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

A -- PLANNING AND DECISION AIDS SOL BAA96-33 DUE 093097 POC Planning and Decision Aids, fax (703) 516-6065 Alan Frederick, DARPA/CMO (703) 696-0047. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office and the Air Force Rome Laboratory are soliciting proposals for research and new technology development related to the support of highly responsive, integrated, and highly interleaved Command and Control (C2) processes, with primary emphasis on integrating and managing closed-loop cycles of planning/scheduling, execution monitoring, and focused replanning/rescheduling. Proposals are solicited to cover a range of projects from basic research through advanced applications. Information in this announcement is NOT complete. Prospective offerors MUST also refer to the associated Proposer Information Packet (PIP) before submitting a proposal. The military commander needs C2 systems capable of providing options to enable the proper set of resources to be brought to the optimal point of application at the most appropriate time in order to achieve reliable, predictable, and cost-effective results. The aim of this BAA is to develop and demonstrate technology that will form the foundation for building future, highly-responsive, effective, near-real-time C2 systems that satisfy these needs. The overall challenge is to change dominant planning and decision making paradigms by creating extremely rapid automated capabilities that maximize synergy with human capabilities, thereby enabling a transition from long-leadtime deliberative processes to fast paced, responsive decision making suitable for high optempo crises. This capability will provide commanders superior abilities to maintain control over complex, dynamic, and highly-stressed situations. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES: DARPA and the Rome Laboratory are seeking technology that enables plan-based, proactive coordination and control. This technology is defined as the ability of an organization to define its objectives, decompose them into tasks, plan and schedule its activities, monitor the execution environment to assess threats to the viability of the plan as activities are performed, and rapidly reason about whether/how to adapt either the plan OR the objectives to respond to the new state of the environment. This technology requires a significant scaling in performance of current technologies. The techniques must also be architected to be highly adaptive/responsive. They should be based upon explicit and analyzable representations that support and integrate multiple distributed components and functions. The representations should support execution monitoring feedback loops in which events are not just detected but assessed for threats to the viability of the plan. They must support analysis and control to enable minimal-perturbation replanning. Finally, in addition to dramatically increasing levels of automation, algorithms and representations must facilitate involving humans in the planning and decision making loop in a way that recognizes both the need for control and for discretionary judgement. To this end, proposals are sought in five areas: 1. Dynamic Plan Generation: Adaptive technology for adaptive and responsive planning in the face of unpredictable, ambiguous and rapidly-changing environments. Topics in this area include: performance improvements through integration of case-based and generative planning, planning in dynamic environments, planning against adversaries, partial plan satisfaction (resource-constrained, utility-driven planning), minimal perturbation replanning, multilevel planning, planning under uncertainty, resource planning, and information-management planning for handling uncertainty, ambiguity, and dynamism by weaving tasks to acquire information needed for further planning into highly interleaved planning and execution processes. 2. Rapid Scheduling and Allocation: Technology enabling development and maintenance of effective schedules given very short lead times. Topics include: improved performance through integration of multiple techniques, such as case-based and generative scheduling, temporal reasoning, and scheduling/rescheduling given complex constraints. 3. Real-Time C4I Process Management: Technology enabling plan-based proactive control and coordination of planning and execution in dynamic environments. Particular topics of interest include: agents and planning support,knowledge representation facilitating common plan/schedule representations, execution monitoring (including derivation of plan assumptions and expectations, planning of observation tasks for detecting threats to viability of plans, and mechanisms for assessing the significance of potential threats and triggering appropriate replanning), management of planning sensitive to operations tempo, meta-planning that controls and manages interleaving of planning and execution to maximize responsiveness to execution events and outcomes, and intelligent workflow and process techniques suitable for controlling and coordinating highly-interleaved, distributed planning and execution processes. 4.Mixed-Initiative Planning and Scheduling: Technology supporting cooperative division of labor, and effective communication of information, among human and automated participants. Topics include: agent technology for communication/coordination among multiple distributed planning/scheduling agents, process, representation, and control technology supporting internally- and externally-initiated interruption and resumption of planning/scheduling activities, techniques enabling human users to understand and control the planning and scheduling tools with which they are interacting (e.g., abstraction, summarization and explanation mechanisms), plan visualization and techniques for interacting with plans in visual/graphic presentations (e.g., map-based planning), multi-echelon planning and coordination, and facilitation of human judgmental decision making. 