Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Contracts Management Office (CMO), 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714

A -- ADVANCED VISION SYSTEMS (AVIS) SOL BAA95-20 DUE 062095 POC Barbara L. Yoon, ARPA/MTO, FAX: (703)696-2201, email: byoon@arpa.mil. ADVANCED VISION SYSTEMS--PROGRAM GOALS: The Advanced Research Projects Agency's (ARPA) Advanced Vision Systems (AVIS) program is seeking proposals in the area of all-digital, programmable, computer accelerator technology that will greatly increase computing performance for image processing and other applications that require large amounts of parallelizable front-end processing. The planned AVIS program is a 36-month, $20M, multi-project, multi-team, research and development effort. The overall goal of the AVIS program is to develop and integrate hardware, software, supporting technology, and application domain expertise to create, demonstrate, and benchmark fully functional prototype hardware/software accelerator systems. Each system will include all software necessary to support application-specific demonstrations and general performance benchmarking at both developer and independent test user sites. Teaming of multiple contractors with complementary strengths in high-speed processor design, computing architectures, software development and management, and application domain expertise is strongly encouraged. Cost sharing is also strongly encouraged. Specifics of the AVIS program goals are described more fully below. The targeted configurations for AVIS are: 1) accelerators for workstations or PCs, having peak processing speeds on the order of tens of GOPs, and 2) accelerators for scalable parallel computers, having peak processing speeds on the order of hundreds of GOPs. AVIS accelerator design concepts should: be scalable in overall processing power and memory to provide both low-cost systems for less stressing applications and high-performance systems for more demanding applications, provide an upgrade path for system components, and address important stressing applications. AVIS projects must demonstrate that their hardware/software accelerator systems provide major performance increases in one or more high-value applications. Application areas of interest include, but are not limited to: 1) Image formation: formation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from collected phase histories, and formation of magnetic resonance and other tomographic images. 2) Automatic target/object recognition: in SAR, infrared, visible, or multi-mode images, and in character recognition, forms processing, medical diagnosis assistance, commercial inspection, and other object recognition applications. 3) Interactive image processing and analysis: rotation, warping, filtering, and other enhancements, rapid traversal through large data sets, image compression/decompression/reconstruction, and image alignment, segmentation, and classification (e.g., for measuring land usage in satellite imagery or tumor size in medical imagery). 4) Training of large neural network pattern classifiers for image, sonar, radar, and speech recognition, time series prediction, and other applications with large data sets and complex network models. AVIS accelerators are also expected to be used in standard scientific and engineering applications, such as computer-aided design (CAD), signal processing, simulations, solving 2 and 3-dimension partial differential equations, etc. However, these applications are not an AVIS focus. PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS: Proposals must: 1) Define the envisioned hardware design in considerable detail, specifying: overall system architecture, hardware components (processors, busing/switching, memory, I/O and sensor interfaces, access to mass storage, etc.) to be used or developed, packaging and configuration, weight, size, and power, and environmental operating characteristics. For proposals that plan to develop specific hardware components, describe those component designs in detail. If the hardware design is scalable, specify how this scalability is achieved. 2) Provide an equally detailed definition and description of the proposed approach to system and application development software. Describe the compilers, debuggers, performance monitoring software, libraries, operating system enhancements required for processor support, anticipated legacy software compatibilities, and software strategies for interacting with and integrating into the host machine. 3) Identify anticipated host platforms and describe how the proposed accelerator will communicate and interact with the host hardware. For proposals aimed at accelerating scalable parallel computer hosts, proposers are encouraged to consider a companion ARPA/CSTO solicitation, ''Embedded and Real-time Applications of High-Performance Scalable Computing,'' under BAA 95-19. 4) Provide justified estimates of the capabilities, performance, and projected unit cost at full production of the proposed system, and compare these metrics to those of current high-performance systems. If the hardware design is scalable, specify how this scalability will affect system cost. 5) Specify a task and data base that will be used to benchmark overall performance of a host/processor system. The task must be a realistic stressing application associated with an important military or commercial problem. 