PMS 406 Market Research Event for Improving Autonomous Systems for Next-Generation UUVs - Registration to Attend Information

2/28/2022 Update - This notice has been updated to include a tentative event schedule as an attachment. A moderated open discussion will take place on both days of the event. Attendees may suggest discussion topics for the moderated discussion. Discussion topics are to be submitted to Dan Fisher, NAVSEA Contracts Specialist, daniel.a.fisher46.civ@us.navy.mil. Registration for Autonomy Market Research Event This notice is to inform interested parties that registration for the PMS 406 Market Research Event for Improving Autonomous Systems for Next-Generation UUVs is now open. This Market Research Event will take place virtually and will be held over two days on March 10-11, 2022. Registration information is located within this announcement. Registration will close on Thursday, March 3, 2022. No late registrations will be accepted. Only approved registrants will be permitted to attend this event. Overview 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 Market Research Event featuring select technical presentations. Market Research Event Description PMS406 calls on government, industry, and academic leaders to participate in a Market Research Event 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 outcome of the Market Research Event 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 An autonomous vehicle system capable of real-time decision-making requires an estimation of the current state of the system and of future performance. Future performance capability may depend 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 Market Research Event 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 amplified as the duration of the UUV mission increases. Performance estimation and performance prediction cover a broad set of capabilities, and both impact the ability of an autonomous vehicle to manage its current performance while also determining its future performance state. 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 Market Research Event; these effects include current, temperature, salinity, density, bottom depth, and bottom type. Throughout this Market Research Event 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 identify sources of performance degradation of onboard systems, and to anticipate likely future failure or performance degradation. While PMS 406 eventually expects that the mitigation will be automatic, in the near-term, and in some limited cases, human operators will require succinct and relevant information on how to reconfigure a vehicle's subsystems to complete a mission successfully. 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 Market Research Event Participants Speakers will be autonomy developers and researchers from government, industry, or academia, with expertise in any aspect of the Market Research Event topic. Each speaker will present a briefing on their state-of-the-art contributions in areas encompassed by the Market Research Event topic(s). It is also anticipated that the audience of this Market Research Event will include representatives of the US Navy Enterprise who are interested in a demonstration of capabilities in the autonomous technology industry, and identification of technologies that may be transferred more immediately to US Navy UUV systems. This Market Research Event will be unclassified, and no proprietary information is allowed. A majority of the Market Research Event will be Distribution A (approved for public release). A portion of the Market Research Event will include a Controlled Unclassified Information/Distribution D/Export Controlled segment, and will be limited to approved registrants. All information that may be restricted from disclosure based on export controls will be limited to attendees that are U.S. Citizens/permanent residents and U.S.-based entities, unless eligibility is demonstrated by the participant and approved by the Government in advance. To be considered, questions on eligibility shall be presented to the point of contact below by the registration deadline. Registration To register to attend the Market Research Event, please complete the registration form located at the following internet address: https://secwww.jhuapl.edu/EventLink/Event/129 All registrations will be reviewed and must be approved by the Government in order to attend. The deadline to register for the Market Research Event is Thursday, March 3 2022. No late registrations will be accepted. Schedule The Distribution A session of the Market Research Event will be held virtually on Zoom for Government on Thursday-Friday, March 10-11, 2022. The CUI/Distribution D/Export Controlled session of the Market Research Event will be held on Microsoft Teams. Sessions will be stand-alone and will not overlap. Each day will promptly begin at 9:00 AM EST and conclude by 5:00 PM EST. Each presentation will not last longer than 20 minutes. A complete schedule will be provided as the event date draws closer. Notice Information This pre-solicitation notice is for information only, and shall not be construed as a commitment by the Government to solicit contractual offers or award contracts. Any information provided by industry to the Government as a result of this notice is voluntary. Prior to release of the formal solicitation, the Government is not soliciting, nor will it accept, proposals as a result of this notice. The Government will not reimburse the cost of any submission in response to this notice -- the entire cost of any submission will be at the sole expense of the source submitting the information. This event may or may not relate to an actual procurement in the future. If a solicitation is issued in the future, it will be announced under Contract Opportunities via the System for Award Management (SAM) website (https://sam.gov/) and interested parties must comply with that announcement. This Autonomy Market Research Event will be a virtual event. As such, presenters and attendees are advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred by presenters and attendees in order to participate in this event. All costs associated with presenting at and/or attending this event are solely at the expense of individual attendees/presenters. Furthermore, the Government will not reimburse respondents for any questions submitted or information provided as a result of this notice or during the event. Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract or agreement. The Government will not be obligated to pursue any particular acquisition alternative because of this notice. Not responding to this notice does not alone preclude participation in any future solicitation, if one is issued. The Department of the Navy and the U.S. Government do not endorse any particular approach, technology, or capability described during the event, or any particular participant. Participation by any entity in this event shall not be construed as any indication of the U.S. Government's current or future plans or requirements. Presentations made by participants describe their own interpretations of the event topic and shall not suggest the Government's endorsement or agreement of the presentation material. Personnel in Attendance: A Department of the Navy Office of General Counsel attorney for PEO USC will also participate in all parts of the event to ensure that Government personnel abide by appropriate authorities, but will not direct his communication to non-U.S. Governmental participants. The Department of the Navy attorney does not have any knowledge or expectation that non-NAVSEA/PEO USC participants are represented by counsel for the purposes of the event or any matter discussed during the event. Presenters and attendees are advised that Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL), third-party contractors supporting PMS 406, are assisting the Government in the execution of the Autonomy Market Research Event and therefore will have access to any presentation material. Unless otherwise marked by the presenter, a submission received in response to this invitation constitutes consent that the Government may provide the above-mentioned contractors all information provided in the presenter's submission. Please direct any questions to Dan Fisher, NAVSEA Contract Specialist (daniel.a.fisher46.civ@us.navy.mil).