Rome Laboratory/PK, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY 13441-4514

A -- DUAL USE APPLICATION PROGRAM SOL BAA No. 97-03-PKPF POC Contact Bill Kaveney, Program Manager, AC 315/330-1860 or Carla Wallaesa, Grants Officer, AC 315/330-7092. Rome Laboratory (RL) is interested in receiving proposals for Dual Use Science and Technology (S&T). Proposals in response to this BAA are due by 14 April 97, 1500 hours Eastern Time, addressed to Rome Laboratory/XPD, Attn: Mr Bill Kaveney, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome NY 13441-4514. This program is being conducted in cooperation with DOD's Dual Use Application Program (DUAP) managed by the Joint Dual Use Program Office (JDUPO). RL seeks projects to create and develop new product or process technologies which have potential for both Air Force and commercial applications. If successfully developed, the technology will have both Air Force relevance and sufficient potential commercial applications to support a viable production base. Approximately $150M in Government funding is planned for the DUAP throughout the entire DOD. Half of this will be provided by the JDUPO and half by the various DOD agencies which are issuing individual BAAs in order to compete for the DUAP funding. An initial source selection under this RL BAA will be made by RL, subsequent higher level authorities and finally by a planned steering group composed of service acquisition executives, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering and the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for International and Commercial Programs. The proposer must bear at least 50% of the cost of the proposed effort in the form of cost sharing. Awards will be in the form of nonprocurement cooperative agreements and other transactions. Proposals that involve either basic research or final product development beyond the stage of product prototype or feasibility demonstration are outside the scope of the competition and will not be acceptable. Topic areas, with technical points of contact and cost estimates are found at the end of this announcement. Expected Award Date: 1997 Sep. During the proposal review and final stages of the selection process, some proposers may be asked to provide clarification and/or oral presentations to members of the selection panel or to travel to Rome Laboratory, Rome NY, or other location. Proposals must reference the above BAA number. Proposals shall be submitted in an original and five copies. Offerors are advised that only contracting officers are legally authorized to bind or otherwise commit the government. Cost proposals should be organized to include three columns in the following order: total project cost, cost sharing and in-kind contributions (50% or more), and cost to the Government. Give a detailed breakdown of costs of the project by elements of cost (labor, direct materials, travel, other direct costs, software, patents, royalties, indirect costs, etc.). Cost should also be provided for each task appearing in the statement of work. Sufficient information should be provided in supporting documents to allow the Government to evaluate the reasonableness of these proposed costs. Profit is not allowable. Identify the sources of cash and amounts to be used for matching requirements, the specific in-kind contributions proposed, their value in monetary terms, and the methods by which their values were derived; and identification of the existence of adequate cash or commitments to provide sufficient cash in the future. Technical proposals should include the following four sections: Section 1 -- Executive Summary: Provide a brief technical and business description of the contents of the proposal. Define the technical goals, the technical approach, and the expected technical result. The purpose is to provide technical reviewers an overview of the technologies proposed. Explain strategic alliances, business, and market issues which successful commercialization and production will involve. Reflect that the proposer has thought through the potential business, market, and economic implications if the technical goals of the project are achieved. If a consortium is submitting the proposal, it should demonstrate that there is, indeed, a shared or common team vision. Section 2 -- Technical Issues: Give a detailed explanation of the technicalapproach, objectives, staffing and resources relating to the development of the project. Identify any applicable Government support needed other than funding. Section 3 -- Business Issues: Discuss the business issues that the proposer is facing and proposed commercialization development activities. Include all information necessary for evaluators to make an informed judgment regarding the business aspects of the proposed project as they relate to the selection criteria. Proposers should insure that their discussions as a minimum address sustainability to commercialization or production and demonstration of defense and commercial impact. Section 4 -- Statement of Work. The technical proposal is limited to 40 pages (12 pitch or larger type), double-spaced, single-sided, 8.5 by 11 inches. The page limitation includes all information, i.e. indexes, photographs, foldouts, appendices, attachments, etc. Cost proposals have no limitations, however offerors are requested to keep cost proposals to 15 pages as a goal. BASIS FOR AWARD: The selection of one or more sources for award will be based on an evaluation of an offeror's response (both technical and cost aspects) to determine the overall merit of the proposal in response to the announcement. The technical aspect, which is the first order of priority, shall be evaluated based on the following criteria which are of equal importance: (a) Impact on National Defense; (b) Commercial Viability of Technology; (c) Technical and Management Approach (d) Quality of Cost Share. Cost and/or price is a substantial factor but ranked as the second order of priority. No other evaluation criteria will be used. The technical and cost information will be evaluated at the same time. The Government reserves the right to select for award any, all, part, or none of the proposals received. POINTS OF CONTACT: Technical Contact Point is included with each topic area below. Interested parties should direct all routine communication concerning this acquisition to Carla Wallaesa, Grants Officer at AC 315-330-7092. The topic areas under consideration are listed below. This Commerce Business Daily publication will be available electronically on the World Wide Web. Go to the Rome Laboratory Home Page at the following Internet address: http://www.rl.af.mil. Select "Business Opportunities," then select "Local Business Opportunities." Topic Areas: 3-D Optical Memory Technology: Current Air Force data processing systems require mass digital data storage & retrieval equipment for warfighter support. 