Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contracts Management Office (CMO), 3701 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington VA 22203-1714

A -- TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT FOR THE JOINT FORCES AIR COMPONENT COMMANDER (JFACC) PROGRAM SOL BAA96-20 DUE 091096 POC Col. E. L. Patneaud, USAF, (703) 696-2375 Alan Frederick, Contracts, (703) 696-0047. TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT FOR THE JOINT FORCES AIR COMPONENT COMMANDER (JFACC) PROGRAM, SOL BAA: 96-20, DUE: 06/15/96, CLOSEOUT: 9/10/96, POCs: Col. E. L. Patneaud, USAF, Technical, (703) 696-2375, Alan Frederick, Contracts, (703) 696-0047,E-mail: baa96-20@darpa.mil. The Information Systems Office (ISO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting white papers for the Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) program. Proposals will be requested for selected white papers. The goal of the JFACC Program is to develop, integrate, and demonstrate technologies which enable revolutionary air operations planning processes that will significantly enhance a JFACC's ability to plan and execute an air operation at any level of crisis - major regional conflicts, coalition warfare, and operations other than war. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES AND DESCRIPTION: The JFACC Program seeks to provide the technological foundation for a ''JFACC After Next'' with operational transition of selected technologies throughout a five year time frame. The JFACC Program objectives are to (1) transform the air operations planning capabilities of the JFACC from a reactive, sequential system to one which provides a continuous, near-real-time predictive planning capability, as well as rapid response to a dynamic situation, (2) provide a robust planning capability enabling rapid evaluation of alternatives, less human-intensive planning processes, and feedback on campaign accomplishment, (3) provide a JFACC planning and execution system that can be tailored to the theater needs, with significant reachback where appropriate, and (4) provide a system that can support a range of operational concepts, including coordinated, decentralized execution of operations. The JFACC program is a multi-year, $100+M program. Three categories of development are sought: (1) Technology-base research and development focused on selected critical challenges to improve operational military planning and decision support. Tasks include development of proof-of-concept demonstrations and preparation of appropriate technologies for insertion into functional application prototypes. (2) Iterative development of prototype functional software applications and common application services which have a high probability of operational transition. Tasks include domain knowledge acquisition, requirements definition, design, development, test, demonstration, and integration with other applications and technology-base projects. (3) Technology integration, evaluation and demonstration of the JFACC program applications and technology-base efforts. New and innovative approaches for integration of heterogeneous applications and technology-base projects are sought. It is anticipated that multiple JFACC technology-base, and applications & services development proposals will be selected. A single JFACC technology integration, evaluation and demonstration proposal will be selected.REQUIREMENTS: White papers may address one or more of the following areas (additional information on these requirements is included in the Proposers Information Package):(1) Technology-Base Research & Development: Higher risk, revolutionary technologies which address the JFACC program objectives. Specific technology challenges include: (a) development and management of common knowledge & plan representations, (b) development and control of planning agents, (c) managing the planning and execution process and flows of information in the process, (d) continuous (re)planning including characterizing and managing plan changes, (e) planning with uncertain, imprecise, and asynchronous information, (f) planning in a simulated (predictive) world including adversarial planning, (g) mixed-initiative planning including rationale capture and exploitation, (h) plan evaluation and visualization, and (i) group collaboration technologies which allow spontaneous group formation and workflow management. Technologies selected for development must be clearly scalable and translatable from the R&D domain to permit operational transition within the JFACC program.(2) Applications and Common Services Development: A set of moderate risk revolutionary tools built on a common infrastructure (i.e., the DARPA-DISA GCCS LES) which, when integrated, form an end-to-end, continuous JFACC Planning and Execution System (JPES). Specific capabilities sought include: (a) Integrated Strategy Development tools which assist the planners in translating Joint Force Commander guidance into air operations objectives, tasks and targets. These tools include: (a.1) course of action tools to create and evaluate friendly vs. enemy courses of action, (a.2) target systems analysis tools which identify centers of gravity and perform critical node analysis, (a.3) air operations strategy selection tools which support development of top-down, strategy-to-task planning processes, and collaborative plan creation among virtual, collaborative teams planning force application, aerospace control, force enhancement (e.g., ISR, airlift, air refueling), and force support (e.g., logistics) resources. (b) Plan Generation tools which allocate and schedule resources against the tasks/targets, resulting in tasking to the lower echelons for execution. Tools will: (b.1) provide a continuous, event-driven planning process which can provide both proactive and reactive resource allocation and scheduling, responding to battlespace situation updates while supporting force-level planning and execution monitoring capabilities, to include generation of preplanned options, (b.2) enable rapid plan generation and evaluation to support the creation and assessment of alternatives. (c) Campaign Assessment tools which update the air operations plan task measures of effectiveness (MOEs) satisfaction with intelligence report updates for the missions flown. (d) Infrastructure which includes: (d.1) visualization tools that produce user specified presentations at any level of aggregation designed to enhance situational awareness for strategic, operational and tactical commanders, (d.2) workflow management tools which plan, monitor and control the planning processes and resources, (d.3) collaboration tools which support the collaborative planning teams using the application and common services. Offerors must identify and provide background on the specific implementation technologies proposed. Applications and services selected for development must be adaptable to any Service air operations planning process, and be extendable to land or naval planning processes.