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COMMERCE BUSINESS DAILY ISSUE OF OCTOBER 30, 2001 PSA #2967
SOLICITATIONS

A -- INTELLIGENCE FUSION FOR TARGETS-UNDER-TREES (PART 1 OF 2)

Notice Date
October 26, 2001
Contracting Office
Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL -- Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514
ZIP Code
13441-4514
Solicitation Number
Reference-Number-PRDA-02-02-IFKPA
Response Due
September 30, 2004
Point of Contact
Joetta Bernhard, Contracting Officer, Phone (315) 330-2308, Fax (315) 330-7790, Email Joetta.Bernhard@rl.af.mil
Description
PRDA 02-02-IFKPA, Part 1 of 2. CONTACT: Contracting Officer, Joetta A. Bernhard, (315) 330-2308, email, Joetta.Bernhard@rl.af.mil. AFRL/IFEA Program Manager, Mr. Robert E. Macior, (315) 330-2480, email: Robert.Macior@rl.af.mil; Technical Point of Contact: Jon Jones, (315) 330- 1665, e-mail, Jon.Jones@rl.af.mil, 315-330-1665; Mark Pronobis, (315) 330- 3072, e-mail, Mark.Pronobis@rl.af.mil. Introduction: The Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at the Rome Research Site is seeking firms to conduct applied research and development for innovative concepts and techniques to Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage and Assess (F2T2EA) stationary and moving surface targets. Under the Targets-Under-Trees (TUT) program, the Information (IF) Directorate is partnered with three other AFRL Directorates, including the Sensors (SN) Directorate and Human Effectiveness (HE) Directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) and the Munitions (MN) Directorate at Eglin AFB. The TUT program management team is led by AFRL/SNAA with deputy program managers from AFRL/IFEA and AFRL/SNRR and will be executed with coordinated procurements from four AFRL Directorates: SN, IF, MN, and HE. The principal solicitations are those from AFRL/SN, entitled "Targets Under Trees (TUT) Family of Systems and Supporting Technologies" and this solicitation from AFRL/IF. The AFRL/SN solicitation is concerned with the overall TUT systems engineering, development for the Foliage-Penetrating (FOPEN) radar, its associated technologies and other support functions, including modeling and simulation. The weapon fuze technology development is being conducted through AFRL/MN, whereas, the human-system interface technology development and design is being conducted by AFRL/HE. This AFRL/IF solicitation is concerned with the fusion of intelligence data from multiple ISR sensors to find, fix and track mobile ground targets in the open and hide. This includes an extensible system architecture to accommodate intelligence data and advanced fusion algorithms, data base integration including geo-registration, and reasoning technologies to reduce target location errors and identification uncertainties. The desired system will produce target quality location, identification and kinematics. This AFRL/IF solicitation addresses Intelligence Fusion and its supporting technologies. The TUT program is chartered to develop a capability for performing the Find, Fix and Engage portions of the kill chain process on targets employing concealment with camouflage and foliage. The TUT concept is to find and identify concealed mobile ground vehicles using multi-sensor fusion and Very High Frequency (VHF) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) employing Change Detection techniques. The targets will be identified by associating the detections with fused intelligence information products and held at risk while in hide with upgraded foliage penetrating munitions. The TUT program will employ and exploit existing technologies to provide early demonstrations and potential transitions to operational units. It will also enhance existing and maturing technologies and provide a roadmap of continued spiral development over the three -- year program. The developments required to meet the TUT objectives involve FOPEN radar with Change Detection, information fusion, geo-registration, terrain characterization, weapons fuze and human-system interface technologies. In addition to direct technology developments, the TUT program will support other complementary activities including, test and evaluation, modeling and simulation, data collection and management, and a distributed collaborative engineering environment. Finally, an overall system engineering effort will assist the Government in managing the distribution of functionality and performance requirements across the contributing technologies. The TUT program is sponsored by the Air Force Aerospace Command & Control and Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance Center (AC2ISRC). Objective: The level of complexity addressed by this PRDA varies from stationary and moving targets in open environments to targets that are partially to fully obscured by foliage and camouflage. However, the TUT Intelligence Fusion System (TUT IFS) focuses on the ability to locate and identify targets employing concealment with camouflage or foliage, while minimizing false alarms and the impact of terrain obscuration and platform outages. The problem being addressed by this procurement is the development of an overall TUT IFS architecture and the interface and integration of specific contributing systems. The TUT IFS will fuse various types of intelligence information to produce actionable information including targetable locations and identification for mobile ground vehicles in hide. The developed system will be transitionable to the Distributed Common Ground Station (DCGS) and/or as applicable, the Combined Air Operations Center -- Experimental (CAOC-X). Technical Background: The Air Force Research Laboratory Fusion Technology Branch is developing an open, distributed, object-oriented architecture for information fusion under their Adaptive Sensor Fusion (ASF) program. This program includes support for multiple interoperable fusion components and a public Application Programmer's Interface (API) that is suitable for inserting new fusion components into the system. Fusion component interoperability is based on a shared description of the battlespace and shared data exchange and persistence mechanisms. Through the implementation