SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- BAA07-07, WAND Program
- Notice Date
- 2/23/2007
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541710
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences
- Contracting Office
- Other Defense Agencies, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Contracts Management Office, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203-1714, UNITED STATES
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- BAA07-07
- Response Due
- 2/22/2009
- Archive Date
- 3/9/2009
- Description
- BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) 07-07 WNaN Adaptive Network Development (WAND); CLOSING DATE: 22 February 2009; FULL PROPOSALS FOR FIRST SELECTIONS: 31 May 2007; 12:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (EST). Points of Contact: Preston Marshall, DARPA/STO; Email: BAA07-07@darpa.mil; Web site: http://www.darpa.mil/sto/solicit/WAND/index.htm. This BAA plus the associated Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP) constitute the full BAA and proposers must obtain and follow the details of submission set forth in the PIP. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES AND DESCRIPTION: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Strategic Technology Office (STO) is soliciting proposals for BAA 07-07, Wireless Network after Next (WNaN) Adaptive Network Development (WAND). The goal of the WAND effort is to design and develop the network technologies necessary to establish ultra-large (tens of thousands of nodes), highly-scalable, highly-adaptive ad-hoc networks that provide robust networking across densely-connected deployments of inexpensive wireless nodes. The WNaN premise is that WAND-enabled networks will adapt to changing conditions and mission requirements by adjusting the topology of the network and the operational mode of the wireless nodes, particularly at the physical and link layers, to create and maintain a rich, multiply-connected network fabric. This rich interconnection fabric will provide superior battlefield communications at lower system cost and enhance survivability by ensuring information, applications, and services are readily available within the tactical environment. The development of wireless nodes to support WAND is ongoing under the Wireless Adaptive Network Node (WANN) BAA (BAA06-26). Contracts have been awarded under this BAA to develop and produce low-cost, highly adaptive wireless nodes, which will be delivered to WAND developers for network technology development, integration, test and demonstration. The WANN wireless node developers will develop and publish non-proprietary network Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for design and integration of network technologies / processes within the node. The APIs, which will be published in the 2nd QTR FY07, are the means by which the WNaN network will be able to control and manage the adaptive features of the wireless nodes. Feedback on the draft APIs will be solicited from outside sources, including WAND proposers. The WAND program will be conducted as 3 sequential phases to design, develop, integrate, and demonstrate network technologies that support the WNaN network vision. The developed network technologies will support network scalability and network formation from two to tens of thousands of WNaN operational nodes. Examples of features that are expected to be supported by the WNaN network are listed below. Note that the list is not in order of priority or dependency. 1. The WNaN network should be aware of, and have the ability to adapt to, the mission and the environment, and be able to organize topologies in response to traffic flow and QoS across the entire range of tactical dynamics, network size, and network density. WNaN network should also be able to identify and create a unified /coordinated approach to interference management by exploiting technologies as trades at multiple layers to maximize performance within spectrum management, network layer and physical layer constraints. 2. The WNaN network should be able to identify and instantiate the "Best Mission Topology" rather than passively accepting network topology and routing as given. WNaN network should create topology by allocating/modifying resources such as spectrum, interference, routing responsibility, battery power, MIMO, etc. 3. The WNaN network should be able to interconnect with non-WNaN infrastructures at multiple, dynamic points of presence -- wherever and whenever a connection to the infrastructure can be created - rather than at a single, fixed point of presence. (See Figure 4 in the PIP.) 4. The WNaN network should provide the ability to create distributed computing environments where the applications and services are populated / migrated onto nodes according to demand, traffic flows, network congestion and resource availability. (See Figure 4 in the PIP.) 5. The WNaN network should be able to implement intelligent multicast protocols and caching mechanisms as appropriate to optimize streaming services, intelligent multicast, predictable performance, bandwidth reservation and end-to-end congestion control. 6. The WNaN network should be able to support, as appropriate, cross-layer adaptation mechanisms that work together to optimize network performance and reduce stress on inexpensive physical layer devices. 7. The WNaN network should be able to use policy and reasoning techniques to drive topology formation and load sharing. 8. The WNaN network should be capable of supporting persistent caching and content-based access of information within the network. The objective is to retrieve once and then be able to provide to local users as requested. 9. The WNaN network should be able to support multiple network structures and multiple network frameworks to optimize delivery of high speed / low latency streaming / data services. The network should provide both Connectionless and Connection-Oriented Services as appropriate. 10. When the network experiences delays and disruptions, the WNaN network should be able to sense the impairment and to mitigate the effect of these impairments using techniques such as Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) to knit together heterogeneous network fabrics and to operate with episodic connectivity effectively. 11. The WNaN network should be able to asynchronously introduce new policies and policy controlled functions without code changes. Policies and policy controlled functions could be linked symbolically through an extensible semantic structure. Proposers are encouraged to add to this list of network features as necessary to support the program vision and goals. It is anticipated that some or all WNaN network instantiations will autonomously and continuously determine the appropriate implementation of network features based on the environment, mission, and data. The instantiation should consider and appropriately balance the needs of the individual nodes and the network enterprise. This BAA shall remain open through 22 February 2009. Although the Government may select proposals for award at any time during this period, it is anticipated that the majority of funding for this program will be committed during the initial selections. Proposers may submit a full proposal in accordance with the instructions provided in the PIP at any time up to the proposal due date. In order to be considered during the initial round of funding, full proposals must be submitted to DARPA, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714 (Attn.: BAA07-07) on or before 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on 31 May 2007. 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), Minority Institutions (MIs) and small disadvantaged businesses are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCU/MI, small, or small and disadvantaged businesses due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of this research for exclusive competition among these entities. This BAA affords proposers the choice of submitting proposals for the award of a Grant, Cooperative Agreement, Contract, Technology Investment Agreement, Other Transactions for Prototype Agreement, or such other appropriate award instrument. The type of procurement or assistance vehicle is subject to negotiations. A Proposers' Day Conference will be held on 27 February 2007. The information from this conference will be available on the WAND website: www.darpa.mil/sto/solicit/WAND/index.htm. Attendance at the Proposers' Day is not a prerequisite to responding to this BAA. EVALUATION CRITERIA: Each proposal will be evaluated on the merit and relevance of the specific proposal as it relates to the four Evaluation Criteria. The proposed Evaluation Criteria in descending order of importance are: 1) Technical Approach with elements: (a) WNaN Network Technology meets the Program Vision, (b) Program Development Plans, and (c) Program Schedule and Milestones; 2) Management Approach; 3) Potential Contribution and Relevance to the DARPA Mission; and 4) Cost and Schedule Reasonableness and Realism. The Government reserves the right to select for negotiation all, some, or none of the proposals received in response to this BAA, and to make award without discussions. Further, DARPA may choose to select for negotiation all of a given proposal, or from selected portions thereof, and make award without discussion. ADDITIONAL GUIDANCE: Additional information regarding program objectives, anticipated schedule, technical milestone criteria, and proposal preparation and submittal is provided in the PIP associated with this BAA. Proposers choosing to respond to this BAA must obtain the PIP associated with this BAA. You can access these documents at www.fbo.gov and www.grants.gov. Note: Do not contact the Contracting Officer identified below with respect to this announcement. All questions should be sent to BAA07-07@darpa.mil
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