SPECIAL NOTICE
A -- Request for Information (RFI): Seeking information from those interested in partnering with the Army Research Laboratory in the areas of Human Information Interaction, Cybersecurity, and Electromagnetic Spectrum through an Other Transaction (OT) agreement
- Notice Date
- 9/30/2016
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- Department of the Army, Army Contracting Command, ACC - APG (W911NF) RTP, PO BOX 12211, RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, North Carolina, 27709-2211, United States
- ZIP Code
- 27709-2211
- Solicitation Number
- W911NF-16-R-0037
- Point of Contact
- Natalie Eberius, Phone: 4102786644
- E-Mail Address
-
natalie.l.eberius.civ@mail.mil
(natalie.l.eberius.civ@mail.mil)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Description: The Army Contracting Command - Aberdeen Proving Ground, Research Triangle Park (RTP) Division, on behalf of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), is releasing this special notice to inform interested parties about ARL's interest in establishing one or more Other Transaction (OT) Agreements for Prototype Projects in accordance with Section 815 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2016, 10 USC § 2371b. The purpose of an OT is to engage, collaborate, and do business with an entity or group of entities, to include industry, institutions of higher education, and nonprofit, partners that have expertise in the Human Information Interaction (HII), Cybersecurity, and Electromagnetic Spectrum technology area(s). ARL is considering a number of business models to include: (1) award of OT(s) to a single entity for effort; (2) award of an OT to a managing entity (most likely a nonprofit entity) who will seek out partners as appropriate to perform the effort; and (3) award to a consortium of entities with a managing entity (most likely a nonprofit entity) to perform the effort. Industry involvement is expected to include nontraditional Defense contractor participants. This RFI is seeking information from those who are interested in potentially partnering and participating under an OT in any of the business models or technology areas discussed above. General Intent: ARL is committed to being a more innovative and effective defense laboratory that can be adaptive and responsive to the future challenges of national security through technological advantage. Secretary Ashton Carter stated on 23 April 2015, "Start-ups are the leading edge of commercial innovation, and right now, DoD researchers don't have enough promising ways to transition technologies that they came up with to application." The use of an OT will give ARL access to technologies, and technological-based companies, that advance so rapidly that the DoD finds it difficult to contractually engage, collaborate, and do business with them. Topic Description: The speed, complexity, and multidisciplinary nature of Human Information Interaction, Cybersecurity and Electromagnetic Spectrum research and development, coupled with the demands of a globally competitive environment, have increased the importance of technology linkages for innovation and long-term competitiveness. ARL is interested in establishing an OT, as authorized under 10 U.S.C. 2371b, as a vehicle to partner and collaborate with industry, institutions of higher education, and nonprofit organizations; entities whose identity and capabilities may be currently unknown to ARL. The ARL OT will be used for research and development prototype projects in the aforementioned technology areas. This OT Agreement will: • Provide a method to combine public and private resources to focus research, prototype development, and commercialization on specific shared military technology needs • Facilitate the negotiation of flexible operations, collaborations, and competitive project awards that are not subject to the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the 2 C.F.R. 200 and Department of Defense Grant and Agreement Regulations policies and procedures • Attract small businesses and non-traditional contractors • Provide access to information concerning Government technology requirements • Provide a forum for conducting emerging technology discussions Technology Areas: The project technology areas for this ARL OT will be Human Information Interaction, Cybersecurity, and Electromagnetic Spectrum. The Human Information Interaction technology area has also been described as Human-Machine Interaction and Human-Computer Interaction. The focus of this area is the interaction of humans and information (machines/agents) for decision making. Our research and development goals are to apply fundamental principles of human-information interaction across domains, including complex information systems, human-agent teams, cybersecurity, communication, and organizational social networks. Concepts will be pursued to provide situation understanding and relevant actionable information to users at the point of need by engaging the greater HII community. HII R&D prototype projects could be in the following areas: • Naturalistic and mixed reality human interfaces developed through the use of balanced bi-directional human-human and human-agent communications and decision making approaches. Prototype projects in tool and model development to transition deep insights into human states and intentions and how hybrid interface concepts join the strengths of naturalistic and mixed reality interface concepts. • Joint human-agent decision making developed through effective teaming of human and autonomous, intelligent agents. This area will develop tools and model human and autonomous agents in order to accentuate strengths and mitigate weaknesses and enable heterogeneous teams to make decisions faster and more effectively than homogeneous teams. • Context-aware analytics and resource management addressed through development of models that deliver actionable information to the point of need and allowing enhanced decision making. Projects in these areas could include the development of human-in-the-loop systems, human-robot communication, Improved Processing Exploitation Dissemination (PED) through development of 3D - Common Operating Picture (COP), generate 3D scene rendering using video sensor, development of smart sensor systems, development