U.S. Army Topographic Engineering Center, Contracts Office (CETEC-CT), 7701 Telegraph Road, Alexandria, VA 22315-3864

A -- DYNAMIC MULTI-USER INFORMATION FUSION (DMIF) Sol BAA 96-02. Due 103096. Contact Rose Holecheck, Program Officer, electronic mail: holech@tec.army.mil or LaVerne Bonar, Contracting Officer (703) 428-6627. The U.S. Army Topographic Engineering Center (TEC) on behalf of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is soliciting proposal abstracts and proposals (technical and cost) for research projects to provide the joint warfighter with a clear and actionable picture of the battlespace through development of advanced technology to support adaptive fusion management and generation of information products tailored to specific and evolving needs of the warfighter. Full technical and cost proposals in response to this BAA shall be submitted to the TEC Contracts Office listed above by 30 October 1996, 1500 hours Eastern Daylight Savings Time. TEC and DARPA will review these and initiate awards for contracts starting on or about the 2nd Quarter of government Fiscal Year 1997. Offerors are encouraged to submit proposal abstracts for a review process. Proposal abstracts submitted for this are due 4 September 1996, 1500 hours Eastern Daylight Savings Time. TEC and DARPA will review the proposal abstracts and respond in writing to the abstract authors, including comments on the likelihood of the full proposal being selected. Exact formats and procedures for the proposal abstract and proposal submission are included in a Proposers Information Package (PIP). Proposals from industry, independent research centers, academia and teams are encouraged. On 20 August 1996 from 1000 to 1600 an unclassified information briefing covering this BAA will be held at the US Army Topographic Engineering Center (TEC), 7701 Telegraph Road, Alexandria, VA. Offerors should follow the procedure in the PIP to attend this briefing. General Goals of this BAA: Focus of the research and development should concentrate on one or more of the four following topics: (1) Adaptive Fusion Management and System Architecture, (2) Dynamic Data Services and Product Finishers, (3) Agile Modeling, and (4) DMIF Testing and Transition Environment and System Integration. TOPIC 1 - The Adaptive Fusion Management and System Architecture objective is to obtain maximum system performance by tasking existing fusion engines to process incoming data according to processing strategies that vary depending on characteristics of the incoming observations, the tactical situation, and the users mission requirements. The focus is broad, robust functionality rather than optimal performance. An architecture is required that will consist of standards, services, and infrastructure at the semantic level (above the level of hardware platforms, operating systems, and syntactic interoperability) that permits the cooperative interaction of diverse fusion, aggregation, and correlation algorithms and other system components (including those developed under other Topics in this BAA). Proposed approaches will include automated techniques to use a set of n well characterized existing fusion engines to produce hypotheses about battlefield entities and activities, as well as new approaches to fusion and correlation to provide currently unavailable capabilities. TOPIC 2 - DMIF will utilize a dynamic database to store and align information about the enemy. This data source should be able to incorporate multiple parallel levels of representations organized over technically or tactically relevant dimensions. Services associated with the dynamic database should include standard database functions, alignment across levels of representation, replication and update across multiple users and distributed servers, and query and processing functions related to the Product Finishers. The objective of Product Finishers is to provide warfighters with specific, mission oriented products that are tailored to each users needs and the current tactical situation. A clear and actionable product must be formed in a timely and accurate manner from the existing and emerging information sources. There may be multiple simultaneous dynamic views of the battlespace which must be synchronized, queried, computed, and filtered into order to compose value added products unique to a particular mission or user without requiring excessive modifications to support new users or applications. Therefore any proposed solution must address formulation of flexible output specifications and mixed initiative processing. TOPIC 3 - The objective of agile modeling is to develop user tools for creating and modifying models needed to capture patterns and predictable aspects of operations in the battlespace. These models will be used to drive the inference process of the fusion engines described in Topic 1. These tools will permit operational users in the field to adapt models to new environments and changing Tactical situations. Field modification in battle-relevant time periods will require significant advances in user-friendly model representation and in techniques to promote the extendability and reusability of models, such as model fragment libraries with composition, editing, and consistency toolsets. Methods that permit users to identify and reduce degredation of performance in a dynamic battlespace are required including model discovery techniques for automated or mixed initiative processes to correct and adapt models in a manner that maintains their consistency, understandability, and computability are needed. TOPIC 4 - The objective of the DMIF Test and Transition Environment (T&TE) is to provide distributed test, evaluation, emulation/simulation capabilities and integration for evolving DMIF functionality to support user/domain engineering, software/hardware system engineering, and transitions to operational customers. The DMIF testbed and transition environment should include traditional system integration and T&E objectives for all aspects of the DMIF program, as well as