AI/ML Research for Expeditionary Maneuver and Air/Ground Reconnaissance

This special notice references the ARL BAA which can be found at Grants.gov or FBO.gov document: W911NF-17-S-0003. Synopsis: The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is planning to consider proposed research and development solutions submitted under the ARL Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for Basic and Applied Scientific Research topic Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) under the Information Sciences Campaign (section II.A.4.k.) in support of new technologies and translational research-based approaches in two (2) areas (1) Expeditionary Maneuver and (2) Air/Ground Reconnaissance. 1. AI/ML Research for Expeditionary Maneuver Problem: How do Intelligent Systems reason about, interact with, navigate through, and manipulate a dynamic environment (to include the unknown physical world) to achieve complex Army relevant actions for the future multi-domain battlespace? Specific Areas of Interest: - Methods to learn physics abstractions of objects from observations and to learn and validate models through interaction with the environment. - Ability to infer, learn, and model the dynamics of complex objects, including humans, to include predicted outcomes of their physical interactions with the intelligent system. - Enhanced physical scene understanding, through physical probing and learned experiences, for enabling maneuver and interaction planning for complex and resilient maneuvers and behaviors. 2. AI/ML Research for Air/Ground Reconnaissance Problem: How do diverse, embodied agents collectively sense, infer, reason, plan, and execute in collaboration with Army warfighters and in the face of a peer adversary? Additionally, how to extend the reach, situational awareness, and operational effectiveness of Army Intelligent System/Soldier teams against dynamic threats in complex and contested environments. Specific Areas of Interest: - Intelligent systems that can learn and adapt to dynamic changes in the environment - Self-organizing teams based on mission goals and available systems that can compose and share representations of the world to coordinate on the local and global level - Ability to learn and interact with humans at multiple levels - Systems that learn perception-action-communication loops to adapt and modify behaviors as the mission demands and the communication constraints and the data allows Innovative research solutions are sought in the areas described above under section II.A.4.k. of the ARL BAA. It is anticipated that initial awards resulting from responses to this Special Notice will be made in FY20. Solutions expected to have a two year period of performance with potential for up to three additional years. To be considered for invitation to submit a proposal, applicants must comply with the submission instructions included in this notice regarding Whitepaper submissions and the ARL BAA. Whitepaper Content and Submission - This section further defines section II.D.2 in the ARL BAA for purposes of this special notice only. 1. Content: Whitepapers submitted in response to this announcement shall contain the following content: a. COVER PAGE (not to exceed one (1) page): i. The whitepaper cover page shall include at a minimum: ii. Title of the whitepaper iii. Name of the organization submitting the whitepaper iv. Names of any participating organizations v. CAGE Code of the organization submitting the whitepaper vi. Name, address, email, phone # of the applicant's POC b. TECHNICAL CONTENT (not to exceed five (5) pages): i. A not to exceed 150 word executive summary of the proposed effort and its contribution to the Army's mission. ii. A detailed discussion of the effort's scientific research objective, approach, relationship to similar research, facilities and infrastructure, and level of effort shall be submitted. Also include the nature and extent of the anticipated results and, if known, the manner in which the work will contribute to the accomplishment of the Army's mission and how this contribution would be demonstrated. iii. Summary of the applicant's key research facilities, instrumentation, key teaming agreements and related resources. iv. The type of support, if any, the applicant requests of the Government, such as facilities, equipment, demonstration sites, test ranges, software, personnel or materials, shall be identified as government furnished equipment (GFE), government furnished information (GFI), government furnished property (GFP), or government furnished data (GFD). Applicants shall indicate any Government coordination that may be required for obtaining equipment or facilities necessary to perform any simulations or exercises that would demonstrate the proposed capability. v. The cost portion of the whitepaper (see attachment 1) must contain a brief cost estimate revealing all the component parts of the proposal, including research hours, burden, material costs, travel, etc. Any cost sharing or other applicant contributions should be included. c. ADDENDUM (not to exceed one page): Include biographical sketches of the key personnel who will perform the research, highlighting their qualifications and experience. 2. Format: Whitepapers must be in the following format but do not require any special forms: a. All submissions must be UNCLASSIFIED b. Layout i. Page Size: 8 - x 11 inches ii. Margins - 1 inch iii. Spacing - single iv. Font - Times New Roman, 12 point 3. Whitepapers submitted under this special notice will be evaluated by Government experts. During this evaluation, contractor technical experts may provide technical expertise to the Government. The Government has contracted for various non-government scientific, engineering, technical and administrative staff support services, some of which require contractors to obtain access to proprietary information submitted by other contractors. All non-government contractor support personnel have signed and are bound by appropriate non-disclosure agreements and organizational conflict of interest statements. 4. Disposition of submissions: No submissions will be returned. All submissions will be disposed of in accordance with the instructions provided in an applicant's whitepaper. If no instructions are listed, ARL will dispose of submissions at their discretion. 5. Deadline: All whitepapers are due no later than 5:00 PM EST 3 June 2019 to be considered for a FY20 award. A whitepaper sent by any other means (e.g., hand-carried, postal service mail, commercial carrier or fax) will not be considered. Whitepapers received after the deadline will not evaluated for an FY 20 award. Pages submitted in excess of the page counts specified above will not be evaluated. 6. Applicants submitting whitepapers are cautioned that only a Contracting Officer/Grants Officer/Agreements Officer can obligate the Government to any legal instrument involving expenditure of Government funds. All inquiries regarding this special notice shall be submitted in email to the address below. 7. The Government will not pay for any effort expended in responding to this special notice. Questions: Any questions prior to whitepaper submission must be submitted to the point of contact below and not to any of the technical POCs included in the ARL BAA. Original Point of Contact: Questions regarding this announcement must be sent to the following email address: contact@example.gov Whitepaper submission should be sent to the following email address: contact@example.gov