99 -- ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES AS IT APPLIES TO THE COUNTER BATTERY ATTACK MISSILE

Notice Date

May 15, 2001

Contracting Office

Commander, Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, Code 210000D, 1 Administration Circle, China Lake, CA 93555-6100

ZIP Code

93555-6100

Solicitation Number

N68936-01-R-0082

Response Due

June 30, 2001

Point of Contact

Jerry Manley, Contract Specialist, 760-939-4273, Doreen Robbins, Contracting Officer, 760-939-9665, manleyja@navair.navy.mil

Description

The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) China Lake, CA is seeking sources capable of providing information on advanced technologies in passive infrared/visible/UV missile seekers, cameras, RF/MMW radiometers, active laser radars/range-finders, and RF/MMW real-beam or synthetic aperture radars as it applies to the Counter Battery Attack Missile (CBAM) project. The CBAM project is a concept designed to use an existing missile system (for example, Standard Missile) and extend the current seeker capabilities by inserting a new sensor or sensors, new signal processing algorithms, and new guidance and control algorithms which detect, track and terminally engage targets which have a short dwell time (e.g. transporter/erector/launchers or TELs). This technology must work under either day or night conditions and in adverse weather. CBAM is a demonstration program funded under the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Time Critical Strike (TCS) Future Naval Capabilities (FNC) project. The objective of CBAM is to demonstrate the capability to counter-attack a Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) in response to the use of Theater Ballistic Missile. The CBAM project starts in the fiscal year 2002 and completes in fiscal year 2005. As part of a market survey, the Naval Air Systems Command and its field activity NAWCWD, China Lake CA are seeking information about existing passive and active single or multimode sensors, that could be used with image processing algorithms designed to solve the automatic target recognition (ATR) problem of 'Finding Target X.' Of particular interest are existing or developmental missile seekers which may be well suited to the notional concept of operations for CBAM. The information that is collected will be used to aid the development of program requirements. A notional concept of operation for a CBAM is as follows: A TBM launch is detected using either an E2-C or AEGIS radar system. Those systems perform a track-back function and locate the launch point within a given accuracy. That launch point is used as a targeting resource to a CBAM missile located aboard a ship. In response to the TBM launch, a CBAM missile is launched at the TEL located in the vicinity of the TBM launch point. CBAM flies out to that calculated launch point and begins searching for the target, which may or not be in motion during the search phase. The search basket will be determined by sensor hand-over errors, in-flight update capability, weapon navigation errors, possible target speeds, local terrain constraints, and may be quite large. In addition to on-board sensors, the CBAM may also be cued by off-board sensors, possibly in the form of imagery of the target or simply an updated geo-location of the target. CBAM begins imaging the area using a seeker. An ATR function is performed on the imagery produced by CBAM and the TEL is thus located. Once the TEL is located, the CBAM missile will engage the TEL destroying it. The following are important notes regarding the CBAM concept of operations: Due to the very short dwell time of the TEL post launch, the CBAM fly-out must be very fast. It is envisioned that the weapon will fly supersonic to near the launch point and then slow to just over mach 1 for the end game. This will limit the amount of time the seeker/sensor system has to search the target area, locate potential targets, and select the TEL. Interaction with a UAV during the CBAM missile fly-out may reduce the search area by mid-course target updates. Nevertheless, the search area could be quite large. Weapon fly-out profiles have yet to be determined. However, weapon profiles will likely be at a steep dive during the terminal phase of flight. MMW imaging or queuing systems must be designed to tolerate these high grazing angles, with sufficient resolution to accomplish ATR or first level classification potentially followed by a handoff to another sensor with ATR capability. However, the limitations of radar solutions at the high grazing angles can be used to help define the kinematically acceptable fly-out profiles that will ultimately be used in an operation system. Seeker/sensor solutions must have good sensitivity and resolution given that there will likely be other vehicles with similar characteristics in the area. Examples of similarly shaped vehicles include oil trucks, tractor-trailer rigs, school buses and decoys. The target can be at any aspect angle and may or may not be moving. The search area can be constrained given local terrain features and vehicle characteristics. Mid-course UAV updates may provide more than just target coordinates and may also provide imagery of the target. Output from the ATR system will be used as input to the missile Guidance and Control to help guide the missile to the target. Information of interest includes the following: a) Contact; b) Company; c) Brief technical description of the sensor technology; d)Brief description of how the sensor technology fits into the CBAM concept; e)Brief description of how the sensor technology has been applied to other applications; f) Brief description of how the sensor technology has been tested; g)Brief description of the sensor technology performance. Item c through item g must not exceed 15 pages in total length. The above information will be used to assess the following: a) Applicability to CBAM; b) Maturity and cost of the sensor technology; c) External information required for interfaces to the sensor technology and format; d) Amount of required user interaction, if any; and e) Approach performance assessment. The information collected will be used to support the planning process for identifying missile seeker or related technologies that meet the requirements for the CBAM follow-on. Interested parties shall provide their information to Commander (Code 210000D), NAWCWPNS (Attn.: Jerry Manley), 1 Administration Circle, China Lake, CA 93555-6100 no later than COB 30 June 2001. Contractors should appropriately mark any data that are proprietary or that has [have] restricted data rights. Additional information may be obtained through the technical point of contact at NAWCWPNS, Valerie Rogers, and (760) 939-3515. This Sources Sought is not a formal request for proposals and in no way obligates the Government in an award of any contract.

Record

Loren Data Corp. 20010517/99SOL004.HTM (W-135 SN50M1F1)