AFMC, Air Force Research Laboratory/IFK, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY 13441-4514

A -- INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS SOL PRDA 98-09-IFKPA POC Willis J. Horth, Program Manager, 315-330-3430; Joetta A. Bernhard, Contracting Officer, 315-330-2308 The Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate (AFRL/IF) is soliciting white papers for new and creative research and development solutions pertaining to the development, insertion, evaluation and transition of information technologies to support Global Awareness, Dynamic Planning and Execution, Global Information Exchange, Information Dominance, Precision Engagement, and Full Dimensional Aerospace Protection. The goal is to advance and apply state of the art in the sciences and technologies pertinent to full dimensional Command, Control and Combat Systems. Innovative research and development efforts are being sought for applications in the following Information Technology areas: (1) Knowledge Based Systems Technologies, (2) Planning and Scheduling, (3) Database Management, (4) Adaptive/Reconfigurable Information Systems, (5) High Performance Computing, (6) Architecture (Embedded & Dependable), (7) Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Design and Applications for Information Systems, (8) Agent Based Intelligent Systems, (9) Dynamic System Design Concepts, (10) Tools for Re-engineering, (11) Hardware/Software Co-Design. The purpose of this Program Research and Development Announcement (PRDA) is to develop and demonstrate potential technical solutions to user (AF and DoD) identified needs and requirements for information technology. Efforts under this PRDA will involve experiments to evaluate and demonstrate information technology applications for actual Command, Control and Combat Systems. The intent is to assess the value of the technology as it is applied toward real world scenarios. Priority will be given to those ideas that most significantly increase the state of the art in information technology and are specifically directed at supporting the development of new Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence (C3I) systems or the modernization of C3I legacy systems. In addition, strong consideration will be given to those applications that clearly identify potential user(s)/supporter(s) of the technology. Additional information about the Information Technology Division of the IF Directorate may be found at the web site: http://www.rl.af.mil/mission/IF_miss.html. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION. DO NOT SUBMIT A FORMAL PROPOSAL AT THIS TIME. Offers are required to submit three (3) copies of a ten (10) page or less white paper with a cover letter indicating whether the offeror is a large, small, women-owned small, or small disadvantaged business, or Historically Black College, University, or Minority Institution. The white paper will be formatted as follows: Section A: Title, Period of Performance, Cost of Task, Name of Company; Section B: Task Objective; and Section C: Technical Summary. All responses to this announcement must be addressed to AFRL/IFTD, ATTN: Willis J. Horth, Reference PRDA #98-098-IFKPA, 525 Brooks Road, Rome NY 13441-4505. Small business offerors must also send one (1) copy of the cover letter only, by First Class mail (DO NOT SEND CLASSIFIED) to ATTN: Jan Norelli, Director of Small Business, AFRL/IFB, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome NY 13441-4514. Multiple white papers within the purview of this announcement may be submitted by each offeror. The purpose of the white paper is to preclude unwarranted effort on the part of an offeror whose proposed work is not of interest to the Government. Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of the PRDA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. Such invitation does not assure that the submitting organization will receive an award. Complete instructions for proposal preparation will be forwarded with the invitation for proposal submission. Evaluation of proposals will be performed using the following criteria: Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished through a scientific review of each proposal using the following criteria: (1) The overall scientific and technical merit, including the applicability to a DoD customer's needs and requirements, familiarity with the military system or application to which they will be applied, how the proposed technologies address the needs of the system, and the generic application of the proposed technology. (2) Offeror's capability to successfully conduct the experiments (i.e., development, integration, adaptation, scale-up, insertion, evaluation, and demonstration of the technologies) with quantitative results, including the potential to become an integral part of a planned military system/subsystem development/support system/upgrade. (3) Metrics to demonstrate adequacy of the proposed technology. Metrics should address both technology benefits (i.e., improved productivity and product quality, reduced life cycle cost) and technology insertion costs. (4) Innovativeness of the proposed approach and/or techniques with assessed improvement in Information Technology capabilities, and (5) Cost: The extent to which the proposal exhibits