SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- COHERENT COMMUNICATIONS, IMAGING AND TARGETING (CCIT), PHASE II
- Notice Date
- 4/2/2003
- 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
- RA03-08
- Archive Date
- 4/2/2004
- Point of Contact
- L. N. Durvasula, DARPA Program Manager, Phone N/A, Fax 703-696-2204, - Algeria K. Tate, Contracting Officer, DARPA Contracts Management Office (CMO), Phone N/A, Fax (571) 218-4670,
- E-Mail Address
-
ldurvasula@darpa.mil, atate@darpa.mil
- Description
- COHERENT COMMUNICATIONS, IMAGING AND TARGETING (CCIT), Phase II, SOL RA03-08, POC Dr. L.N. Durvasula, DARPA/TTO; Fax: (703) 696-2204, Contractual POC: Ms. Algeria K. Tate, Fax: (703) 248-8033 Website: http://www.darpa.mil. E-Mail: RA03-08@darpa.mil. The Tactical Technology Office (TTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking sources to provide innovative concepts and technology demonstrations for high speed and high resolution silicon micro-machined spatial light modulators (SLMs) with integrated high speed electronic drivers for addressing the SLM pixels and signal processing algorithms to provide digital control of the phase of optical wave fronts. This new capability to provide digitally controlled flexible optical wave-front surfaces is critical to aberration free ground to space secure laser communications and sensing and three-dimensional imaging of objects at very long ranges in excess of 1000 kilometers. This will enable aberration free ground to space coherent communications, imaging and targeting at very long ranges. Robustness, reliability, and high response rate will depend heavily on scalable architectures and intermediate demonstrations. BACKGROUND: In order to establish the feasibility of technology to develop high speed and high resolution SLMs with integrated, high speed electronic drivers for addressing the SLM pixels and signal processing algorithms to provide digital control of the phase of optical wave fronts a solicitation requesting proposals for Phase I effort was published on 28 June 2000 in Commerce Business Daily (CBD) under COHERENT COMMUNICATIONS, IMAGING AND TARGETING (CCIT) SOL RA00-35. Phase I requirements were to develop multiple design approaches and demonstrations of SLMs with a 32x32-element unit cell scalable to 1024x1024 elements, a pixel flatness of one fiftieth of a wavelength and eight bits of phase resolution per pixel with integrated electronics. A maximized pixel size with a high fill factor in excess of 98 percent and a response time of 10 microseconds to provide a frame rate of 10 kilohertz and piston motion of half the wavelength at 1550 nanometers was required for preliminary demonstrations of aberration free communications, imaging and targeting in excess of 1 kilometer. A team comprised of national laboratories, not for profit research laboratories, industry and universities were selected to develop innovative concepts and technologies for, and conduct preliminary demonstrations and systems application analysis. Additional tasks were added to demonstrate plus or minus 10 degrees deflection or tip-tilt movement for the SLM pixels independent of piston movement. Phase II calls for full-scale demonstrations of 1024x1024 SLMs with enhanced performance of the technologies developed in Phase I and demonstrations of one or more applications at ranges in excess of 10 kilometers. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this Phase II solicitation is a 24-month effort to demonstrate the high resolution and high speed capability of 1024x1024 pixel SLMs with integrated high speed electronic drivers for addressing the SLM pixels and signal processing algorithms to provide digital control of the phase of optical wave fronts. The goal is that each pixel of the SLM will have: 1) a maximized size with a high fill factor in excess of 98 percent, 2) a response time of 10 microseconds to provide a frame rate of 100 kilohertz for each pixel, 3) a pixel flatness of two hundredth of a wavelength at the operating wavelength, and a surface roughness of two nanometers across a pixel, 4) eight bits of phase resolution per pixel for the stroke or piston movement of each pixel on the order of five micrometers, 5) a pixel deflection or tip-tilt motion of plus or minus 10 degrees with ten bits of resolution or deflection steps with near diffraction limited performance for full array and sub-arrays of pixels, 6) integrated electronics to address each pixel. The stroke or piston movement and pixel deflection or tip-tilt motion must be independently controlled and establish how these key parameters relate to one another in the design of a SLM system, so that they can be extrapolated to develop a design for specific applications. Ground to air or mountain top demonstrations of either aberration free multi-gigabit secure communications and/or three-dimensional imaging at horizontal ranges in excess of 10 kilometers will be conducted using the full-scale SLMs to establish the feasibility for ground to space demonstrations of secure multi-gigabit communications and aberration free three-dimensional imaging. Emphasis will be placed on integrated approaches, i.e., integrated teams formed to better address the many different technological and scientific aspects of the CCIT, Phase II, program. Teaming is strongly