of image and video analytics, design and development of 3D viewers for mission planning, design and development of video annotation and retrieval. The Cybersecurity technology area will focus on developing and fielding secure devices, systems and networks which will be able to execute commander and warfighter mission objectives. As technology evolves, namely wireless communications technology, and as more and more commercial wireless technology becomes integrated into our warfighter networks, the lines of delineation between cyber exploitation/attacks and EW attacks will continue to become more indistinct. Additionally, the Cybersecurity technology area concentrates on understanding and exploiting interactions of information with cyber attackers - human and/or intelligent agents. These interactions involve friendly operations against adversary information systems and networks, defense of friendly information systems and networks, and assurance of persistent information support to users even when parts of the friendly systems and networks are compromised. ARL's areas of interest include Defeat of Cyber Threats and Cyber Resilience. Threat defeat projects in cybersecurity seek to develop models that relate properties and capabilities of cyber threat detection, recognition and defeat processes/mechanisms to properties of a malicious activity, and of properties of Army networks. The Electromagnetic Spectrum technology area is proliferated with the use of emerging commercial communications technologies, and threat derivatives of these technologies, are quickly becoming a significant impediment to operation of all US weapons, sensors, communication, and position navigation and timing (PNT) systems operating in the electromagnetic environment (EME). This is significantly different then in the past several decades, where the EME was relatively sparsely populated with spurious radio frequency (RF) signals and noise. Our objectives are to develop methodologies and tools to analyze, assess and evaluate the effects of this new RF clutter on systems operating in this environment. Additionally, we seek to develop underpinning technologies that will provide a high degree of situational understanding against ground and airborne threats while operating in complex environments. Objectives are to develop the necessary models, signal processing, prototype sensors and subsystems to support the next generation of route clearance, air defense, and tactical sensing RADAR technologies. RFI submission and post submission guidelines: This Special Notice is for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as an invitation for bid, request for quotation, request for proposal, or a commitment by the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government does not intend to award on the basis of this announcement. All information is to be submitted at no cost or obligation to the Government. The U.S. Government is not obligated to notify respondents of the results of this special notice. The U.S. Government reserves the right to reject, in whole or in part, any input, as a result of this special notice. If a formal solicitation is generated at a later date, a separate solicitation notice will be published. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response. No sensitive or classified information will be discussed. Documents submitted in response to this RFI will not be returned. Any information submitted in response to this RFI may be used to help ARL further define its needs. Submission Guidelines: Each submission is to contain the following: 1. A cover page labeled with the heading, ARL OT RFI RESPONSE, name of company, name of corporate point of contact (POC), name of technical POC, telephone number for each POC, full mailing address, e-mail addresses for each POC, CAGE Code, and any other pertinent information. 2. No more than twenty (20) pages including responses to the following questions and requested information: (Note: Pages in excess of the 20 page limitation will not be read by ARL.) - Given the potential business models described above, which model do you recommend, what is the basis for this recommendation and what would be the role(s) your organization would anticipate playing under an OT with ARL? - What conditions/circumstances would enable your participation in the OT? - What barriers do you see in working with the ARL in an OT consortium strategy and what are your recommendations to address such barriers? (e.g. legal, intellectual property rights, royalties, membership rules, cost accounting and auditing rules and principles?) - What incentives would you like to see included as part of an OT consortium strategy? (e.g. number and value of projects to be awarded within the consortium, time frame for the awards to be made and work to be accomplished). - Please provide a narrative describing your capability and experience (past and present) with respect to the technology areas included in this announcement as well as where your organization believes it could contribute to the future advancement of technology in those areas. Please submit all pages as a single (.doc or.pdf) file. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned. Questions or Requests for Clarification: Only electronically submitted questions and requests for clarification regarding this RFI will be accepted. No telephone calls regarding this RFI will be accepted. Written questions and requests for clarification shall be submitted to the following email address: natalie.l.eberius.civ@mail.mil In order to facilitate a timely response, written questions or requests for clarification must be received by the Government no later than 10 November 2016. Submission Deadline: Responses to this RFI must be received by the Government no later than 10:00 AM local Aberdeen, Maryland time, 10 November 2016. Responses shall be submitted to the following email address: natalie.l.eberius.civ@mail.mil If a late submittal is received, acceptance of such will be at the discretion of the Government if it's determined to be in the Government's best interest. Responses sent by any other means (e.g., submitted to other email addresses, hand-carried, postal service mail, commercial carrier or fax) will NOT be considered or read.
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