of a common interface and a common battlespace ontology, new and legacy fusion engines and capabilities can be encapsulated and become interoperable components within a common architecture. Given this stable environment for test and development, the performance of legacy and new fusion engines can be rapidly inserted, evaluated and consistently quantified. PRDA Organization: The overall objective of this PRDA is to develop, integrate, demonstrate and transition system technologies required for locating, tracking and identifying targets in both open and obscured environments. The PRDA is presented in two sections. The first section addresses proposal requests for the Intelligence Fusion System Integrator (IFSI) for the TUT IFS, which includes technologies needed for the identification and location of targets in hide while rejecting false alarms. In addition, the IFSI must coordinate and interface with other efforts that are being addressed within this PRDA, and other TUT efforts within the total TUT program. These efforts will be addressed at the Pre-proposal Briefing and include the FOPEN sensor development, the Family of Systems Integrator (FoSI) and other related technology development contracted by AFRL/SN. The FoSI effort will provide the overall TUT program systems engineering, including Family of Systems (FoS) architecture, concept of employment, FoS goals, and a TUT FoS workstation. The second section of this PRDA addresses Multi-Intelligence (Multi-INT) Fusion for TCTs (MIFT) White Paper requests for supporting technical development related to the identification and tracking of targets in the open. The solicitation seeks technologies to enhance the ability to provide continuous track, location and identification of ground moving targets through the fusion of multiple sensors. IFSI Proposal Solicitation: The AFRL, Information and Intelligence Exploitation Division (AFRL/IFE) is soliciting proposals from potential Intelligence Fusion System Integrators to develop an open, unclassified and government owned, system architecture and Multi-INT fusion capability using ASF Core Services Framework. The Intelligence Fusion System Integrator (IFSI) shall develop a scaleable, open, and flexible architecture that is compatible with the targeted transition system. The IFSI shall also interface with the FoSI for integration into the TUT FoS workstation. This architectural framework shall enable rapid insertion of new and legacy fusion components and technologies, and a dynamic schema framework that directly supports system evolution. The IFSI shall provide a total system architecture; establish and manage the infrastructure, interfaces, algorithms and databases, coordinate software development and integration of fusion modules; and integrate multiple-sources of sensor and intelligence reports into an architecture capable of solving the TUT problem. The IFSI shall provide a detailed description of the Intelligence Fusion System Architecture to be implemented using the ASF Core Services. The IFSI shall provide a highly dynamic, geo-registered, distributed database that provides the ability to store and to efficiently access the large volume of data anticipated for this program. A key challenge is the development of database technology and services that efficiently store, query, update, report, and synchronize access to the TUT data. The proposals in this area should give consideration to using an object-oriented or object-relational DBMS, indexing mechanism to allow efficient access to data, data scalability, performance, object modeling, query, extensibility, supportability and upgradability. While the ultimate goal of the TUT IFS is to have a fully automated capability, it is expected that the system developed during this phase of the program will require minimal interaction with human operators. Performance criteria for the TUT IFS will include system throughput, target location and ID uncertainty, and other performance measures. Specific values will be developed in cooperation with the government and other TUT coordinated procurements. The interface must be user definable to take into consideration the fact that current human analysts are experienced with specific information displayed in certain ways. The output of this system shall be targeting quality locations and identifications (IDs) of concealed ground mobile targets. The IFSI shall provide a program schedule of capabilities outlining the milestones (including content, capability, benefit to the Warfighter and risk) for software delivery, test and integration into the AFRL Fusion Facility and spiral transitions. (Details on the AFRL Fusion Facility will be presented at the Pre-proposal Briefing). The program schedule should contain spiral developments and deliveries of the TUT IFS capabilities. The spirals should be frequent, three (3) to six (6) month cycles, and should consist of software builds, training, and integration into the AFRL Fusion Facility for testing and analysis. In addition, the program plan should include spiral delivery to the FoSI for integration into the TUT Workstation for demonstrations and evaluations. Major spirals containing new capability are expected to be transitioned for test and evaluation into the Distributed Common Ground Station (DCGS) and/or as applicable, the Combined Air Operations Center -- Experimental (CAOC-X), every ten (10) to twelve (12) months at Langley AFB. This will require software to be in compliance with, at a minimum, DII COE Level 5, with design considerations for DII COE Level 7 and Air Force DoDIIS Infrastructure (AFDI) compliance. The following web sites can be accessed for additional information: http://diicoe.disa.mil/coe; http://www.rl.af.mil/programs/asf; http://extranet.if.afrl.af.mil/afdi/. Technology Integration: The TUT IFS shall be designed to process, fuse and display the following types of information, as a minimum: VHF SAR images employing Change Detection (CD), Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI), Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) and Imagery Intelligence (IMINT). These data will be made available primarily from the following collection platforms: Joint