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

A -- AIRBORNE VIDEO SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS INTEGRATOR (AVS-SI) POC Contractual POC: Algeria Tate, Fax (703) 696-2208 WEB: http://www.darpa.mil, http://www.darpa.mil. DARPA will be soliciting proposals (technical and cost) for the System Integration effort in support of an Airborne Video Surveillance (AVS) System for surveillance imagery exploitation and targeting. A solicitation will be issued which will lead to one award using the authority of Section 845 in the 1994 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 103-160), as amended by Section 804 of the 1997 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 104-201). Section 845 agreements, otherwise known as other transaction agreements for prototype projects, reduce the traditional administrative burden and oversight created under government contracts. On 20 November 1997 from 0900 to approximately 1530 an unclassified informational briefing to industry covering this solicitation will be held at Holiday Inn, 4610 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA. Requests for reservations for attendance at the industry briefing only are requested of all attendees by 1500 EST on 10 November 1997 via electronic mail message to avs_program@darpa.mil or by fax to 3AVS Program2 at 703 696-2201. The request should include the following: name of attendee(s), title, organization, department or company division, phone, fax, and electronic mail address. If requested attendance exceeds capacity, organizations will be notified to limit the number of participants. Attendees must make their own hotel reservations. A limited block of hotel rooms has been set aside at the Holiday Inn (Phone: 703 243-9800) under the reference 3DARPA AVS Program2. Additional accommodations may be available at the following hotels: (a) In the area of Ballston, within walking distance of the Holiday Inn: Comfort Inn (703) 247-3399; Arlington Hilton (703) 528-6000; (b) in the Rosslyn area of Arlington, VA, a 10 minute Metrorail ride from the Ballston area: Holiday Inn Rosslyn Western Park (703) 527-4814, Hyatt (703) 525-1234, Best Western Key Bridge (703) 522-0400, and Marriott Key Bridge (703) 524 6400. General Goals of This Program: Unmanned aerial vehicle technology has produced a number of video (defined for AVS as any electro-optical (EO) or infrared (IR) sensor operating at greater than 1 Hz) reconnaissance and surveillance vehicles currently in operational use. These have the capability to collect and provide video imagery directly to ground exploitation systems and command posts. Motion video data is proving to be quite powerful in these deployments for a number of reasons, many related to the use of temporally varying motion imagery as opposed to still frame imagery. However, in early deployed prototype systems, sensor control and video exploitation are completely manual and the geolocation of targets is imprecise. The challenges of manual teleoperation, efficient exploitation of large volumes of video data, operator/analyst fatigue, and imnprecise geolocation have been noted within the UAV video user community. The AVS program will generally be structured as follows (more detailed descriptions are provided in the Program Solicitation): Under individual Technology Subsystem Research and Development (TSRD) work package awards, advanced technologies are being developed, evaluated, documented and delivered for integration into demonstrations and mission evaluations. Four possible TSRD technology areas have been identified: Precision Video Registration (PVR), Multiple Target Surveillance (MTS), Activity Monitoring (AM) and Other Advanced Video Surveillance (Other). The TSRD awardees will contribute extensively to the overall program design and management efforts, deliver integratable subsystems and subsystem 3tool kits2 to the AVS SI, and support the AVS SI during integrations, demonstrations, and evaluations. The AVS Systems Integrator will lead the AVS system design and integration effort, conducting quarterly program-wide coordination meetings in which all program participants will develop concepts of operation, designs, plans, and schedules for annual demonstrations and mission evaluations of increasingly capable AVS integrated systems. The SI will also design, develop, test, and document an AVS Core Air Ground System (CAGS) that will provide common software functions necessary to all TSRDs. The SI will integrate and test subsystems supplied by the TSRDs and conduct annual demonstrations, mission evaluations and field exercises. SPONSOR: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contracts Management Office (CMO), 3701 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington VA 22203-1714 (0310)

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