SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Virtual Electrodes for Human Body Communications
- Notice Date
- 3/21/2017
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541512
— Computer Systems Design 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
- NB771000-17-02040
- Archive Date
- 3/31/2017
- Point of Contact
- Prateema E. Carvajal, Phone: 301-975-4390, Keith Bubar, Phone: 3019758329
- E-Mail Address
-
prateema.carvajal@nist.gov, keith.bubar@nist.gov
(prateema.carvajal@nist.gov, keith.bubar@nist.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This announcement is a Sources Sought Notice. It is not a Request for Quote (RFQ) and does not commit the Government to award a contract now or in the future. No solicitation is available at this time. The Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) seeks information on commercial vendors that are capable of providing Virtual Electrodes for Human Body Communications. Contracting Office Address The Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B129, Mail Stop 1640, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899-1640 NIST does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this Notice and 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. BACKGROUND INFORMATION A novel technology that allows seamless and secure interaction among devices that can be touched by the human body is called HBC (Human Body Communication). This technology uses the human body as a medium to conveniently connect heterogeneous objects (i.e. things) and transfer data between them. Wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, UWB and even WiFi can also be used to communicate data among sensors, actuators and other devices. However, a fundamental challenge in the upcoming Internet of Things is energy limitation. As most of the future smart objects (i.e. things) are battery powered, high efficiency in energy consumption to prolong their operational lifetime will have significant importance. Current wireless technologies have an inherent limit in terms of their power consumption because they have to modulate a baseband signal onto the carrier frequency in order to transmit data between objects. Human Body Communication simply uses baseband signal to transmit information among low-power devices that are intended to be carried or touched by the humans. It can serve as a low complexity technology for a variety of use-cases in consumer electronics, healthcare, and in general any application that requires high security. As HBC is not based on radio wave propagation, there will be no chance of signal leakage through air. Therefore, this technology will essentially eliminate any risk of potential eavesdropping. At the same time, it will not be susceptible to radio frequency interference from other nearby devices. This will lead to high reliability in communicating critical data. Because of these features, HBC has received considerable attention by researchers in the past few years. However, an insufficient understanding of the channel characteristic in which a baseband signal is directly transmitted through the human body has restricted the growth and practical use of this technology. Development of HBC-based technology involves the use of optimally designed electrodes that will interface the body surface and a communicating device. Limited knowledge of these electrodes are currently available in the literature and there are no comprehensive studies on their performance. In this project, we plan to emulate the HBC (Human Body Communication) technology on a virtual human body model, and study and develop channel corresponding channel models Requirement: NIST is seeking information from all vendors who can design virtual electrode(s) models for use in an HFSS (High Frequency Electromagnetic Field Simulation) simulation environment. The performance of the developed electrodes shall be evaluated using a human body model in HFSS (High Frequency Electromagnetic Field Simulation. The following tools are required to develop and research the performance of the virtual electrodes both in Electric and Magnetic domains using an appropriate computational human body model. 1. ANSYS HFSS (3D High-frequency electromagnetic field simulator by finite element method) 2. High Resolution 3D CAD Human Body Model including tissue dielectric properties (that can be interfaced with HFSS) 3. MATLAB (interactive software for numerical simulations, data analyses and plots) 4. Maxwell 3D (3D High-frequency electromagnetic field simulator) Interested parties shall describe the capabilities and experience of their organization and personnel as it relates to the requirements described above. NIST is seeking responses from all responsible vendors. The small business size standard associated with the NAICS code for this effort, 541512, Computer Systems Design Services, with a size standard of $27.5 M. Please include your company's size classification and socio-economic status in any response to this notice. 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 Prateema.carvajal@nist.gov no later than the response date for this sources sought notice. Requirements for Responding to this notice: All interested capable Vendors may respond to this notice by submitting a Capability Statement. The statement should include the following, at minimum: 1) Name, Address, DUNS number, CAGE code, company website URL and point of contact information of your company. 2) Company size classification and socioeconomic status. 3) Capability statement. 4) Indication of whether the products described in this notice are currently on one or more GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts or other applicable GWAC and, if so, the applicable contract number(s). 5) Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider when finalizing its market research Responses are limited to a total of twelve (12) 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. All responses shall be sent to prateema.carvajal@nist.gov by March 30, 2017 @ 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time with the following subject line "Virtual Electrodes for Human Body Communications". Point of Contact Prateema Carvajal, Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 975-4390, Email Prateema.carvajal@nist.gov
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOC/NIST/AcAsD/NB771000-17-02040/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899, United States
- Zip Code: 20899
- Zip Code: 20899
- Record
- SN04442942-W 20170323/170321235419-1ea9013f3223580d08af90a5000a3bbf (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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