STARS, U-2, Global Hawk, Rivet Joint, Guard Rail, NTM and FOPEN radar systems. It is anticipated that the majority of the above data will be available through the Data Access Layer (DAL) of the DCGS at the time of transition. The design of the system shall not preclude the potential ingestion of other intelligence data, for example, Video, EO/IR, MSI/HSI, MASINT (seismic, acoustic, magnetic), HUMINT, or data fusion algorithms and capabilities which are the focus of the Multi-INT fusion for TCT White Papers. The IFSI should address the extensibility of their proposed TUT IFS by discussing the magnitude of the integration effort and associated risks of inclusion of at least three of these additional intelligence fusion capabilities. The TUT IFS design and documentation shall also include the capability of interfacing to other information systems such as: Intelligent Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), Joint Targeting Toolbox (JTT), ISR Management Systems and terrain analysis/delimitation. Program Reviews, Transitions and Demonstrations: Bi-Annual program reviews shall be conducted to track technical, financial and schedule performance and risk. These reviews are expected to be conducted in conjunction with other TUT reviews within the AFRL partner organizations. An architectural design review shall be conducted approximately one month after contract award. The IFSI shall be required to coordinate with other complementary TUT program efforts and attend and participate in periodic System Engineering Team (SET) meetings. The SET meetings are expected to be held at least, on a quarterly basis. The IFSI will also be expected to participate in periodic integration, transitions and demonstrations. The TUT program expects to demonstrate partial or entire system capability at major DOD exercises such as, JEFX. Offerors should anticipate supporting at least one DoD exercise per year. Demonstrations at these exercises will be the primary responsibility of other contractors, but support will be required of the IFSI. IFSI Award: This announcement seeks to acquire the technologies and systems necessary to prosecute the TUT problem. Capability is sought that can be fully developed and transitioned to operational units as rapidly as possible. Since many applicable technologies exist today, offerors are encouraged to leverage technology from these other programs, as applicable. It is anticipated that offerors will investigate, apply, exploit and modify existing COTS and GOTS technologies. Deliverables will include technical reports, user's manuals, training manuals and delivery and integration of robust software prototypes into the AFRL Fusion Laboratory. The IFSI shall also deliver software prototypes with documentation, to the FoSI and assist with the integration into the TUT workstation for demonstrations and evaluations. In addition, the level of maturity must be adequate to transition to the user community by integration and demonstrations into the DCGS and/or as applicable, the Combined Air Operations Center -- Experimental (CAOC-X).=20 A single award for the IFSI is anticipated. Contractor teaming is highly encouraged to minimize the amount of new developments and focus the majority of the effort on integration and enhancements of existing algorithms into a common infrastructure. Associate Contractor Agreements (ACAs) will be required with related TUT technology developers, AFRL Fusion Laboratory in-house contractors and others, as required. Total funding for the IFSI portion of this PRDA is approximately, $9.5M. It is anticipated that the funding profile for the IFSI award will be approximately, $2.1M in FY02, $4.3M in FY03, and $3.1M in FY04. Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished using the following criteria: (l) overall scientific and technical merit, including the rationale and approach for the proposed technology development, (2) potential contribution and relevance to this effort, (3) related experience and capabilities and extent to which the offeror demonstrates technology and domain knowledge, (4) soundness of proposed technology transition approach, and (5) reasonableness and realism of proposed costs and fees. In addition, the Government will consider other factors, such as past and present performance on recent Government contracts and the capacity to perform the requirements of the effort. No further evaluation criteria will be used in selecting the proposal. Options are discouraged and unpriced options will not be considered for award. Award for the IFSI portion of this PRDA are expected 2Q FY02. The majority of the work to be performed will be at collateral SECRET; however, a portion of work may be performed at a higher level. Work to be performed will require a TOP SECRET facility clearance and safeguarding capability. Key personnel identified for assignment to the IFSI effort must have an active TOP SECRET clearance at the time of award and be cleared for access to SI/TK information within three(3) months after award. A principal investigator clause may be required on this effort. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION FOR THE IFSI. PROPOSALS ARE REQUESTED. Offerors are required to submit an original plus three (3) copies of their proposal, which include separate Technical, Cost and Statement of Work volumes, to AFRL/IFEA, ATTN: Robert Macior, Ref PRDA 02-02-IFKA, 32 Brooks Road, Rome, NY 13441-4114 by 7 December 2001 by 4:00PM, EST. Technical proposals are limited to a total page count of seventy-five (75) pages and shall be double-spaced with a font no smaller than 12 pitch. Offerors must mark their proposals with the restrictive language stated in FAR 15.609(a). Proposals shall be at the unclassified level, but may contain a Secret Addendum if required. However, any addendum will be included in the proposal 75-page limit. Proposal preparation instructions may be found at: http://www.if.afrl.af.mil/div/IFK/prda/prda-main.html. IMPORTANT: This is Part 1 of 2 of PRDA 02-02-IFKPA.
Web Link
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Record
Loren Data Corp. 20011030/ASOL001.HTM (D-299 SN5116C9)

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