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

A -- COMMUNICATIONS AND SITUATION AWARENESS ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR SMALL UNIT OPERATIONS SOL BAA 97-14 DUE 123197 POC Dr. Mark McHenry, DARPA/TTO, FAX (703) 696-2204. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking proposals to develop and demonstrate discrete enabling technologies that would support the DARPA Small Unit Operations (SUO) program. This solicitation is limited to developing unique and innovative enabling tactical communications and situation awareness technologies that, if successful, could be integrated into an SUO Situation Awareness System (SAS). Priority will be on technologies that are not duplicative of other technologies currently available or under development. Uniqueness to SUO is key. Offerors are required to obtain the SUO Communications and Situation Awareness Enabling Technologies Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP) for a description of the overall SUO program and how these technologies apply to that program. PROGRAM SCOPE: This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) addresses communications and situation awareness technologies that could directly enable evolutionary improvements in communications between widely dispersed maneuvering warfighters, position determination and situation understanding in restrictive environments (urban, heavily forested and mountainous). Emphasis is on urban environments to include communications, position determination and situation understanding while inside and adjacent to buildings and other structures. The technologies developed under this BAA are not expected to be total communications or situation awareness systems, but rather, highly innovative, discrete technologies that, when integrated with other technologies, could result in revolutionary improvements in soldier communications and situation awareness. DARPA's intent is to focus on technology gaps that are not currently being developed under existing military communications or situation awareness initiatives. DARPA has programmed approximately $16 million in FY97 and FY98 funds for this effort. Multiple awards are anticipated, with individual awards not expected to exceed $2 million. Offerors are required to propose a basic12-month effort, including multiple demonstrations to assist the Government in determining concept viability, with a 12-month option period for further refining / demonstrating the technologies. Enabling technologies developed under this BAA may ultimately be integrated into a total SAS. Offerors are referred to BAA 97-15, SUO SAS, which is being conducted in parallel with BAA 97-14. The Government requires broad dissemination of the progress and results of the enabling technologies development, therefore, offerors are notified that all awards resulting from BAA 97-14 will contain the requirement to participate in periodic SUO open reviews. COMMUNICATIONS ENABLING TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Five communications technology areas of particular interest to DARPA are: (1) Technologies that would significantly improve range and/or bandwidth in restrictive, multi-user, networked environments to ensure communications connectivity, (2) Technologies and processes to enable radio relays and relay networks, (3) Advanced communications protocols that enable robust, adaptable network and point-to-point communications among dispersed maneuvering individual warfighters in restrictive environments, (4) Geolocation technologies that use the SUO communication signals or localized supplemental signals to provide the three dimensional location of each warfighter to within 3m accuracy in restrictive environments. Systems which can provide geolocation over a large city area with a minimal soldier burden are of most interest. These technologies should exclude Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Inertial Navigation System (INS), and Long Range Navigation (LORAN) approaches, and (5) Innovative methods of achieving verification of the user's identity to guard against compromised communications in the event of capture/coercion.Where applicable, proposed communications enabling technologies should have low probability of detection (LPD), low probability of intercept (LPI), and anti-jamming (AJ) characteristics with very high processing gain that couldbe used in a multi-user, networked environment. The relative priority of LPI, LPD and AJ depends on the particular application within the SUO environment. Offerors are referred to the PIP for additional details. SITUATION AWARENESS ENABLING TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Five situation awareness technology areas of particular interest to DARPA are: (1) Situation awareness applications software for: techniques for filtering, fusing and reasoning with uncertain information, relevant representation of information at different levels of granularity, planning and situation assessment algorithms, tools and approaches for engineering modular, composable reconfigurable software, and automated forecast of the tactical situation, (2) User interfaces suitable for individual warfighter use such as small, low power visual display devices, aural or other output devices, and voice, handwritten, and pointing devices, (3) small, low power, high capacity data storage devices, excluding rotating media, that are viable for inclusion in an individual warfighter's situation awareness device, (4) information sharing technologies that enable the migration of processes and information to the optimal location such as collaborative computing, location independent processing, and highly interactive access/use of shared objects, (5) Low cost, low power, light weight tracking devices that can provide unique identification of friendly personnel, vehicles, weapons and other assets over long ranges (>100 km) in restrictive environments. AWARD CONSIDERATIONS: The