SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- Joint Air/Ground Operations: Unified, Adaptive Replanning (JAGUAR)
- Notice Date
- 4/16/2003
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- 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
- BAA03-26
- Archive Date
- 5/1/2004
- Point of Contact
- Robert Tenney, DARPA Program Manager, IXO, Phone (000) 000-0000, Fax (571) 218-4550, - Robert Tenney, DARPA Program Manager, IXO, Phone (000) 000-0000, Fax (571) 218-4550,
- E-Mail Address
-
rtenney, rtenney
- Description
- JOINT AIR/GROUND OPERATIONS: UNIFIED, ADAPTIVE REPLANNING (JAGUAR), SOL BAA 03-26, DUE: 05/30/03; POC: DR. ROBERT R. TENNEY, DARPA/IXO; FAX (703) 522-7161. BACKGROUND: Current events in Iraq continue to demonstrate that the United States? ability to maintain wartime initiatives depends critically on the ability to synchronize, flexibly and reliably, massive air operations. The CENTCOM Air Operations Center (AOC) staff has been able to plan and conduct upwards of 2000 sorties per day, from dozens of bases, including search, strike, jamming, and tanker support, mixing both fixed and relocatable targets, with exquisite attention to hundreds of details for each mission. However, this remarkable achievement is due almost entirely to the skills of hundreds of people, not to the quality of their automated support. Several clear trends are converging that, without a great step forward in automation, may lead to prohibitive deployment, training, and logistical needs. These includes more unmanned airborne platforms, increased multi-mission aircraft, more engagements per sortie, richer tactics, battlespace volatility, and the need for smaller staffs. JAGUAR will unite technologies for plan generation, plan assessment, and model adaptation in a consistent, model-based framework that can respond to the forthcoming transformations in air operations. This framework will be explicitly aligned with Air Force efforts to insert advanced technology into the AOC, to enable rapid transition. OBJECTIVE: Modern AOCs can be very large enterprises, with upwards of 800 staff on-site. JAGUAR aspires to enable considerable (order-of-magnitude) reduction in staffing needed to perform battle management functions in an AOC by: 1) increasing the level of automation available in the future, while; 2) preserving the ability to sustain high sortie rates, under great time pressure, that faithfully respect all of the sources of complexity that affect air operations planning; and 3) allowing adaptation to new capabilities, tactics, and procedures as they are developed. JAGUAR will leverage technologies developed under previous DARPA programs that significantly improve planning, control, and execution of military operations. These include model-based methods, real-time symbolic planning, symbolic correlation, automated adaptation, and high-fidelity testbeds. By achieving these objectives, the JAGUAR program will develop, demonstrate, and transition to the Air Force technology that will more-tightly couple AOC processes, in order to achieve the coordination and synchronization of air operations needed to enable the transformation in air operations. PROGRAM STRUCTURE: The JAGUAR program will design, demonstrate, and transition a closed-loop air battle management system consisting of three technology components: plan generation, plan monitoring, and model adaptation. JAGUAR will evaluate components in an external, simulation-based testbed located at the Air Force?s Theater Aerospace Command and Control Simulation Facility (TACCSF). The JAGUAR system will be exercised against this testbed in a series of carefully designed experiments to assess the coverage, error rate, latency, effectiveness, and workload of the system and its components. These assessments will involve integration of the JAGUAR components, both with one another and with the testbed, along with experiment planning, execution, and analysis to objectively measure progress toward program goals. The simulation testbed itself, along with relevant subject matter experts, will be provided by the Government. This BAA solicits proposals for each of the three technology components, for the integration of these components into a real-time, closed-loop system, and for the independent evaluation of this system within the TACCSF. While this BAA outlines some of the minimal capabilities that such a system should possess, it is expected that a successful offeror will craft a solution that combines additional capabilities of the offeror?s choosing, with those described herein, to create a demonstrable system that provides a coherent, comprehensive realization of the JAGUAR objectives. GENERAL APPROACH: This solicitation requests ideas in five related areas: three technical component development efforts, and two system-level design and assessment efforts. Efforts in all five areas may assume the availability of: 1) the TACCSF for quarterly experiments; 2) support for integration of the JAGUAR system and evaluation instrumentation with the TACCSF simulators; and 3) subject matter experts who can provide detailed explanations of current AOC and air operations platforms, practices, procedures, and tactics. JAGUAR will be conducted in three 18-month phases. Phase I - Automation: Develop the three technical components separately, coordinated through a design process established by the system designer, and assessed using a non-real-time analysis methodology established by the experiment designer. Phase II - Integration: Integrate the three technical components into a non-real-time JAGUAR system, capable of closed-loop interaction with the TACCSF, according to an architecture established by the system designer, and assessed concurrently by the experiment designer. Phase III - Acceleration: Increase the capability and speed of the JAGUAR system to permit real-time battle management of air operations from multiple sites, using a collaboration infrastructure provided by the system designer, and with real-time computation of performance metrics. Each Phase will consist of three six-month spirals. Each spiral will include two baseline events: 1) a Desert Pivot observation approximately two months into each spiral which allows JAGUAR team members to, on a non-interference basis, observe and analyze a Desert Pivot training exercise; and 2) a JAGUAR assessment occurring approximately the fifth month of each spiral, that will be conducted over a two week period at the TACCSF. Assessments will include exercise