encouraged among organizations with core competencies that are complementary. To facilitate further information exchange between potential bidders and program objectives, an Industry Day Briefing will be provided on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM at Booz Allen Hamilton, Suite 600, 3811 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. Interested organizations should submit letters indicating expressions of interest to Booz Allen Hamilton, ATTN: RA03-08, Suite 600, 3811 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714, to attend the Industry Day Briefing prior to 4:00 PM EDT Friday, April 11, 2003. GENERAL INFORMATION: Proposals should address: 1) Approaches to develop a 1024x1024-element SLMs with the specifications listed in the objectives section of this solicitation, 2) An intermediate demonstration of 256x256 element SLM with all the specifications and integrated addressing electronics including packaging and thermal loading constraints, midway through the program for a program Go/No-Go decision, 3) Discussion and demonstration of compelling application that is relevant to DARPA mission with full-scale 1024x1024 SLM with all the specifications, and 4) Deliverables associated with the proposed research that include the results of the application demonstration, packaged devices for independent testing at Government laboratories or other institutions, and the plans and capability to accomplish technology transition and commercialization. Teaming and the viability of teaming arrangements should be clearly explained in the proposals. Include in this section all proprietary claims to results, prototypes, intellectual property, or systems supporting and/or prototype. If there are no proprietary claims, this should be stated. This solicitation will remain open for one year from the date of publication. The deadline for receipt of initial round of full technical and cost proposals for CCIT, Phase II, effort will be 4:00 PM EDT Wednesday May 28, 2003. Proposals received after this date will not be evaluated for this round. Approximately seventeen million dollars ($17 million) are planned for Phase II. Further information on this solicitation can be found in the Proposer Information Pamphlet (PIP) at the website http://www.darpa.mil/TTO under solicitations. The PIP provides detailed information on program objectives, proposal submission format, evaluation funding information and proposal cover sheet. Aside from the PIP, no additional information is available. Requests for the same will be disregarded. The proposals should be submitted in two volumes: 1) Technical and Management and 2) Cost. Volume 1 -- Technical and Management: The title page should include the following information of the principal investigators: names telephone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses. Pages two and three should be an executive summary. The technical proposal shall not exceed fifty pages and should be divided into two sections. Section I should be the technical proposal which describes the requirements, technical approach and the uniqueness of the design and the construction, the statement of work and technical milestones schedule, tasks to be performed by the team members. Section II should be a summary of offeror's unique capabilities, relevant prior work, organizational structure, and management plan including milestone review process and resumes of key individuals. Volume II -- Cost: The cost proposal shall contain a complete cost breakdown per task/milestone for the entire program and for the tasks performed by team members. Use of an activity based cost (ABC) system is preferred, but not required. Activity Based Cost (ABC) is a technique to quantitatively measure the cost and performance of activities, resources and cost objects, including when appropriate, overhead for the technical and management approach offered. Information concerning activity based cost can be found at website: http://www.c3i.osd.mil/bpr/bprcd/0201.html. The Government will not be liable for costs associated with the preparation of proposals in response to this RA. Submit one original and six hardcopies and six electronic copies of each proposal including a proposal cover sheet and official transmission letter. All proprietary materials should be clearly marked and will be held in strict confidence. Facsimile transmissions or electronic media transmissions will not be accepted. The Electronic copies of the proposal may be submitted in either Microsoft Word for Windows or RTF format on Iomega-compatible 100MB Zip disk(s) or CD-R with HFS/ISO 9660 format, clearly labeled referencing RA03-08, marked with the proposer's organization and proposal title (short title recommended), and "Copy ( )of ( )", must be submitted to: DARPA/TTO, ATTN: RA03-08, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22203-1714. Note: Electronic copies in PDF, LaTeX, unformatted ASCII (with JPG or GIF attachments) or Postscript files are not acceptable. Any versions of Microsoft Word that can be opened and read by Word 97 are acceptable. The technical proposal filename must be the proposer's organization name (limited to 8 characters) and have an extension of either DOC or RTF. If using Microsoft Word, please embed Microsoft PowerPoint graphics. Microsoft Word or RTF documents with graphics, as separate files are not acceptable. The electronic copies may be compressed using ZIP or Self-extracting (.exe) ZIP. All electronic media must be verified virus-free by using an up-to-date, reputable virus detection utility, such as Norton or McAfee anti-virus software, and so noted on the diskette or disk label. Separate attachments, such as institutional brochures, reprints, disks, or videotapes, will render the entire proposal ineligible. Within approximately seven business days of receipt, DARPA will acknowledge receipt of the submission and assign a control number that should be used in all further correspondence regarding the proposal. Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished through a technical review of each proposal using the following criteria, which are listed in descending order of relative importance: l) overall scientific and technical merit, 2) plans and capability to accomplish technology transition 3) offeror's core competence, capabilities, experience, facilities or unique combinations of these which are integral factors for achieving the proposed objectives and the soundness of the proposed management plan, and 4) cost realism. Note: cost realism will only be significant in proposals which have significantly under or over-estimated the cost to complete their effort. The Government plans to make award decisions within approximately 30 days after receipt of full proposals. The Government reserves the right to select one or more, or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement and fund portions of proposals if warranted. Final funding determination will be based on best value to the Government. Should a proposal from a team be selected for award, the team shall be required to submit an intellectual property agreement among team members describing prior ownership of the intellectual property. DARPA is seeking participation from the widest number of offerors. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit proposals, which will be evaluated as received. Toward this end, DARPA is willing to consider all types of proposals including, contracts, grants and "Other Transactions". Information concerning "Other Transactions" can be found at URL http://www.darpa.mil/cmo/pages/other_trans.html. ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Awards made under this RA are subject to the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All offeror's and proposed subcontractors must affirmatively state whether they are supporting any DARPA technical office(s) through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the offeror supports and identify the prime contract number. Affirmations shall be furnished at the time of proposal submission, and the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. This disclosure shall include a description of the action the offeror has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. If the offeror believes that no such conflict exists, then it shall so state in this section. The Government intends to use Booz Allen Hamilton personnel as special resources to assist with the logistics of administering proposal evaluation, and to provide advice on specific technical areas. Personnel of this contractor are restricted by their contracts from disclosing proposal information for any purpose other than these administrative or advisory tasks. Contractor personnel are required to sign the Organizational Conflict of Interest Non-Disclosure Agreements (OCI/NDA). By submission of its proposal, each offeror agrees that proposal information may be disclosed to those selected contractors for the limited purpose stated above. Any information not intended for limited release to this contractor must be clearly marked and segregated from other submitted proposal material. Evaluations and selections under this RA will be made only by Government evaluators. This FedBizOpps notice itself constitutes the Research Announcement as contemplated by FAR 6.102(d)(2). No additional information is available. Requests for same will be disregarded. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Institutions (MIs) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this announcement will be set aside for HBCUs or MIs due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of research for exclusive competition among these entities. In cases where evaluation of proposals is substantially equal, preference for award will be given to those proposals which include HBCUs and MIs as participants over those which do not include HBCUs and MIs. No additional information will be made available, nor will a formal RFP or other solicitation regarding this announcement be issued. Telephone inquiries are strongly discouraged. All technical questions regarding this RA must be submitted in writing, e-mail or via fax to Dr. L.N. Durvasula, ldurvasula@darpa.mil, FAX: (703) 696-2204. For contractual matters please contact Ms. Algeria Tate, atate@darpa.mil, FAX: (703) 248-8033. Any inquiries by the potential bidders after the initial due date of proposals will be posted on the solicitation website http://www.darpa.mil/tto/solicitations.html.
- Record
- SN00294181-W 20030404/030402231626 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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