3-D optical memory technology possesses unique advantages of ultra-dense data storage, high-speed data transfer operation, random data access, non-volatile storage, no moving mechanical parts and unlimited storage access. The intent of this program is develop & demonstrate optical memory capabilities which allow the DoD and civilian sectors to maintain adequate "Information Superiority". Rome Laboratory via its R&D funding will pursue the development of a suitable optical storage material, and fabrication of a prototype device to demonstrate full functional operation -- data recording, playback and erasure. The industrial partner needs to provide expertise and funding to address several production issues. First, development of a suitable packaging concept for all subsystem components -- laser, passive optical components, storage material, readout detector and electronics. A second aspect involves developing production equipment needed to produce high-quality optical storage material. Expertise in material extrusion and injection molding methods would reduce the current labor intensive, low-output laboratory approach. Total cost of this program would be $5M ($2.5M industry/$2.5M government). The program should be conducted over a two year period. POC: Rome Laboratory/IRAP, Mr. Fred Haritatos, (315) 330-4582, DSN 587-4582. OptoElectronic Integrated Circuits for Signal Processing and Communications: Due to increased consumer and military requirements, commercial sectors are driven to produce systems for signal processing, communications and fast-access bulk storage that operate at high speeds. Conventional technology can no longer handle the vast flow of information; consequently new high speed systems are required. The high speed processing of information in both the optical and electronic domains is needed. The key to providing this is to replace electro-mechanical systems with a faster, more rugged, less expensive Opto-Electronic Integrated Circuit (OEIC). An OEIC consists of optical receivers, emitters, electronics and beam shaping components capable of operating in the microwave region of the RF band. These OEICs can work directly in the optical domain or they can convert signals between optical inputs/outputs to the electronic regime. The Opto-Electronic Integrated Circuit (OEIC) uses optical detectors and lasers for receiving and transmitting optical data, and high speed electronics for signal processing and logic. At present, the monolithically integrated OEIC requires further research and development. Although all of the components can be separately integrated, integration onto a single wafer presents new challenges. A cooperative development effort for a monolithically integrated OEIC is sought. Total cost of this program would be $1.9M ($0.95M industry/$0.95M government). The program should be an 18 -- 24 month effort. POC: Rome Laboratory/OCPA; Dr. M. A. Parker (315-330-4918). Rapid Synthesis of Schedulers: The newest military command and control systems as well as the newest government and commercial management information systems require scheduling capabilities which can be applied to many different problems. The emerging architecture for such schedulers is a common GUI front end and database back end which interacts with a different scheduling agent for each separate problem. The engine must be capable of rapidly scheduling large problems (i.e. tens of thousands of tasks against thousands of resources), capable of interactivity (i.e. the user can dictate any portion of the schedule he desires), and capable of rapid modification (i.e. within several days) to reflect new and revised scheduling constraints and business rules. In addition the scheduler must be capable of supporting reactive rescheduling (i.e. when parts of the schedule are not met for various reasons, it must be able to repair the schedules quickly and without a domino effect of changes throughout the entire schedule.) Environments are sought which facilitate the rapid and inexpensive development and maintenance of such scheduling agents. This program is estimated as a two year effort with a total program cost of $1.75M ($0.875 industry/ $0.875 government). POC: Rome Laboratory/C3CA, Mr. John Lemmer, (315) 330-3655. Tagging Technology For Counter Terrorism And Law Enforcement: There is a need to develop tagging technology to support the Department of Defense's Counter Terrorism efforts and civilian law enforcement. Tagging technology offers the potential to positively identify vehicles, personnel, and weapons remotely before they become a threat. This positive identification is accomplished by placing a "tag" (cooperatively or covertly) on a vehicle, weapon system, person, etc. The tag could be passive or active but would have a code associated with it that would uniquely identify it. The tags would operate at radio frequencies or infrared/optical wavelengths. Depending on the specific frequencies and wavelengths existing sensors would be used to remotely detect the tags. There are three key goals of this effort. The first is to determine which frequencies/wavelengths offer the greatest potential for tagging. As part of this first goal an analysis of passive versus active tags would be accomplished. The second goal is to determine which existing sensors are capable of remotely detecting the tags. The third is to develop processing techniques to separate the tag information from background clutter and noise. Total cost of this program would be $1M ($0.5M industry/$0.5M government). The program should be conducted over a two year period. POC: Rome Laboratory/OCSM, Mr. David Ferris, (315) 330-4408. (0066)

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