SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Simulation-Based Robot Agility Competition - Draft Statement of Work
- Notice Date
- 1/28/2016
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541511
— Custom Computer Programming Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B130, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899-1410, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20899-1410
- Solicitation Number
- AMDTC-16-0006
- Archive Date
- 2/25/2016
- Point of Contact
- Abdul-Kudus Yahaya, Phone: 3019758497, Todd D Hill, Phone: 301-975-8802
- E-Mail Address
-
abdul-kudus.yahaya@nist.gov, todd.hill@nist.gov
(abdul-kudus.yahaya@nist.gov, todd.hill@nist.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Draft Statement of Work (SOW) This is a Sources Sought Notice ONLY. Requests for copies of a solicitation will not receive a response. This Notice is for planning purposes only and is not a Request for Proposal or Request for Quotation or an obligation on the part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for conducting a follow-on acquisition. NIST does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this Notice, or otherwise pay for the information requested. No entitlement or payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by NIST will arise as a result of submission of responses to this Notice and NIST use of such information. NIST recognizes that proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary data and present it as an addendum to the non-restricted/non-proprietary information. In the absence of such identification, NIST will assume to have unlimited rights to all technical data in the information paper. NO SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS EXIST AT THIS TIME. Background: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a research project entitled Agility Performance of Robotic Systems. The project's objective is to deliver robot agility performance metrics, information models, test methods and protocols, validated using a combined virtual and real testing environment, that will enable manufacturers to easily and rapidly reconfigure and re-task robot systems in assembly operations. The application of robotics in manufacturing assembly is hindered by their lack of agility, their large changeover times for new tasks and new products, and their limited reusability. Removing these hindrances is technically hard due to the complexity of robot systems, the lack of understanding of robot capabilities as they pertain to assembly tasks, and the absence of measurement science and tools to assess and assure the robot's agility. Since robots are primarily used in large companies for large lot size production, and changeover is performed infrequently and manually, manufacturers have avoided the agility issue. The key idea for this project is to develop the measurement science, in the form of an integrated agility framework, which will enable manufacturers to assess and assure the agility performance of their robot systems. This framework includes robot agility performance metrics, information models, test methods, and protocols - all of which will be validated using a combined virtual and real testing environment. This framework will (1) allow manufacturers to easily and rapidly reconfigure and re-task robot systems in assembly operations, (2) make robots more accessible to small and medium organizations, and (3) provide large organizations greater efficiency in their assembly operations. Any company that is currently deploying or planning to deploy robot systems will benefit because they will be able to accurately predict the agility performance of their robot systems and be able to quickly re-task and reconfigure their assembly operations. As part of this effort, NIST is planning to put together an Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC). We are in the process of planning this simulation-based competition which is designed to promote robot agility by utilizing the latest advances in artificial intelligence and robot planning. A core focus on this competition is to test the agility of industrial robot systems, with the goal of enabling industrial robots on your shop floors to be more productive, more autonomous, and to require less time from shop floor workers. In this context, we define agility broadly to address: • Failure identification and recovery, where robot can detect failures in a manufacturing process and automatically recover from those failures • Automated planning, to minimize (or eliminate) the up-front robot programming time when a new product is introduced • Fixtureless environment, where robots can sense the environment and perform tasks on parts that are not in predefined locations • Plug and play robots, where robots from different manufacturers can be swapped in an out without the need for reprogramming Competition participants will be using the latest advances in artificial intelligence and robot planning and control to tackle these challenges, which will then be released in the public domain for you to evaluate on your shop floor. We want to ensure that the challenges that they address are truly representative of the challenges you are facing in your company. As such, we ask for your input in helping to define these challenges. Requirement: The purpose of this procurement is to develop the simulation environment and supporting tools, provide training on the simulation infrastructure, and assist in the execution the competition, as detailed in the attached draft Statement of Work. Interested parties shall describe the capabilities of their organization as it relates to the services described above and as detailed in the draft Statement of Work (SOW). NIST anticipates issuing a Request for Proposal and awarding a contract no later than the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016. NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large and small businesses. The small business NAICS code associated with this effort is 541511 Custom Computer Programming Services with a size standard of $27.5 Million. Please include your company's size classification and socio-economic status in any response to this notice. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the information submitted. After results of this market research are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. Companies that can provide such services are requested to email a written response describing their abilities to abdul-kudus.yahaya@nist.gov no later than the response date for this sources sought notice. The following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice: 1. Name, Address, DUNS number, CAGE code, and point of contact information of your company. 2. Any information on the company's small business certifications, if applicable. 3. Description of your company's capabilities as they relate to the services described in this notice. 4. A description of your company's previous experience providing the services described in this notice. 5. Indication of whether the services described in this notice are currently on one or more GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts or other applicable contracts and, if so, the applicable contract number(s). 6. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in finalizing its market research. Responses are limited to a total of five (5) pages. The responses must be in MS Word format. Pages shall be 8½-inch x 11-inch, using Times New Roman 11 Point Font. Each page shall have adequate margins on each side (at least one inch) of the page. Header/footer information (which does not include any information to be analyzed) may be included in the 1" margin space.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOC/NIST/AcAsD/AMDTC-16-0006/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899-1640, United States
- Zip Code: 20899-1640
- Zip Code: 20899-1640
- Record
- SN04003389-W 20160130/160128234234-42521f3e7ac71b1781c7db1296432c27 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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