Ground Control Station Ship Combat Systems Interface

This synopsis is being posted to the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) page located at http://www.fbo.gov This is a Request for Information (RFI) by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD). This RFI is published in accordance with FAR Part 15.201(e), and is for PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY. It does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP), or a commitment by the U.S. Government, nor should it be construed as such. Respondents are advised that NSWCDD is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of information received, or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted under this RFI. There shall be no basis for claims against the Government as a result of any information submitted in response to this RFI. The Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this RFI, or reimburse RFI preparation costs incurred by any offeror when providing the information requested under this notice. If a solicitation is released at a future date, it will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website. It is the responsibility of any potential offeror to monitor this site for additional information pertaining to this requirement. The Navy is undertaking an effort to standardize the information exchange between unmanned system (UxS) ground control stations (GCS) and ship combat systems (SCS). A previous program of record effort to integrate the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Surface Warfare (SUW) Mission Package (MP) with an MQ-8 Firescout unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has shown that the connection between an SCS and GCS is a superior integration point for bringing UxS into the fleet. Further, existing standards intended to govern communication between GCS and UxS have called out the existence of an interface between an SCS and the GCS (e.g. the Command and Control Interface (CCI) in STANAG 4586). Although the interface has been previously identified, it is believed that there have been no efforts to make this interface common across SCS and GCS implementations. Without such interface commonality the Navy is headed toward a set of uncommon, non-reusable integration efforts, which lengthens integration schedules and increases costs to integrate UxS into the fleet. GCSs come in a variety of shapes and sizes (e.g. handheld, laptop, full size consoles with their own servers, and indoor command centers). There are also several different SCSs (e.g. AEGIS, SSDS, LCS, etc.). The new interface standard is intended to support information exchange between each of the GCSs on the one side and each of the SCSs on the other. The focus of the interface definition is on information exchange once a network connection between the GCS and SCS has been established rather than addressing hardware or network level interfaces. To aid in the effort to create a Common GCS<->SCS Interface Standard, the Navy invites industry, academia, and government to provide information regarding the following within the context of a host C4I system interfacing with a UxS GCS: 1) Previous efforts to standardize the GCS<->SCS interface 2) Existing interface and architecture standards that may influence the design of such an interface (e.g. Ethernet, User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), Data Distribution Service (DDS), North American Treaty Organization (NATO) Standardization Agreement (STANAG) 4586, etc.) 3) Existing architecture standards that may influence the design of such an interface (e.g. Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Control Segment (UCS), Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS), Product Line Architecture (PLA) etc.) 4) Existing taxonomies and data models that may influence the design of such an interface 5) Best practices and lessons learned from previous interface standardization efforts 6) Existing and planned GCS efforts, and their capabilities, especially those that are above and beyond those governed by existing GCS<->UxS interface standards (e.g. secondary intelligence analysis products created at the GCS) 7) Specific kinds of information that the interface should support (e.g. UxS position, track data, target data, flight paths, engagement orders, engagement statuses, sensor statuses, live video, mission tasking, etc.) 8) Existing data formats for the kinds of information that the interface should support 9) Organizations that should be involved in approving the interface standard 10) Organizations that should be involved in the maintenance and upgrade of the interface standard over time. 11) Standards that should be complied with during the creation of the interface standard (e.g. UML, SysML, etc.) SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS and FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS NSWCDD is seeking from responders, content in a briefing or presentation package format on capabilities addressing technology areas outlined. Any responses to this announcement should reference synopsis number N00178-17-Q-3037 and should be directed to Contract office POC. Submittal Format: - Company Name and Address - Point of Contact (to include phone/fax/e-mail) - Technical POC (to include phone/fax/e-mail) - All submitted information should be at the unclassified level - Electronic submissions are strongly encouraged in Microsoft or Adobe PDF format NSWCDD may request further information regarding the capabilities of respondents to meet the requirements as deemed necessary. At no cost to the Government, responding vendors/offerors may continue technical dialogue via this market survey through the Contract Specialist after the initial response is provided. Information received shall be treated as Business Sensitive and will not be shared outside Government activities and agencies without permission of the provider. Any information supplied under this RFI shall be provided free of charge to the Government. If responses contain proprietary data, it shall be marked appropriately. It is the respondent's responsibility to clearly define to the Government what is considered proprietary data. NSWCDD requests offerors' responses No Later Than 12:00 PM EST, 09/25/2017. Submissions will be accepted after this date, but feedback may not be as timely or contribute to NSWCDD's strategic planning. All communications with industry must be coordinated through the cognizant Contract Specialist, Carmell T. Beard. Information should be e-mailed to carmell.beard@navy.mil or mailed to Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) 17632 Dahlgren Road, Bldg 183, Room 102, Dahlgren, VA 22448-5110. Responses should be labeled with the sources sought number and title. (N00178-17-Q-3037) QUESTIONS and POINTS OF CONTACT Any questions regarding this synopsis should be addressed to Carmell T. Beard at carmell.beard@navy.mil.