of each of the technical components and the JAGUAR system on several distinct scenarios. At the end of each spiral, the Experiment Design and Evaluation effort will deliver quantitative assessments of component and system level performance. These assessments will provide the basis for continuation of the program at the end of each Phase. AWARDS: Up to two (2) awards are anticipated in each of three technical areas: plan generation, plan monitoring, and model adaptation. In addition, up to one (1) award is contemplated in two cross-cutting areas: system design and integration, and experiment design and evaluation. Non-critical path tasks that can be cleanly separated as individual modules should be proposed and costed as options. The contract will be incrementally funded by fiscal year, assuming identified milestones have been satisfactorily met. Funding in the out years is subject to satisfactory evaluation of the DARPA Go/No go criteria as well as availability of funds. Contract Mechanisms: Awards are anticipated to be in the form of Procurement Contracts or Other Transactions. Grants or Cooperative Agreements are also possible. SELECTION CRITERIA: Proposals will be selected through a technical/scientific/business decision process with technical and scientific considerations being most important. Evaluations will be performed using the following criteria list in descending order of relative importance: (1) Relevance to JAGUAR Mission Objectives, (2) Consistency with JAGUAR Program Concepts, (3) Technical Innovation and Depth, (4) Personnel and Corporate Capabilities and Experience, and (5) Cost Realism and Value of Proposed Work to the Government. Further details may be found in the Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP) which can be accessed at http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/jaguar/index.htm. GENERAL INFORMATION: A Briefing to Industry (BTI) is scheduled for 30 April 2003 to be held at the TACCSF located at Kirtland AFB, NM. Information on the JAGUAR BTI may be found at: http://www.SETassociates.com/meetings/jaguar. Pre-registration for the JAGUAR BTI is mandatory. The deadline for pre-registration is 28 April 2003 via WWW at http://www.SETassociates.com/meetings/jaguar. Persons not pre-registered will be turned away at meeting check-in. No persons will be registered at meeting check-in. All pertinent information and materials presented at the JAGUAR BTI will be made available at http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/jaguar/index.htm. Proposal abstracts ARE NOT requested in advance of full proposals. DARPA will employ an electronic upload process for proposal submissions. Offerors may find submission guidance at: http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/jaguar/index.htm. Organizations must register at: http://www.tfims.darpa.mil/baa to propose. One registration per proposal should be submitted. Organizations wishing to submit multiple proposals should complete a single registration for each proposal. The deadline for registration is 16 May 2003 at the URL listed above. By registering, the Proposer has made no commitment to submit. Proposal Submissions must be unclassified. Offerors must be willing to cooperate and exchange software, data, and other information with other contractors if it contributes to the success of the program. This includes coordination with a contractor, chosen by DARPA, if appropriate. A statement of cooperation must be included in the final proposal. REQUIREMENTS/PROCEDURES: The Award Document for each proposal selected and funded will contain a mandatory requirement for submission of DARPA/IXO Quarterly Status Reports and an Annual Project Summary Report. These reports will be electronically submitted via the DARPA/IXO Technical ? Financial Information Management System (T-FIMS), utilizing the government furnished Uniform Resource Locator (URL) on the World Wide Web (WWW). Further details may be found in the Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP). PROPOSAL DELIVERY: Proposals must be uploaded no later than 1500 (EST), 30 May 2003 to be considered for the first round of funding. BAA 03-26 will be open until 16 April 2004. Proposals submitted under this BAA after the above referenced date will be accepted, but will not be considered for the first round of funding. Please reference http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/jaguar/index.htm for complete submission instructions. PROTECTION OF INFORMATION: It is the policy of DARPA to treat all proposals as competitive information and to disclose contents only for the purposes of evaluation and assessment. The Government may use selected support contractor personnel from SET Associates Corporation, Schafer Corporation, DynCorp Systems & Solutions LLC, and McNeil Technologies to assist in administrative functions only. Those contractors sign binding, non-disclosure agreements with DARPA. TECHNICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INQUIRIES: Technical, contractual, or administrative questions should be emailed to baa03-26@darpa.mil. Answers to all questions generally relevant to the technical, contractual, and administrative aspects of the solicitation will be posted on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for public access. OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION: The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement. All responsible sources 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 team with others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCUs and MIs participation, due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of technology for exclusive competition among these entities. Government contractors are required to register at the Government?s Central Contractor Registration site in order to negotiate contracts with most government agencies. This URL is provided as a reference: http://www.ccr.gov. Since this FedBizOpps Announcement, along with the Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP), constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement as contemplated in the FAR 6.102 (d)(2)(i), all prospective Offerors MUST also refer to the PIP before submitting a proposal. DARPA anticipates that initial contractor selections will be made during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2003.
- Record
- SN00305338-W 20030418/030416213928 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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