(3) Technology Integration, Evaluation and Demonstration: Apply advanced, cost-effective, flexible methods to integrate, demonstrate, and evaluate the JFACC planning and execution technologies developed in paragraphs (1) & (2) above. Develop a concept of operations and systems architecture for the JPES. Extend Global Command and Control System (GCCS) Leading Edge Services (LES) and infrastructure required to support system level demonstrations. Refine JPES system-level functional requirements and provide development/interface guidelines to technology and application developers. Develop test and demonstration scenarios and data. Plan and execute tests and demonstrations. Evaluate demonstration performance of the JPES and its components. Provide domain expertise to focus the effort of the technology-base developers, and support technology-base transition to the application & common services developers. Also support transition subsets of the JPES to operational environments such as the Air Force Theater Battle Management Core Systems (TBMCS), and DISA GCCS. GENERAL INFORMATION: White papers will be evaluated on factors specified in the Proposers Information Package (PIP) including understanding of the JFACC air operations planning domain, scientific and technical merit of the proposal, soundness of the proposed program plan, relevant experience of the offeror, and cost realism. Successful offerors should demonstrate an approach which exploits revolutionary fundamental technologies, including those pursued by small companies, not-for-profit, and university-based research programs. Teaming between industry and basic research organizations is strongly encouraged. Additional proposers information is available in the PIP accessible via the World Wide Web (WWW) at http://www.arpa.mil/baa/#iso. Offerors who can not access the PIP on the WWW may request, within 10 working days of the BAA publication, that the PIP be e-mailed to them. All other offerors are assumed to be able to access the PIP on the WWW. Offerors should be alert for any PIP amendments which will be automatically published on the WWW. White papers to be considered are due to DARPA by COB 15 June 1996. Proposals will be due to DARPA by COB 10 September 1996. Contracts are expected to be awarded in the January 1997 timeframe. Unless otherwise directed by the proposer, non-government technical advisors will participate in the white paper and proposal review process. Procurement instruments forthcoming from this BAA may include contracts, grants, and/or agreements. A cost plus award fee (CPAF) contract for the Technology Integration, Evaluation and Demonstration effort is anticipated. The provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) at 9.5 (Organizational Conflict of Interest) apply in an award under this BAA. Accordingly, a potential offeror is cautioned to review its contract and subcontract history, and before incurring substantial proposal preparation expense, to determine whether or not in its judgment a real or potential conflict of interest does or might exist that will prevent the contracting officer from considering its proposal, or making an award under this BAA. Questionable circumstances or situations should be addressed to the contracting officer for resolution and decision as soon as possible. Offerors are also cautioned that (1) the absence of any communication between offerors and the contracting officer on these matters (real or potential conflict of interest) shall not preclude the contracting officer from conducting his or her own research and analysis, and arriving at his or her own determination relative to the existence of real or potential conflicts of interest, and (2) in the event of a determination of a conflict of interest, the government shall not be liable for the cost of proposal preparation and submission. There will be no other solicitations issued regarding the requirements described above. DARPA reserves the right to select for award any, all, part or none of the proposals received. No portion of the BAA will be set-aside for HBCU and MI participation because of the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of development for exclusive competition among these entities. Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Institutions are encouraged to team with other offerors. On 20 May 1996 DARPA will host an unclassified informational briefing to industry for this BAA . The briefing will be held from 0900-1700 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Pentagon City, 1250 S. Hayes St., Arlington, VA, (703)415-5000. Offerors should submit requests to attend this briefing via e-mail to ''baa96-20@darpa.mil'' by 15 May. Companies and other institutions should coordinate internally to submit a prioritized list of requested attendees. These lists should include each requested attendee's name, title, institution or company, telephone, fax, and electronic mail address. Requesters will be notified by e-mail that their request can be honored. If requested attendance exceeds capacity, it may be necessary to limit attendance. SPONSOR: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contracts Management Office(CMO), 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. 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