A -- SPEECH IN NOISY ENVIRONMENTS (SPINE)

Notice Date

August 15, 2001

Contracting Office

Other Defense Agencies, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Contracts Management Office, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203-1714

ZIP Code

22203-1714

Solicitation Number

BAA01-44

Response Due

October 3, 2001

Point of Contact

James Bass, Program Manager, Phone (703) 696-4534, Fax (703) 696-4534, Email jbass@darpa.mil

Description

SPEECH IN NOISY ENVIRONMENTS (SPINE), SOL BAA 01-44, DUE: 10/03/01; POC: LTC JAMES BASS, DARPA/ITO; FAX: (703) 522-7161. DARPA ITO requests proposals for research in Speech In Noisy Environments (SPINE). Current ASR systems continue to show difficulty in processing speech in multi-speaker and high noise environments, especially when the speech has been encoded. These systems continue to use acoustic and language models that fail to adapt to changing environmental conditions including such events as ambient noise changes or speaker stress. Even prosodic information is not used in current commercial implementations. The goal of SPINE is to challenge the architecture, science, and dogma of the current ASR research community, and to look for high-risk, high yield alternatives to current methods and algorithms. These new algorithms and methods will be evaluated with the most challenging task yet developed for ASR, noisy coded speech in tactical or simulated tactical environments. Research is solicited in the two following task areas: 1. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), evaluation task; 2. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), basic research task. PROGRAM SCOPE: This is a high-risk, high-yield program with a three-year period of performance. The total funding for the program is approximately $25M. Note that the funding is unevenly distributed with a majority of the funding available in the out years. Highest priority will be given to research with the greatest potential to overcome high noise and multi-speaker environments for multi-modal or ASR-only systems supporting vocabularies of approximately 1-3K, targeting simple and complex C2 systems in adverse environments. Priority will also be given to proposals that attempt to use innovative noise canceling technologies or any other form of pre-processing techniques to reduce noise prior to sampling. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches and techniques that lead to or enable revolutionary advances in the state-of-the-art. Proposals are not limited to the specific strategies listed above, and alternative visions will be considered. However, proposals should be for research that substantially contributes towards the goals stated. Research should result in prototype hardware and/or software demonstrating integrated concepts and approaches. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvement to the existing state of practice or focuses on a specific system or solution. Integrated solution sets embodying significant technological advances are strongly encouraged over narrowly defined research endeavors. Proposals may involve other research groups or industrial cooperation and cost sharing. NOTE: All proposals should include a small amount of funding to support DARPA sponsored presentations or the delivery of prototype systems to DARPA for the purposes of demonstrating the technology to selected government officials and decision makers. While not every performer would be asked to prepare such a demonstration, it is prudent to include this type of support at least as an option. This subtask should not exceed 30 days as a level of effort. Special Consideration: To support the growth of the research community and to stimulate new research in selected areas, the following aspects of a proposal will be taken into special consideration during the approval and ranking process of proposal acceptance: 1. Research in the use of advanced noise-canceling techniques for ASR support at the microphone/sensor level; 2. Research in advanced intelligent microphone arrays, that is, self-directing with ability to discriminate noise from speech. GENERAL INFORMATION: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/Information Technology Office (DARPA/ITO) requires completion of a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Cover Sheet Submission for each Proposal, by accessing the URL below: http://www.dyncorp-is.com/BAA/index.asp?BAAid=3D01-44. After finalizing the BAA Cover Sheet Submission, the proposer must submit the BAA Confirmation Sheet that will automatically appear on the web page. Each proposer is responsible for printing the BAA Confirmation Sheet and submitting it attached to the "original" and each designated number of copies. The Confirmation Sheet should be the first page of your Proposal. Failure to comply with these submission procedures may result in the submission not being evaluated. NEW REQUIREMENTS/PROCEDURES: The Award Document for each proposal selected and funded will contain a mandatory requirement