6) Provide a justified estimate of the size of the community of users for this processor. Identify specific military programs and commercial application areas, and describe the proposer's commitment to future productization and upgrading of the technology. SUBMISSION PROCESS: Proposers should submit a preproposal prior to submission of a full proposal. This initial screening is intended to save bidders the time and expense of preparing a full, detailed proposal that is unlikely to win an award. An original and ten (10) copies of each preproposal should be submitted to Dr. Barbara L. Yoon, ARPA/MTO, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714 (ATTN: BAA 95-20) by 4:00 PM local time, 18 April 1995. Preproposals received after this date may not be reviewed. ARPA will screen these preproposals by 18 May 1995 and will then ask the bidders who submitted the most promising preproposals to submit complete technical and cost proposals for full evaluation. An original and ten copies of each full proposal must be submitted to ARPA (at the above address) by 4:00PM local time 20 June 1995. Handwritten and tele-faxed preproposals or proposals will not be accepted. ARPA will not acknowledge receipt of preproposals or proposals or return the copies submitted. Preproposals and proposals not selected for funding will be destroyed in a manner that protects proprietary data. The title page for both the preproposal and proposal must reference BAA#95-20 and contain the following information: the title, the date, the name and address of the offering institution(s), the principal investigator's name, phone number, fax number, e-mail address (if available), and mailing address (if different from the offering institution), the duration of the proposed effort, and the signature of an authorized official from the submitting institution(s). The title page must also include total funds requested from ARPA for the base effort (without options) and provide estimates of any cost share proposed. (Multiple title pages may be used to collect authorized signatures from submitting institutions. These additional pages will not count toward page limitation.) The document page limits are as follows: preproposals may not exceed 15 pages, full proposals may not exceed 40 pages. Both preproposals and full proposals must be written on single-sided, double-spaced pages, with page size no larger than 8 1/2 X 11 inches, font size no smaller than 12 point, and with one-inch left/right margins, 1.25 inch top margins, and 1.0 inch bottom margins on all sheets. The 15-page preproposal and 40-page full proposal limits do not include the title page, but do include all figures, charts, and tables. Preproposals must include (1) a title page, as described above, (2) a concise but specific technical description of the project approach that satisfies the ''Proposal Requirements'' stated previously, (3) a description of the anticipated deliverables, (4) a brief description of the team members and their roles, and (5) estimated costs and level of cost share. Proposals must contain technical and cost sections. The technical section must contain, but is not limited to (1) a title page, as described above, (2) a table of contents, (3) a one-page abstract, (4) technical background, (5) a full, detailed technical discussion of the project approach that satisfies the ''Proposal Requirements'' stated previously, (6) a description of the anticipated deliverables, (7) a Statement of Work, (8) a management plan, (9) a one page summary of the cost, including cost share, (10) a description of the facilities to be employed in the research and development, including any use of Government furnished property, and (11) professional biographic data of key technical personnel. All proprietary portions of the proposal should be clearly identified and will be treated in the strictest confidence. All preproposals and proposals will be handled, for administrative purposes only, by a support contractor, PRC Inc., whose employees will execute nondisclosure statements. EVALUATION CRITERIA: Both the preproposals and the full proposals will be evaluated by the Government with respect to the following evaluation criteria, given in descending order of importance: 1) overall technical merit of the proposal in meeting the stated ''Proposal Requirements'', 2) the proposer's long range technology development strategy for and commitment to this development, as partially evidenced by the proposed cost share, 3) the proposer's capabilities, related experience, facilities, techniques or unique combinations of these as they might contribute to the proposed objectives, 4) the qualifications, capabilities and experience of the proposed key personnel, 5) effective management plan, and 6) relevance of the proposed application area to military and national security needs, and 7) realism of the proposed cost. The Government reserves the right to consider program balance when selecting proposals to fund from among those judged technically meritorious under this BAA. The Government reserves the right to include consultants from non-profit institutions on the evaluation team. Any consultant used in this fashion is prohibited from competition in the AVIS program and is bound by appropriate non-disclosure requirements. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement. The Government anticipates making multiple awards totaling approximately $20 million over 3 years. Awards are anticipated to be for a 36-month period of performance. Additional optional years may be included in the proposed work. (0052)

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