent organization, and POCs. The page limitation for the white paper is 3 pages, including figures & tables but excluding the completed questionnaire. All respondents are required to complete the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) process to be considered eligible for any potential Department of Defense contracts. CCR registration information can be obtained at http://www.ccr.gov/. All responses shall be unclassified. All submissions must be received no later than 4:00 EST on 23 March 2015. Responses shall not be above the level of Unclassified/For Official Use Only (FOUO). The information provided and received in response to this announcement is subject to the conditions set forth in FAR 52.215-3 -- Request for Information or Solicitation for Planning Purposes. Please see attached for the Questionnaire
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/61c2be933d047cece46826a440da47c4)
- 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
- SN03647102-W 20150222/150220234237-61c2be933d047cece46826a440da47c4 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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