integration and interoperation with other systems, the ability to test and implement the insertion of DMIF technology into existing systems, and frequent interaction with users and surrogate users. The T&TE would also instantiate, experiment with, analyze and validate the DMIF architecture, standards, and system infrastructure using existing simulation capabilities in a distributed manner to the maximum extent feasible. The testbed should facilitate measurement of DMIF performance with respect to existing fusion engines, the control topology for real-time adaptive processing, mixed initiative processing, information loads on DMIF and downstream systems and the insertion time and effort needed for an nth DMIF system build in a given new insertion environment. Test data sets and a test and evaluation environment should be provided by the contractor for algorithms, system components, system integration and insertion, system architecture, and overall system performances. Regular demonstrations of DMIF performance and DMIF integration with other systems will be required. Approaches that support and enhance interoperability between new development, existing systems, and simulations are of interest. For all four of the above topics the proposed research should result in more than a concept; resulting software should be directly transferable for testing at TEC and/or other research centers through compatibility with relevant military and industrial standards and logical extentions to such standards. DARPA's projected total funding for the proposed research and development is approximately $39,000,000 with approximately $6,000,000 to $10,000,000 available under planned FY97 funding. It is anticipated that four or more contracts of varying sizes and duration will result from this BAA. TEC anticipates that initial contractor selections will be made during the second quarter of fiscal year 1997. To be considered in the initial contract award period, proposals should be submitted by 30 October 1996. However, proposals submitted within 12 months after publication of this BAA will be considered for award if funding is available. Proposed work should be structured to have a base period of performance of 12 to 15 months, and may include multiple year phased options that extend beyond the initial period. Although not explicitly sought, contractors may submit study proposals for an evaluation of highly innovative emergent technological capabilities that would allow significant advances in technologies related to the four topics named in this BAA. Study offerors with approaches or innovative concepts are encouraged to submit an abstract in order to gain early feedback on the desirability of the approach. For study proposals to be considered, they should be proposed for 12 months or less at a cost of $300,000 or less, and should offer the prospect of solutions that could be easily transferred to other developers and/or development approaches suitable for demonstration in a follow-on effort not to exceed 24 months. For all proposals, the selection of one or more sources for award will be based on an evaluation of an offerors response (both technical and cost aspects) to determine the overall merit of the proposal in response to the announcement. The criteria are as follows in order of importance: (A) the potential significance of the proposed effort to DMIF, (B) the innovative aspects of the proposed effort, (C) the offerors capabilities, related experience, facilities, techniques, or unique combinations thereof that are integral factors for achieving the proposed objectives, (D) the qualifications, capabilities, and experience of the proposed principal investigator and personnel who are key to program success, (E) defensibility of estimated cost, and (F) past performance. A Proposers Information Package (PIP) has been prepared for this BAA. This notice, in conjunction with the BAA 96-02 PIP constitutes the total BAA. The PIP provides important information on the following areas: program technical rationale and program goals for each topic, program schedule, proposal preparation and submission, award criteria, the submission of questions via electronic mail, and other important information. All administrative correspondence and questions on this solicitation, including requests for information on how to submit a proposal abstract or proposal to this BAA, must be directed to one of the administrative addresses; e-mail or fax is preferred. TEC intends to use electronic mail and fax for most correspondence regarding BAA 96-02. Technical and contractual questions should be directed to less than baa96-02@tec.army.mil greater than and may be answered directly or through the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file. The administrative addresses for this BAA and file access information, the PIP and FAQ file are available at http://www.tec.army.mil/ or through electronic mail (instructions below). Email Auto-Responder is cap sensitive. Use lower case only. For auto-responder access to ALL available files on BAA 96-02, send an email message to less than baa-info@tec.army.mil greater than with no subject. Within the body of message enter: info baa 96-02. You will receive a listing of all available files and instructions on how to access them via email auto-responder. Fax: 703-428-6995 addressed to BAA 96-02. Mail: Director, US Army Topographic Engineering Center, Attn: CETEC-CT (BAA-96-02) 7701 Telegraph Road, Alexandria, VA 22315-3864. Read PIP for full instructions. This is an unrestricted announcement. Proposals submitted shall be in accordance with this announcement. There will be no other solicitation issued in regard to this requirement. Offerors should be alert for any BAA amendments that may be published. No portion of the BAA will be set aside for HBCU or MI participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of research for exclusive competition among the entities. HBCUs and MIs are encouraged to team with other proposers. (218)

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