A -- REQUEST FOR INTEREST AND COMMENT ON A POTENTIAL NEW PROGRAM: SENSOR INTEGRATION AND MODELING FOR BIOLOGICAL AGENT DETECTION (SIMBAD) Special Notice 00-12. POC: Dr. Steven Buchsbaum, Program Manager, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Special Projects Office (SPO), 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22203-1714. Facsimile: (703) 516-7360, E-mail: BAA00-17@darpa.mil (e-mail contact preferred). Contractual point of contact: DARPA Contracts Management Office (CMO), Attn: Ms. Kristen Numrych, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22203-1714. Facsimile: (703) 696-2208; E-mail: knumrych@darpa.mil (e-mail contact preferred). DARPA anticipates a release of a BAA in this area in early March. DARPA estimates that funding for this effort will be approximately $3M per year per team with the possibility of multiple teams. OBJECTIVE: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Special Projects Office (SPO) is soliciting comments on a potential solicitation for a program on "Sensor Integration and Modeling for Biological Agent Detection (SIMBAD)" from qualified corporations, research centers, universities,FFRDCs and DOE laboratories. Under the SIMBAD program DARPA seeks to develop well-characterized sensor systems for BW and CW agent detection. These well-characterized sensor systems may be developed by maturing current and emerging BW and CW sensor technologies or developing new technologies as required. In this context, a sensor system is a complete end-to-end capability of fully integrated technologies capable of monitoring the environment and providing an automated decision output regarding the presence or absence of a threat. In addition to producing fully integrated and well-characterized sensor systems, this effort should develop tools and methodologies that will result in a significant increase in our understanding of these systems and technologies. This increased understanding should include the ability to produce detailed performance predictions (Pd, Pfa, receiver operating characteristics, etc.) for a wide range of applications: military and civilian, domestic and foreign, indoors and outdoors. DARPA believes this expertise and understanding can be achieved through the formation of multi-disciplinary teams, or consortia, which consist of such disciplines as biology, chemistry, medicine, mathematics, physics, fluid dynamics, computational science, and engineering, including systems engineering. We seek a comprehensive effort to develop, model, validate and optimize the performance of current and emerging sensor technologies to provide an extension of our capabilities to standards of performance and understanding which far exceed the current state of the art for CW and BW sensors. DARPA requests that all parties interested in participating in this BAA register their organization by providing a principal point of contact, phone number, fax and email to BAA00-17@darpa.mil. Unless specifically requested otherwise, a listing of all registered organizations and point of contact information will be provided to all that register. In order to facilitate discussions related to teaming, DARPA requests each organization interested in participating in this potential BAA provide a brief statement of interest and capabilities, not to exceed two pages. This statement of interest, along with the contact information will be posted to a password-protected DARPA website. Each potential bidder who provides both contact information and a statement of interest and capabilities will be provided password-controlled access to this website. In addition to providing an electronic forum to encourage teaming, DARPA is considering hosting a bidders' conference. During the bidders' conference, DARPA may elect to provide an opportunity for potential bidder's to brief their capabilities and areas of interest to other conference participants. DARPA currently anticipates that this conference would be held on Wednesday March 15, 2000 in the Washington, DC area. DARPA requests bidders to register for the conference by sending an email (with the subject line "BIDDER CONFERENCE," providing the name of the organization and including all attendees)to BAA00-17@darpa.mil. In this email, bidders are requested to indicate if they desire an opportunity to provide a briefing. Additional instructions will be provided to those who register for the conference. Additional technical information regarding this potential BAA is made available for comment at http://www.darpa.mil/baa/#spo. DARPA requests written comments to be provided no later than February 22, 2000. These comments are requested via email at BAA00-17@darpa.mil. For potential bidders who choose to provide comment on this notice, DARPA requests a discussion of the following questions: 1) Would potential bidders be interested in providing short briefings on capabilities and interest during the bidder's conference? Would this be a useful mechanism to encourage teaming? What other mechanisms would bidders suggest to encourage teaming? 2) What is the format and content of the threat descriptions that would be most useful for sensor modeling? 3) What facilities do you anticipate needing for sensor model validation? Do you anticipate requesting the use of Government facilities? 4) DARPA will consider requiring an electronic submission of proposals in a web structure format delivered on CD-ROM. Please comment on the desirability of submitting CD-ROM vs. paper proposals. WEB: http://www.darpa.mil/baa/#spo, http://www.darpa.mil/baa/#spo. E-MAIL: BAA00-17@darpa.mil, BAA00-17@darpa.mil. Posted 02/08/00 (W-SN422943).

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