reasonableness and realism of cost and schedules. In addition, the Government may consider other factors such as: (1) Offeror's capabilities, related experience, facilities, techniques, or unique combination of these which are integral factors for achieving proposal objectives, (2) Offeror's qualifications, capabilities and experience of proposal principal investigator, team leader, and other key personnel who are critical to achieving proposal objectives, (3) Offeror's record of past and present performance, and (4) the extent to which the offeror has identified and is committed to the use of small, small disadvantaged businesses, (including historically black colleges and universities, or minority institutions) and women-owned small businesses in performance of the proposed work.. No further evaluation criteria will be used in selecting the proposals. The technical criteria will also be used to determine whether white papers submitted are consistent with the intent of the PRDA and of interest to the Government. Proposals submitted will be evaluated as they are received. Individual proposal evaluations will be based on acceptability or unacceptability without regard to other proposals submitted under this PRDA. Options are discouraged and unpriced options will not be considered for award. Principal funding of this PRDA and the anticipated award of contracts will start in FY98. Individual awards will not normally exceed 36 months in duration, with dollar amounts ranging between $200K to $3.0M. Total funding for the PRDA is approximately $20M. Awards of efforts as a result of this PRDA will be in the form of contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, or other transactions depending upon the nature of the work proposed. Foreign-owned offerors are advised that their participation is excluded at the prime contract level. Data subject to export control constraints may be involved and only firms on the Certified Contractor Access List (CCAL) will be allowed access to such data. For further information on CCAL, contact the Defense Logistic Service Center at 1-800-352-3572. The cost of preparing proposals in response to this announcement is not an allowable direct charge to any resulting contract or any other contract, but may be an allowable expense to the normal bid and proposal indirect cost in FAR 31.205-18. The work to be performed may require a SECRET/NOFORN facility clearance and safeguarding capability, therefore personnel identified for assignment to a classified effort must be cleared for access to SECRET/NOFORN information at time of award. An Ombudsman has been appointed to hear significant concerns from offerors or potential offerors during the proposal development phase of this acquisition. Routine questions are not considered to be "significant concerns" and should be communicated directly to the Contracting Officer, Joetta Bernhard, 315-330-2308. The purpose of the Ombudsman is not to diminish the authority of the contracting officer or program manager, but to communicate contractor concerns, issues, disagreements, and recommendations to the appropriate Government personnel. The Ombudsman for this acquisition is Vincent R, Palmiero, Deputy Chief, Contracting Directorate, at 315-330-7747 When requested, the Ombudsman will maintain strict confidentially as to the source of the concern. The Ombudsman does not participate in the evaluation of proposals in the selection process. An informational briefing is not planned. The cutoff date for submission white papers is 29 May 98 for FY98, and 15 Nov for each of the following fiscal years. This PRDA is open and effective until canceled. To receive a copy of the AFRL/IF " BAA & PRDA: A Guide for Industry", Sep 1996(Rev), write to ATTN: Lucille Argenzia, AFRL/IFKR, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome NY 13441-4505, or you may FAX her at 315-330-4728 or the Guide may be accessed at the following Internet address: http://www.rl.af.mil/div/IFK/baa/. All responsible firms may submit a white paper which shall be considered. Respondents are asked to provide their Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) number with their submission as well as a fax number, an email address and are asked to reference PRDA 98-09-IFKPA Only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. Background Material: The Air Force and DoD require command and control and combat systems that directs use of available forces while enabling lightning-fast response to changing situations. With stealthy targets that are very mobile, battle areas which change quickly, and battle assets that are complicated and diverse, the environment for mission execution is extremely dynamic, complex and dependent on many sources of information. These facts are underscored by two key documents, Joint Vision 2010 and Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force. Joint Vision 2010 is a DoD document whose guidance has as its focus an increasingly US-based contingency force that can find, fix, track and target anything that moves on the surface of the earth. Among the many areas it addresses to accomplish this is the area of information technology. Joint Vision 2010 emphasizes the high leverage associated with information technology and modern systems translates into significant improvements that will improve the decision maker's ability to see, prioritize, assign, and assess information in a timely manner. It goes further to state the fusion of all-source intelligence with the fluid integration of sensors, platforms, command organizations, and logistic support centers will allow a greater number of operational tasks to be accomplished faster. Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force addresses the new vision that will guide the Air Force into the 21st Century. It is a rigorous, systematic, multifaceted examination of future demands on the Air Force as a member of America's joint military force, and is shaped, in large part, by Joint Vision 2010. The ability to orchestrate military operations throughout a theater of operations and to bring intense firepower to bear over global distances is a key facet of future warfighting. Global awareness and command and control are called on to give the warfighter unprecedented leverage and advantages. Global Engagement addresses the need for the capability to dominate an opponent across the range of military operations -- full spectrum dominance. Full spectrum dominance requires information superiority: the ability to collect, process, analyze and disseminate information, while denying an adversary's ability to do the same. Information superiority will require both offensive and defensive information warfare (IW). Offensive information warfare will degrade or exploit an adversary's collection or use of information. It will include traditional methods, such as a precision attack to destroy an adversary's command and control capability, as well as nontraditional methods like electronic intrusion into an information and control network to convince, confuse, or deceive enemy military decision makers. The effort to achieve and maintain information superiority will also invite resourceful enemy attacks on US information systems. Defensive information warfare to protect the US ability toconduct information operations will be one of the biggest challenges in the years ahead. Traditional defensive IW operations will span the spectrum from physical security measures to encryption. Nontraditional actions will range from antivirus protection to innovative methods of secure data transmission. The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Pub 0-1) defines command and control as: The exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned forces in the accomplishment of the mission. Command and control functions are performed through an arrangement of personnel, equipment, communications, facilities, and procedures employed by a commander in planning, directing, coordinating, and controlling forces and operations in the accomplishment of the mission. The operative application of this command and control definition includes the enabling capabilities of communications, and intelligence: hence the acronym C3I. In the entirety, C3I involves gathering information, assessing the situation, identifying objectives, developing alternative courses of action, deciding on a course of action, transmitting orders and monitoring execution. This requires a robust network linking all friendly forces and providing common awareness of the current situation. Currently fielded C3I systems do not support the kind of robust, assured, and timely flow of accurate and relevant information needed to meet the future joint warfighting needs as envisioned in Joint Vision 2010 and Global Engagement. These limits were first exhibited in Desert Storm. Although, the US has rich individual sensor and shooter environments combat effectiveness was hindered by the fact that we were data rich and information poor. Information technology holds the key to managing the battlefield of the future. Situational awareness of who the enemy is, what is happening and techniques associated with information warfare will be the critical functions. Protection of friendly force information while denying the enemy the same is of primary importance. The commander's ability to observe, orient, decide and act will be greatly enhanced by systems which capitalize on information technology. C3I systems are among the most important for the Air Force and the Defense Department today and for the future. They are the highest leveraging systems in DoD and have the most potential to increase leverage in the future from a smaller, CONUS-based force that has worldwide responsibilities. The underlying technologies supporting C3I are advancing at an explosive rate while advances in aircraft, space boosters or space platforms have passed their most explosive periods and are advancing relatively slowly. The Air Force will continue to fly B-52s and use Atlas/Delta/Titan boosters, but no one will use a five-year-old computer. In C3I systems, 10-100x improvements are routine and 1000x-1,000,000 are possible. The Air Force science and technology role in C3I will more than ever be to work closely with the commercial and international sector to make sure that the enabling technologies satisfy Air Force needs. However, there are still a set of technologies the Air Force must invest in, simply because economic payoffs do not drive their development in the private sector. (0112)

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