Military applications of biometric exploitation to date have largely focused on the use of fingerprints to identify personnel for entry into controlled areas. Biometrics has an expanded role in military operations such as combat identification (friend, foe, or neutral), offensive operations (intelligence support to targeting), force protection (base access), detention operations, civil-military operations (track target members of a population), and personnel recovery and identification. Other potential applications include Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO) and Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR). In addition, biometrics can be utilized to improve business functions such as physical and logical access controls and privilege management applications like health care benefits, finance, and time reporting. As biometrics matures within the Department of Defense (DoD), the requirements and needs of the user are becoming increasingly complex and require specific solutions that have not yet been developed. It is DoD's intent to advance the state-of-the-art across the spectrum of the biometrics infrastructure to provide users with new and enhanced biometrics capabilities. The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), on behalf of the DoD's Biometrics Identity Management Agency (BIMA) and the Defense Biometrics and Forensics Office, is soliciting proposals focused on the development and demonstration of biometric functionality across the Focus Areas indicated below. An accepted proposal should lead to a tangible demonstration in no less than 12 months. Demonstrations and assessments will be performed in coordination with BIMA. Results are to include technical performance measurements and analysis from actual test beds and laboratory environments that indicate the effectiveness of the technology to advance the state-of-the-art in current biometrics capabilities across and/or within these Focus Areas: a. Rapid Verification for Physical Access: DoD is interested in innovative biometric technologies and integrated systems for controlling physical access to a military facility. DoD currently relies on guard personnel to visually verify pre-screened individuals seeking access to DoD facilities. There is a requirement to explore the use of automated biometric technology to positively identify individuals in a vehicle that are authorized access to the facility, providing a reduction in the number of personnel required to operate access points, increase in the quality of the verification process, and maintain or improve throughput. DoD is interested in technology that facilitates rapid capture and verification of all individuals in a vehicle. The implementation should be able to automatically determine the number of individuals, up to four per vehicle, and then biometrically verify the identities of occupants. b. Fingerprint Card Scanner Capability: The DoD participates in data sharing and building partner nation capability with a number of international partners. Many of these nations use paper-based fingerprint cards that must be digitized for storage and automated matching. DoD is seeking innovative technologies that can quickly and accurately process the wide variety of paper-based fingerprint cards, extract both the biometric and biographical information, and populate a transmission file that meets the DoD transmission specification (DoD Electronic Biometric Transmission Specification (EBTS 2.0)) and is seamlessly ingestible into the DoD Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS). Solutions should be capable of extracting biographical data that is typed, script, or block printed, and not rely on storing graphical images of these fields. c. Biometrics in support of enduring DoD missions and strategies. Previous technology focus areas have concentrated on fundamental improvements to sensors and data processing techniques, designed to improve data collection or to provide immediate Warfighter support. However, DoD is also interested in biometric technologies and integrated systems that support non combat, enduring DoD missions such as HA/DR or NEO. For example, submitters might develop a system that enables improved speed and efficiency of the distribution of disaster relief supplies; or a low-cost system that could be used at an international refugee camp to prevent unauthorized access of militia or criminal elements. The technical approach should consider the cost of implementing the proposed solution; for example, if the technical approach requires issuance of an expensive credential to every refugee, the overall implementation cost may make the system infeasible. Other missions and strategies include Force Protection, Counterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterinsurgency, d. Novel Technologies and uses for Biometrics: DoD is interested in new and novel technologies to provide improved collect and match capabilities to our warfighters. Examples include better approaches to rapid and accurate biometric collection, verification, and identification of an individual; technology that provides quality metrics on data collected; fusion of both traditional and "soft" biometrics to enable better verification or identification with a small data set; improved extraction of biometrics from low quality video; and improvements to understanding and measuring the fundamental science relevant to DoD's use of biometrics. DoD is also interested in innovative ways to use new or existing biometric technology to reduce costs and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of DoD functions. DoD is interested in fostering a rapid technology development cycle in these areas, so projects that progress quickly to demonstration are preferred. Projects should have a period of performance of no more than 9-12 months and a budget of no more than $750,000. Technical approaches are expected to employ modular open architectures. When proprietary techniques must be used as part of a system, the original data must remain intact and useable by the DoD biometric enterprise without further interaction with the offeror. While Topic 2.63 will remain open throughout the period covered by BAA W911NF-07-R-0001-05, funding is currently available under this topic for up to seven procurement contract awards. The funding level for these awards is not anticipated to exceed $750,000/year per award. To be considered for this year's funding, white papers in accordance with PART III, SECTIONS 3-4 of the ARL BAA must be received by 12:00pm (Eastern Standard Time) 13 January 2012. Each white paper must be submitted with a single PowerPoint chart, in landscape mode, divided into four equal quadrants. The upper left quadrant shall contain a graphic representing the approach or product described in the white paper. The upper right quadrant shall contain a brief description of the approach and the expected product described in the white paper. The lower left quadrant shall contain a schedule of major milestones for the proposed effort as described in the White Paper. The lower right quadrant shall contain estimated proposed cost for each major milestone as described in the white paper. Use no smaller than 18 point Arial font. This chart will not count against the white paper page count. In approximately 3 weeks after receipt of white papers, offerors submitting proposals of interest to ARL will receive an invitation to submit a complete proposal in accordance with PART III, SECTIONS 5-6 of the ARL BAA. Complete proposals will be due approximately 4 weeks from issuance of the invitation letter. Point of Contact Dr. Keith Aliberti,
contact@example.gov, (301)-394-2320
