MODIFICATION
A -- ADVANCED COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS
- Notice Date
- 1/26/2006
- Notice Type
- Modification
- NAICS
- 541710
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences
- 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-BAA-04-03-IFKA
- Point of Contact
- Renee Arcuri, Contracting Officer, Phone (315) 330-4777, Fax (315) 330-8094,
- E-Mail Address
-
Renee.Arcuri@rl.af.mil
- Description
- The purpose of this modification is to republish the original announcement pursuant to FAR 35.016(c). Previous modifications are incorporated into this republishing. No other changes have been made. FEDERAL AGENCY NAME: Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514 TITLE: ADVANCED COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE: Initial announcement. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY NUMBER: BAA # 04-03 -IFKA CFDA Number: 12.800 DATES: It is recommended that white papers be received by the following dates to maximize the possibility of award: FY 04 should be submitted by 1 July 04; FY 05 by 1 May 05; FY 06 by 1 May 06; FY 07 by 1 May 07; and, FY 08 by 1 May 08. White papers will be accepted until 2pm Eastern time on 6 Jan 2009, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective fiscal year after the dates cited. FORMAL PROPOSALS ARE NOT BEING REQUESTED AT THIS TIME. See Section IV of this announcement for further details. I. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION: The intent of seeking advanced computing architectures is to explore computer architectures with greater capacity and sophistication for addressing dynamic mission objectives under constraints imposed by C2, ISR, and strike systems in order to establish, maintain, and exploit information superiority. Evolution in computing performance, capacity, and adaptability will lead to extraordinary advances in warfighter capabilities and the systems they depend upon each day. By broadening and increasing the cognitive capabilities of the computing infrastructure the advantages the warfighter has in filtering, detecting, tracking, fusion, and situational assessment can be unmatched. Achieving, demonstrating, and fielding these cognitive advances in a constructive methodical manor is key to providing the information superiority necessary for future DoD mission success. The overall objective of this BAA is to develop, integrate, and demonstrate advanced computing architecture technologies and applications. This effort will investigate the research, application and/or development of emerging advanced computing architecture technologies, products and standards as they relate to the following technical areas: (1) Development of appropriate information technology to enhance the processing capabilities of current and future Air Force C4I systems. This area encompasses all information processing technology both hardware and software that could potentially contribute to enhancing the functionality, performance, reliability, longevity, scalability and usability of legacy or planned Air Force C4I processing systems. Examples of hardware technologies include data intensive processing architectures, power aware processing architectures, polymorphic processing architectures, high productivity computing systems, clockless logic, grid computing, data storage, data visualization, data busses, mobile and wireless networks. Examples of software technologies include programming languages both new and existing, data retrieval/mining, data management, data delivery, software/system monitors, publish/subscribe mechanisms, decision making techniques, distributed databases, and resource management. (2) Development of novel computing architectures that facilitate evolutionary computing (EC) methods such as Genetic Algorithms (GAs), Genetic Programming (GP), etc. for solving hard, NP-complete optimization problems. Research in this area could address design tools for mapping algorithms and fitness function evaluation engines onto hardware/software systems, achieving extreme solution speeds, problem size scaling, physical miniaturization and power minimization of the physical platform. Also of interest would be research aimed at employing EC methods to enhance and optimize the design process for composing such hardware/software systems, and applications of these technologies to specific optimization problems of interest to the Information Directorate. (3) Development of technologies supporting utilization of hybrid computation systems such as quantum or biomolecular computing combined with conventional CMOS Silicon systems. New algorithms and architectures, for interfaces between conventional electronic systems and systems based on new operations paradigms, are needed to transduce information in the most efficient manner. This will enable development of hybrid systems with unique capabilities beyond general computing, such as intrinsic contextual addressing and computing. (4) Modeling and Simulation. Development of virtual real time modeling and simulation methods to enable more human intuitive design processes. Research in this area would focus on demonstrating extreme speed-ups of modeling and simulation engines used in present or proposed design environments, in order to achieve near real time inspection of the effect of changes made to a device or information system design. This research area would also encompass fast methods to cast models and simulation engines into parallel and embedded processing platforms. In addition this area includes the development of simulation technology to perform rapid assessment and course of action analysis of the predictive battlespace environment. Examples of these particular technologies include: real-time simulation systems, advanced simulation architectures, M&S for wargaming, behavior representation, predictive assessment of adversarial actions, adversary intent inferencing, and application of these, or other, technologies to the concepts of dynamic planning/execution, and real-time decision support. (5) Development of hardware and software processing architectures and techniques to enhance mechanisms of intelligence leading to cognizant computing. Examples might be learning algorithms, knowledge creation techniques, storage or computation media physically addressed by a context mechanism such as resonance or stochastic summation, or distributed processing where each of many parallel sensing devices, has its own processor that does significant data interpretation/reduction. (6) Development of information technology leading to the advancement or demonstration of autonomous systems for enabling improved situational awareness, situational management, and situational control of the battlespace. This area includes all information technology that could potentially contribute to enhancing awareness and response through processing, reconfigurability, networking, communication, teaming, and control of ground, air, and/or space platforms. II. AWARD INFORMATION: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $24.9M. The anticipated funding to be obligated under this BAA is broken out by fiscal year as follows: FY 04 - $4.9M; FY 05 - $5M; FY 06 - $5M; FY 07 - $5M and FY08 - $5M. Individual awards will not normally exceed 30 months with dollar amounts ranging between $100K to $1.5M per year. Awards of efforts as a result of this announcement will be in the form of contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, or other transactions depending upon the nature of the work proposed. III. ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION: 1. ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS: All potential applicants are eligible. Foreign allied participation is authorized at the prime contractor level. Foreign allied participation is allowed of the following countries: France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom. 2. COST SHARING OR MATCHING: Cost sharing is not a requirement. IV. APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION: 1. APPLICATION PACKAGE: THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION. WE ARE SOLICITATING WHITE PAPERS ONLY. DO NOT SUBMIT A FORMAL PROPOSAL AT THIS TIME. Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. See Section VI of this announcement for further details. For additional information, a copy of the Rome "BAA& PRDA: A Guide for Industry," Sep 1996 (Rev), may be accessed at: http://www.if.afrl.af.mil/div/IFK/bp-guide.html. 2. CONTENT AND FORM OF SUBMISSION: Offerors are required to submit 3 copies of a three (3) to five (5) page white paper summarizing their proposed approach/solution. 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. 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. Multiple white papers within the purview of this announcement may be submitted by each offeror. If the offeror wishes to restrict their white papers/proposals, they must be marked with the restrictive language stated in FAR 15.609(a) and (b). All white papers/proposals shall be double spaced with a font no smaller than 12 pitch. In addition, respondents are requested to provide their Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) number, a fax number, and an e-mail address with their submission. All responses to this announcement must be addressed to the technical POC, as discussed in paragraph five of this section. 3. SUBMISSION DATES AND TIMES: It is recommended that white papers be received by the following dates to maximize the possibility of award: FY 04 should be submitted by 1 July 04; FY 05 by 1 May 05; FY 06 by 1 May 06; FY 07 by 1 May 07; and FY08 by 1 May 08. White papers will be accepted until 2pm Eastern time on 6 Jan 09, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective fiscal year after the dates cited. Submission of white papers will be regulated in accordance with FAR 15.208. 4. FUNDING RESTRICTIONS: The cost of preparing white papers/proposals in response to this announcement is not considered 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 specified in FAR 31.205-18. Incurring pre-award costs for ASSISTANCE INSTRUMENTS ONLY, are regulated by the DoD Grant and Agreements Regulations (DODGARS). 5. OTHER SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: DO NOT send white papers to the Contracting Officer. All responses to this announcement must be addressed to ATTN: Christopher Flynn, AFRL/IFTC, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY 13441. Respondents are required to provide their Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number with their submittal and reference BAA-04-03-IFKA. V. APPLICATION REVIEW INFORMATION: 1. CRITERIA: The following criteria will be used to determine whether white papers and proposals submitted are consistent with the intent of this BAA and of interest to the Government, which are listed in descending order of importance: (1) Overall Scientific and Technical Merit -- Including the rationale and approach for the development and/or enhancement of the proposed technology and its evaluation, (2) Related Experience - The extent to which the offeror demonstrates relevant technology and domain knowledge, (3) Openness/Maturity of Solution - The extent to which existing capabilities and standards are leveraged and the relative maturity of the proposed technology in terms of reliability and robustness, and (4) Reasonableness and realism of proposed costs and fees (if any). Also, consideration will be given to past and present performance on recent Government contracts, and the capacity and capability to achieve the objectives of this BAA. Individual white paper/proposal evaluations will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria without regard to other white papers and proposals submitted under this BAA. No further evaluation criteria will be used in selecting white papers/proposals. White papers and proposals submitted will be evaluated as they are received. Cost sharing will not be considered in the evaluation. 2. REVIEW AND SELECTION PROCESS: Only Government employees will be reviewing the white papers/proposals for selection. The Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate has contracted for various business and staff support services, some of which require contractors to obtain administrative access to proprietary information submitted by other contractors. Administrative access is defined as "handling or having physical control over information for the sole purpose of accomplishing the administrative functions specified in this contract or order, which do not require the review, reading, or comprehension of the content of the information on the part of non-technical professionals assigned to accomplish the specified administrative tasks." These contractors have signed general non-disclosure agreements and organizational conflict of interest statements. The required administrative access will be granted to non-technical professionals. Examples of the administrative tasks performed include: a. Assembling and organizing information for R&D case files; b. Accessing library files for use by government personnel; and c. Handling and administration of proposals, contracts, contract funding and queries. Any objection to administrative access must be in writing to the Contracting Officer and shall include a detailed statement of the basis for the objection. VI. AWARD ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION: 1. AWARD NOTICES: Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. Notification by email or letter will be sent by the technical POC. Such invitation does not assure that the submitting organization will be awarded a contract. Those white papers not selected to submit a proposal will be notified in the same manner. Prospective offerors are advised that only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. All offerors submitting white papers will be contacted by the technical POC, referenced in Section VII of this announcement. Offerors can email the technical POC for status of their white paper/proposal no earlier than 45 days after submission. 2. ADMINISTRATIVE AND NATIONAL POLICY REQUIREMENTS: Depending on the work to be performed, the offeror may require a SECRET facility clearance and safeguarding capability; therefore, personnel identified for assignment to a classified effort must be cleared for access to SECRET information at the time of award. In addition, the offeror may be required to have, or have access to, a certified and Government-approved facility to support work under this BAA. 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. Proposers are warned that only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. 3. REPORTING: Once a proposal has been selected for award, offeror?s will be required to submit their reporting requirement through one of our web-based, reporting systems known as JIFFY or TFIMS. Prior to award, the offeror will be notified which reporting system they are to use, and will be given complete instructions regarding their use. VII. AGENCY CONTACTS: All questions prior to the submission of a technical and cost proposal can be addressed to the technical POC, Christopher Flynn, telephone: (315) 330-3249 or email Christopher.Flynn@rl.af.mil. Questions, clarification, or concerns from offerors or potential offerors during the proposal development phase of this acquisition should be communicated directly to the IFKA Contracting Officer, Lori Smith, telephone (315) 330-1955 or e-mail Lori.Smith@rl.af.mil. The email must reference the title and solicitation number of the acquisition.
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