selection of one or more sources for contract award will be based on a scientific review of proposals submitted in response to this BAA. Selection of proposals for award will be based on the potential benefits to the Government weighed against the cost of the proposals, in view of the availability of funds. Proposals will be individually evaluated solely on their own merit based on the following evaluation criteria, listed in descending order of importance: (1) Contribution/relevance to the overall DARPA SUO program, (2) Quality and technical merit of the proposed program, (3) The degree to which technical data and/or computer software developed under the proposed contract are to be delivered to DARPA with unrestricted rights, (4) The offeror's ability to implement the proposed approach as demonstrated by specific accomplishments in the technical field to be studied, by availability of qualified personnel, and by appropriate facilities, (5) Proposed cost and cost realism. Note: Cost realism will be used only as an evaluation criterion in proposals which have significantly under or over estimated the cost to complete their effort. All awards made in response to this BAA will be subject to availability of Government funds. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION: This BAA will remain open until December 31, 1997. To ensure consideration for planned FY97 funding, offerors are required to submit six (6) copies of a pre-proposal which must be received by 4:00 p.m. EST, FEBRUARY 14, 1997, at the DARPA address listed below. DARPAwill review pre-proposals and recommend to those offerors with promising pre-proposals that they submit full technical and cost proposals. This initial screening of pre-proposals will minimize unnecessary effort and expense in proposal preparation and review. All interested offerors are encouraged to submit pre-proposals, however, all responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit a full proposal which will be considered by DARPA. Full proposals must be received at DARPA by 4:00 p.m. EST, April 4, 1997, to ensure consideration for FY97 funding. DARPA anticipates that initial contractor selections will be made during the second quarter of Fiscal Year 1997. However, proposals submitted up to December 31, 1997, may be considered for award if funding is available. Acknowledgment of receipt of pre-proposals or full proposals will not be made and submissions will not be returned. Proposals submitted by telefax or electronic mail will not be considered or evaluated. Offerors are required to obtain Proposer Information Pamphlet, BAA 97-14, which provides further information on pre-proposal and proposal format, page count, the submission process, evaluation and funding processes, technical scope, background information regarding the SUO program, and other useful information. Potential offerors can obtain the PIP from the administrative addresses listed below. GENERAL INFORMATION: It is the policy of DARPA to treat all proposals as proprietary information and to disclose the contents only for the purposes of evaluation. The Government intends to use selected technical experts from Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to provide advice on specific technical areas as necessary. SAIC will not be permitted to bid on this BAA and is restricted by its contract from disclosing any submitted information or using it for purposes other than performing the limited purpose of technical assessment stated above. Nondisclosure notices notwithstanding, proposals will be handled for administrative purposes by SAIC. Technical experts from the National Security Agency (NSA), the Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM), the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and other Government agencies will assist DARPA in reviewing pre-proposals and proposals, and provide technical advice to DARPA. Selections under this BAA will be made only by Government evaluators. 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 due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of research in the development and demonstration of advanced communications and situation awareness technologies for small unit operations. The Government reserves the right to select for award any, all, part, or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement. This CBD notice, in conjunction withthe pamphlet BAA 97-14, Proposer's Information Pamphlet, constitutes the BAA as contemplated by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.102(d)(2). A formal RFP or other solicitation regarding this announcement will not be issued and requests for same will be disregarded. Awards are subject to the provisions of the 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. Affirmation should be furnished at the time of proposal submission. All facts relevant to the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in the FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. The disclosure shall include a description of the action the offeror has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. This BAA is an expression of interest only and does not commit the Government to pay any pre-proposal or proposal preparation costs. ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION: All requests for the PIP, administrative correspondence, or questions on this BAA should be directed to one of the administrative addresses below. DARPA prefers e-mail or fax. Telephone inquiries are strongly discouraged. The administrative addresses for this BAA are: Electronic Mail: BAA97-14@DARPA.mil, FAX: SAIC: 703-841-4759 (Addressed to: DARPA/TTO, BAA97-14, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714). The PIP may also be obtained by accessing the World Wide Web at URL address (http://www.darpa.mil) and downloading the information for storage and/or printing. (0014)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0009 19970116\A-0009.SOL)