Call for Abstracts: PMS 406 Workshop on Improving Autonomous Systems for Next-Generation UUVs

2/14/2022 update: Registration information for this event is now available; please refer to Notice N0002422SN0146 for event and registration information. Registration closes on March 3, 2022. No further updates to this notice shall be posted; all future updates will be made to Notice N0002422SN0146. 2/8/2022 update: This notice has been modified to adjust the workshop dates to March 10-11, 2022 (from February 17-18, 2022). 2/2/2022 update: This notice has been modified to adjust the submission date (the due date) for presentations to be submitted to the Government by identified presenters to February 7, 2022. 1/20/2022 update: This notice has been modified to adjust the dates for the notification of selected speakers (to January 20, 2022) and the final due date for papers and presentations (to February 2, 2022). All individuals that submitted an abstract have been notified via email of their status regarding presentation. Additional information regarding registration to attend the workshop shall be posted on SAM.gov at a later date. 1/11/2022 update: This notice has been modified to add a secondary point of contact (Dan Fisher, NAVSEA Contract Specialist). 12/20/2021 update: This notice has been modified to extend the dates for abstract submission and notification of selected speakers. THIS REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI), AS DEFINED IN FAR 15.201(e), IS SOLELY FOR INFORMATIONAL AND PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY AND SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED AS A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL, REQUEST FOR QUOTE (OR ANY TYPE OF SOLICITATION), OR AS AN OBLIGATION OR COMMITMENT ON THE PART OF THE GOVERNMENT TO CONTRACT FOR ANY SUPPLY OR SERVICE, OR AS A PROMISE TO ISSUE A SOLICITATION IN THE FUTURE. THERE WILL NOT BE A SOLICITATION, SPECIFICATIONS, OR DRAWINGS AVAILABLE. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT MAY OR MAY NOT TRANSLATE INTO AN ACTUAL PROCUREMENT(S) IN FUTURE YEARS. THERE IS NO FUNDING ASSOCIATED WITH THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. IN ACCORDANCE WITH FAR 15.201(e) RESPONSES TO THIS NOTICE ARE NOT OFFERS AND CANNOT BE ACCEPTED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO FORM A BINDING CONTRACT. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT AT THIS TIME SEEKING PROPOSALS AND WILL NOT ACCEPT UNSOLICITED PROPOSALS. RESPONDENTS ARE ADVISED THAT THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT PAY FOR ANY INFORMATION OR ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS INCURRED IN RESPONSE TO THIS RFI; ALL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH RESPONDING TO THIS RFI WILL BE SOLELY AT THE RESPONDENTS EXPENSE. Failure to respond to this RFI itself does not preclude participation in response to any future solicitation, if any is issued. If a solicitation is issued, it will be synopsized on the System for Award Management website at SAM.gov. The information provided in this RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. It is the responsibility of potential respondents to monitor these sites for additional information pertaining to this requirement. The information requested by this RFI will be used within the U.S. Navy/Department of the Navy to facilitate decision making and may be used in the development of the acquisition strategy and any future solicitations. Any information provided by industry to the Government as a result of this RFI is voluntary. Other requests for information contained in this RFI shall be referred to NAVSEA 02 - Daniel Antoon (daniel.j.antoon.civ@us.navy.mil) Code 02636. Background The Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office (PMS 406) seeks to understand the current state of the art of autonomous performance prediction and fault management software for UUVs. Working with Unmanned Undersea Vehicles Squadron ONE (UUVRON-1) and the Undersea Warfighting Development Center (UWDC), among others, PMS 406 recently developed a list of desired autonomy capabilities for a large, long-endurance UUV (such as the XLUUV class UUVs) for which there is a need for further research and the development of novel solutions. The categories of autonomy capabilities that could significantly benefit the Fleet's UUVs include in-situ estimation of performance, prediction of future performance, and the detection, prediction, and mitigation of faults. PMS 406 is eager to engage developers and researchers on these two topics through a two-day workshop featuring select technical presentations. Workshop Description PMS406 calls on government, industry, and academic leaders to participate in a workshop to explore autonomous performance estimation, performance prediction, fault detection, and fault mitigation for next-generation UUV systems. It is anticipated that performance, fault handling and overall reliability will become even more important as UUV missions increase in duration from hours to days or weeks of operation. The Government is seeking technical presentations describing recent research on these topics to speak at the workshop. The outcome of the workshop will be an understanding of the state of these capabilities and their applicability to Navy UUV systems, as well as the identification of areas that require additional research. The results will inform a technology roadmap to assist PMS 406 and the greater US Navy Enterprise in developing future UUV autonomy capabilities. Description of Topics For an autonomous vehicle system, real-time decision-making requires estimation of the current state of the system and of future performance. Future performance depends on a prediction of the future internal state of the system, results of actions taken by the system, and of the future impact of the environment on the system, including other actors. This workshop on performance estimation focuses on two related capabilities: (1) performance estimation and (2) failure detection and mitigation. The impact of poor or non-existent estimates of the system's future state, or the inability to detect and react to potential failures will only be exasperated as the duration of the UUV mission increases. Performance estimation and performance prediction cover a broad set of capabilities that affect the ability of an autonomous vehicle to estimate its current performance and predict its future performance. In practice, operational UUVs do not perform in the same manner in-situ as in controlled test environments, which