for submission of DARPA/ITO Quarterly Status Reports and an Annual Project Summary Report. These reports will be electronically submitted via the DARPA/ITO Technical -- Financial Information Management System (T-FIMS), utilizing the government furnished Uniform Resource Locator (URL) on the World Wide Web (WWW). Details in Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP). Proposers must submit an original and 4 copies of the full proposal and 2 electronic copies (i.e., 2 separate disks) of the full proposal (in Microsoft Word ?97 for IBM-compatible, PDF, Postscript, or ASCII format on one 3.5-inch floppy disk or one 100 MB Iomega Zip disk). Each disk must be clearly labeled with BAA 01-44, proposer organization, proposal title (short title recommended) and Copy (Number) of 2. The full proposal (original and designated number of hard and electronic copies) must be submitted in time to reach DARPA by 4:00 PM (ET) Wednesday, October 3, 2001, in order to be considered. Proposers must obtain the BAA 01-44 Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP), which provides further information on the areas of interest, submission, evaluation, funding processes, and full proposal formats. This pamphlet may be obtained by fax, electronic mail, mail request to the administrative contact address given below, or at URL address http://www.darpa.mil/ito/Solicitations.html. Proposals not meeting the format described in the pamphlet may not be reviewed. This notice, in conjunction with the BAA 01-44 PIP and all references, constitutes the total BAA. No additional information is available, nor will a formal RFP or other solicitation regarding this announcement be issued. Requests for same will be disregarded. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit a proposal that shall be considered by DARPA. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Institutions (MIs) 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 this research for exclusive competition among these entities. Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished through a scientific review of each proposal using the following criteria, which are listed in descending order of relative importance: (1) Overall Scientific and Technical Merit: The overall scientific and technical merit must be clearly identifiable. The technical concept should be clearly defined and developed. Emphasis should be placed on the technical value of the development and experimentation approach. (2) Innovative Technical Solution to the Problem: Proposed efforts should apply new or existing technology in a new way such as is advantageous to the objectives. The plan on how offeror intends to get developed technology and information to the user community should be considered. (3) Potential Contribution and Relevance to DARPA Mission: The offeror must clearly address how the proposed effort will meet the goals of the undertaking. The relevance is further indicated by the offeror?s understanding of the operating environment of the capability to be developed. (4) Offeror's Capabilities and Related Experience: The qualifications, capabilities, and demonstrated achievements of the proposed principals and other key personnel for the primary and subcontractor organizations must be clearly shown. (5) Plans and Capability to Accomplish Technology Transition: The offeror should provide a clear explanation of how the technologies to be developed will be transitioned to capabilities for military forces. Technology transition should be a major consideration in the design of experiments, particularly considering the potential for involving potential transition organizations in the experimentation process. (6) Cost Realism: The overall estimated cost to accomplish the effort should be clearly shown as well as the substantiation of the costs for the technical complexity described. Evaluation will consider the value to Government of the research and the extent to which the proposed management plan will effectively allocate resources to achieve the capabilities proposed. All administrative correspondence and questions on this solicitation, including requests for information on how to submit a proposal to this BAA, must be received at one of the administrative addresses below by 4:00 PM (ET) Wednesday, September 26, 2001; e-mail or fax is preferred. DARPA intends to use electronic mail and fax for some of the correspondence regarding BAA 01-44. Proposals MUST NOT be submitted by fax or e-mail; any so sent will be disregarded. The administrative addresses for this BAA are: Fax: 703-522-7161 Addressed to: DARPA/ITO, BAA 01-44; Electronic Mail: baa01-44@darpa.mil; Electronic File Retrieval: http://www.darpa.mil/ito/Solicitations.html; Mail to: DARPA/ITO, ATTN: BAA 01-44, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714.

Web Link

Visit this URL for the latest information about this (http://www.eps.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/BAA01-44/listing.html)

Record

Loren Data Corp. 20010817/ASOL004.HTM (D-227 SN50V0R7)