Cornerstone Initiative CS-19-0204 - Modulator Bias Controller

U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command - Chemical Biological Center (CCDC CBC), Rock Island, IL, on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy via its Manufacturing Resiliency and Assurance Office, and Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program (10 U.S.C. - 2508), in conjunction with Army Contracting Command - Rock Island (ACC-RI), manages the Cornerstone Other Transaction Agreement (OTA), in accordance with 10 U.S.C. - 2371b. Cornerstone was architected to create a broad-based, flexible and enduring public-private consortium focused on strategic strengthening of the U.S. Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and provides a strong complement to the mandates in Presidential Executive Order 13806. ACC-RI, on behalf of CCDC CBC and the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Research and Engineering (DASD(R&E)), intends to issue a competitive Cornerstone Initiative Request (CIR) for Innovative Photonic Modulator Bias Controller Prototypes for Analog Fiber Optic Links, on or after 1 July 2019, with an estimated closing date of 10 days after issuance. The CIR for Modulator Bias Controller will be restricted to Cornerstone consortium members. The CIR will solicit enhanced whitepapers for one or more firm-fixed-price prototype OTAs with incremental payments made upon completion of specific milestones. The government reserves the right to award OTA(s) in the best interest of the government, to include re-competing the requirement if needed. The Base Period of Performance will be two years with options up to an additional four years. Upon successful prototype completion, a follow-on production contract may be awarded. The Department of Defense requires advanced trusted and reliable hardware to support advanced and emerging Radar, Electronic Protection, Electronic Warfare, and Communication missions. Components used in these missions need to have wideband front ends with high spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) to dramatically extend the ability to detect signals in cluttered environments, survivability to electronic attack, and the ability to operate in contested environments. Hybrid integrated photonic circuits that have the potential to enable this functionality along with advanced optical processors will enable a new class of Radio Frequency (RF) systems. They also have the potential to enable Size, Weight, Power & Cost (SWAP-C) efficient, higher performance, wider bandwidth systems on smaller platforms with higher performance. This investment focuses on the development of materials and manufacturing processes for photonic technologies used in RF systems. The objective of this effort is to create prototypes that will improve the SFDR of current state-of-the-art analog photonic link technology and make them available to the U.S. industrial base. The CIR for Modulator Bias Controller will be communicated to the Cornerstone consortium and companies with pending applications via email. Interested organizations are required to have begun the membership process for their proposal to be reviewed. Entities must be members of the Cornerstone consortium, with a signed Cornerstone Consortium Management Agreement, to be awarded this OTA task. Contractors may obtain Cornerstone registration information by visiting the Cornerstone website: http://ibasp-public.ria.army.mil/cornerstone/ Interested parties should stay alert for any changes that may be published to this FBO posting. Please email all questions and responses to the following mailbox: contact@example.gov This Special Notice is for planning purposes only and does not constitute a CIR or an obligation on behalf of the U.S. Government. Issuance of this Special Notice is not a guarantee of a future CIR or an award and is not a commitment of any kind by the Government.