can lead to negative impacts on overall mission performance. The interactive effects of the ocean environment on navigation, power generation, and other UUV operations carried out during missions will be considered during this workshop; these effects include current, temperature, salinity, density, bottom depth, and bottom type. Throughout this workshop we will examine how in-situ changes can be evaluated, why such variations occur, how such changes can be avoided, and how they can be mitigated when they occur. Topics are wide-ranging, including but not limited to (not in any particular order): Expected energy use for various tasks including propulsive efficiency with respect to future environmental conditions; Communication availability and bandwidth estimation; Navigation performance over the duration of a mission; Autonomously conducting sensor calibration, alignment maneuvers, and other performance improvement functions; Estimating performance reductions and failures (based on measures of the content or quality of the subsystem output); Determining and/or understanding critical subsystems required to complete a mission; and Determining the safety and operational status of the platform against user-specified safety limitations Similarly, failure detection and mitigation refers to the ability of the autonomous system to detect and mitigate current failures or performance degradation of onboard systems, and to anticipate likely future failure or performance degradation. In many cases, the mitigation could be done automatically, but in the near-term and for some instances, human operators will require succinct and relevant information on how to reconfigure a vehicle's subsystems in order to successfully complete a mission. Some of the subsystems of interest include engineering operations; hull, mechanical, and electrical (HM&E) systems; other propulsion and control systems; energy stores; battery control and battery optimization; communication devices; and mission sensors. For example, an autonomous vehicle subsystem should be able to detect failure of a control surface, which may be mitigated by an autopilot algorithm; and the autonomous vehicle must also adjust predictions of future performance based on this detected failure, which may include decreased endurance and decreased mission sensor performance (e.g. side-scan sonar) due to larger vehicle oscillations. Additional topics would include but are not limited to (not in any particular order): Scalable and intelligent management of health and status information down to the component level; Detecting and recording basic failure modes of subsystems; Prioritizing and categorizing system faults and failures; Monitoring environment for conditions outside of tolerance of nominal ranges (e.g. extremes of currents, sea state, water density); Real-time assessment of sensor performance; Activities that autonomously improve sensor performance (e.g. recalibrate magnetic sensors, conduct alignment maneuvers, sonar calibration, etc.); Determining specific failure modes and causes based on health monitoring status from sensors and/or associated equipment; Technologies enabling safe and verifiable remote reconfiguration of vehicle subsystems (in response to mission needs or subsystem faults); Communicating abnormal or degraded vehicle capabilities based on perceived subsystem faults and failures; Modifying a planned mission to account for detected failures or predicted failures; and Intelligent communication of system status, particularly when faults are detected or there are changes to the planned mission Workshop Participants Speakers will be autonomy developers and researchers from government, industry, or academia, with expertise in any aspect of the workshop topic. Each speaker will present a briefing on their state-of-the-art contributions in areas encompassed by the workshop topic(s). It is also anticipated that the intended audience will contain representatives of the US Navy Enterprise interested in the products of this workshop such as future roadmaps, and identification of technologies that can be transferred more immediately to US Navy UUV systems. Speakers will be invited to present based on a review of abstracts. Registration for attendance for non-speakers will be announced at a later date. Participation in the workshop is limited to United States of America (USA) registered vendors only. Submission Details Those interested in speaking at the workshop must submit notice of attendance, a title and abstract of their proposed presentation, not to exceed one page, including contact information and citations (if appropriate) not later than January 7, 2022. Each electronic submission shall be labeled as follows: Company Name, Cage Code, City, State Point of Contact (POC) Name POC Phone Number Security Classification of the Response All responses should be marked to the following: Commanding Officer Naval Sea Systems Command Attn: Daniel Antoon, SEA 02636 1333 Isaac Hull Ave SE Washington Navy Yard, DC 20376-2060 Please submit electronic submissions to the following addresses: TO: Daniel Antoon, daniel.j.antoon.civ@us.navy.mil CC: Troy Holley, troy.holley@jhuapl.edu Spike Dixon, spike.dixon@jhuapl.edu SUBJECT LINE: PMS 406 Autonomy Workshop - Next Gen UUVs - [COMPANY NAME] Electronic submissions are encouraged unless the Company is unable to submit electronically or classified material is included in which case respondents should contact NAVSEA 02 for further instruction. This workshop will be unclassified, and no proprietary information is allowed. Publicly releasable information is preferred, as the intent is to include maximum participation from both inside and outside the defense industry. However, the workshop may include a Controlled Unclassified Information segment. If your presentation requires a Distribution D or other CUI marking, please say so in your submission. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned. Important Dates Notification of Attendance and Title/Abstract Submission - January 7, 2022 (Friday) Notification of Selected Speakers - January 20, 2022 (Thursday) Final Due Date for Papers and Presentations - February 7, 2022 (Monday) 5:00 PM EST Workshop Dates - March 10 and 11, 2022 (Thursday and Friday) Workshop Schedule Two-day schedule will be provided to participants closer to the workshop date. Workshop Location Virtual Teleconference (VTC) information provided closer to the workshop date. 12/20/2021 update: This notice has been modified to extend the dates for abstract submission and notification of selected speakers.