5. Integration Contractor: Systems development and services facilitating integration, demonstration, and dissemination of results developed within the program. This includes support for the development and maintenance of a planning testbed, managing Technology Integration Experiments and Integrated Feasibility Demonstrations, and providing information and access to domain experts to assist PDA program contractors. (Please Note! See PIP for intended contract type.) GENERAL INFORMATION: SCHEDULE: Proposals received by 4:00 pm, Monday, 7 October 1996, will be reviewed at the same time and will receive prompt feedback on selectability. Proposals received after that date, but prior to the close of the BAA will be reviewed on an irregular schedule determined by program requirements and availability of funding. This BAA closes 30 September 1997. SUBMISSION: Proposers must submit an original and three (3) copies of FULL proposals to the administrative address for this BAA in order to be considered. (Please Note! White papers are not being considered for this BAA, only full proposals are solicited.) Proposers MUST obtain the BAA96-33 PIP, which provides further information on the content, preparation, format, submission and evaluation criteria of proposals as well as other important information. This packet may be obtained from the World Wide Web one working day after the CBD publication at URL address http://www.darpa.mil/baa/. These documents may also be requested in writing by sending correspondence by facsimile to 703-516-6065 addressed to ATTENTION Planning and Decision Aids or by surface mail addressed to DARPA/ISO, ATTN: BAA96-33 INFORMATION, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. These requests must include the name and phone number of a point of contact. FORMAT: Failure to adhere to the format specified in the PIP is sufficient grounds for refusal to review. This Commerce Business Daily Notice, in conjunction with the BAA96-33 PIP, constitutes the entire BAA. EVALUATION AND AWARD: Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished through a scientific review of each proposal. The following criteria, which are further elaborated in the PIP, will be applied in descending order of relative importance: A. For Areas One through Four:(1) innovation, (2) technical approach, (3) understanding of operating environment and technical state of the art, (4) personnel in primary and subcontractor organizations, (5) capabilities, (6) defensibility of the overall estimated cost. B. For Area Five: (1) system development and system integration capabilities, (2) understanding of operating environment and technical state of the art, (3) access to domain expertise, (4) quality of management plan, (5) past performance, (6) personnel in primary and subcontractor organizations, (7) defensibility of the overall estimated cost. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some or none of the proposals received. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit a proposal, which will be considered by DARPA. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Minority Institutions (MI) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation because of the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of P&DA research for exclusive competition among these entities. It is the policy of DARPA to treat all proposals as competitive information and to disclose the contents only for the purposes of evaluation. The Government intends to use Global Associates, Litton/PRC and MITRE Corporation personnel as special resources to assist with the logistics of administering proposal evaluation and to provide advice on specific technical areas. Personnel of these contractors are restricted by their contracts from disclosing proposal information for any purpose other than these administrative or advisory tasks. Contractor personnel are required to sign Organizational Conflict of Interest Non-Disclosure Agreements (OCI/NDA). By submission of your proposal, you agree that your proposal information may be disclosed to those selected contractors for the limited purpose stated above. Any information not intended for limited release to these contractors must be clearly marked and submitted segregated from other proposal material. SPECIAL NOTICE: Awards made under this BAA are subject to the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All offerors and proposed subcontractors must affirmatively state whether they are supporting any DARPA technical office(s) through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the offeror supports and identify the prime contract number. Affirmations shall be attached to the Contract Pricing Proposal Cover Sheet (SF1411) and submitted with the Cost Proposal. All facts relevant to the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. This disclosure shall include a description of the action the Contractor has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. ADMINISTRATIVE: All administrative correspondence and questions on this solicitation must be directed to one of the administrative addresses below. Email or fax is preferred. DARPA intends to use electronic mail for most technical and administrative correspondence regarding this BAA. Technical and contractual questions should be directed to BAA96-33@darpa.mil. These questions will be answered directly by Email. All questions must be submitted in writing. Administrative Addresses: The PIP and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are available at http://www.darpa.mil/baa/. Written requests for these documents may be sent by facsimile to 703-516-6065 addressed to ATTENTION Planning and Decision Aids or by surface mail addressed to DARPA/ISO, ATTN: BAA96-33 INFORMATION, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. These requests must include the name and phone number of a point of contact. (0232)

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