Technologies Advancing Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) to support Department of Defense (DoD)

AMENDMENT 0003: The purpose of this amendment is to answer questions regarding the Technologies Advancing Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) to support Department of Defense (DoD). Q7: If we are past the deadline for intent to submit, can we still submit a whitepaper for this event? A7: Yes, all responses can be submitted by 16 August via Vulcan per the RFI instructions posted in Amendment 0001. Q8: Are responses limited to one per organization/company? A8: There are no limitations to the number of responses per organization/company. Multiple submissions per organization are allowed. Each project response will be entered as a separate Vulcan submission per the RFI instructions posted in Amendment 0001. Q9: Do you have a brief you can share on this effort? A9: All information at this point is posted in the RFI only. There is no additional brief. Q10: How many personnel can we send to the planning effort in September? A10: Personnel numbers for the Concept Development Workshop in September is yet to be determined at this point due to COVID mitigations. Determinations are being made with regard to executing remotely or in person. Q11: Is funding internal to industry only or will the Office of Naval Research (ONR) help with integration costs? A11: As stated within the original Special Notice posting, responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. AMENDMENT 0002: The purpose of this amendment is to answer questions regarding the Technologies Advancing Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) to support Department of Defense (DoD). The following clarification to Q2, responded to via Amendment 0001 is listed below. Q2: What is the context of the operational side (operational advantage in the Electromagnetic Spectrum across all domains) of this effort? A2 (Revised): The operational context is focused on the employment of a numbers of unmanned systems with EMSO capabilities. Their goal would be Electronic Attack and/or Electronic Surveillance. An Electronic Attack role could be to degrade an adversary's situational awareness, manipulate their perception of the battle space across multiple domains, and leverage the advantages generated to achieve operational objectives. An Electronic surveillance role could be to improve our situational awareness of the adversary's emitters through geolocation, type identification or unique emitter identification The below responses are provided to additional questions received: Q5: The RFI says - Small and large businesses, along with University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC), Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC) and Government activities are encouraged to submit against this RFI. Does that mean you're looking for some sort of relationship/partnership between the businesses and UARCs/FFRDCs/Gov activities? A5: We envision the development of relationships/partnerships between the businesses and UARCs/FFRDCs/Gov activities as a means to create an experimentation environment that will enable accelerated iterative development of mutually supportive capabilities. However, teaming is not a requirement to submit a response to this RFI. Q6: Are the classified addendums included in the 3 page limit? A6: White papers in their entirety should be no more than 3 pages. If submitting Classified information in addition to the UNCLASS submission in Vulcan, both submissions together should total no more than 3 pages. AMENDMENT 0001 The purpose of this amendment is to provide further detail on the submission process as well as to answer questions regarding the Technologies Advancing Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) to support Department of Defense (DoD) N0016421SNB78 - Technologies Advancing Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) to support Department of Defense (DoD) - NAICS 5417 - PSC/FSC AJ13 ISSUE DATE: 16 JULY 2021 CLOSING DATE: 16 AUGUST 2021 THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THIS REQUEST IS FOR PLANNING PURPOSES AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN INVITATION FOR BIDS, A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS, A SOLICITATION, A REQUEST FOR QUOTES, OR AN INDICATION THE GOVERNMENT WILL CONTRACT FOR THE ITEMS CONTAINED IN THIS NOTICE. THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT REIMBURSE RESPONDENTS FOR ANY COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH SUBMISSION OF THE INFORMATION BEING REQUESTED OR REIMBURSE EXPENSES INCURRED TO INTERESTED PARTIES FOR RESPONSES. Background and Description This Special Notice is being issued by Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, in support of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering [OUSD(R&E)], and other entities within the Department of Defense (DoD). This Special Notice is intended to be a Request for Information (RFI) in support of Unmanned, Autonomous and Operator in the Loop technologies with a focus on Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO). Special emphasis will be placed on Electromagnetic Warfare (EW) and Cyber Warfare technologies and capabilities to create operational advantage in the Electromagnetic Spectrum across all domains. Focus areas include: 1) integrated EW-Cyber operations that enable synchronized Electromagnetic Attack, Electromagnetic Warfare Support, Electromagnetic Protection and Operational/Tactical Deception; 2) visualization of Radio Frequency, Cyber and Communications signals; 3) rapid analysis of large volumes of disparate data/information from many sources to include: natural language processing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, super computing, parallel processing and related technologies; 4) technical support to operational decision making from the tactical through the strategic level of warfare; 5) technical support to course of action development, optimization and prioritization. Additionally, requesting information on technologies to enable presentation of a challenging and dynamic operational environment in the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS). Given the extraordinary reliance of the DoD upon commercial vendors and private sector solution providers, NSWC Crane will require a combined effort of EMSO industry and government experts to achieve definable specific outcomes. Small and large businesses, along with University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC), Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC) and Government activities are encouraged to submit against this RFI. Objectives Responses to this RFI should identify implementation capabilities and operational requirements related to programs/projects/ideas/concepts regarding the preferred EMSO capabilities and applications against specific targets of interest as well as addressing technical approaches for ensuring delivery of EMSO capabilities that are of a sufficient Technology Readiness Level (TRL). This collaborative information will assist in establishing an understanding for the acceleration of needed demonstrations, experimentations, and rapid prototyping for promising EMSO integrated capabilities and technologies to advance EMSO capabilities. Respondents should address as many as possible of the following issues about their suggested approach: Major factors to address: EW-Cyber Capabilities: - What technologies or capabilities are being pursued/under development? - How are these technologies/capabilities envisioned to work together? - How are these technologies/capabilities envisioned to integrate into non-kinetic or kinetic operations? EW-Cyber Operational Support Tools and Capabilities or Technologies: What technologies, capabilities or tools are being considered/developed to: - Support EW-Cyber operations to hold targets at risk? - Support integrated EW-Cyber kinetic or non-kinetic operations? - Accelerate correlation or analysis of large volumes of data/information in real-time or near-real time? - Enhance visualization/understanding of the RF, Cyber and all Communication environments? - Enhance decision-making at the tactical, operational and strategic levels? Key technologies (i.e. AI/ML) that influence operational processes to: - Enhance operational preparation of the environment (OPE) in support of EW-Cyber and integrated operations - Advance the state/execution of EW-Cyber operations to gain EW-Cyber superiority and maintain EW-Cyber dominance - Provide technical research areas of importance Response Submission There is no format requirement for white paper, capability statements or briefings. Please limit responses to no more than three (3) pages. Responses shall include the following information for submissions: - Clearly define type of EMSO capability and which technology discipline it supports: -The Radio Frequency domain -The Infrared domain -The Electro-Optic domain - Specific applications: -Electronic Warfare Electronic Attack Electronic Protect Electronic Support -Off-Net Cyber - List all assumptions required for the successful employment of the capability - Clearly define state of program/concept (i.e. TRL and limitations) - How you envision capability employment (i.e., CONOP or CONEMP) - Why capability is being developed (i.e. art of the possible or satisfies a stated requirement) - How soon capability could be developed and/or ready for transition to the warfighter All inquiries (technical and administrative) or clarifications of any kind must be submitted via email to the POCs listed below with the appropriate classification markings. All contracting related responses should be unclassified and for general access by the Government, other evaluators, and other respondents. All material provided (responses, discussions, questions/answers, and other data) that is not related to competition sensitive or marked contractor proprietary material may be provided to other respondents. Any material provided may be used in development of future requirement documents. Any proprietary information submitted must be clearly and separately identified and marked and will be appropriately protected. The Government will NOT be responsible for any proprietary information not clearly marked. Responders may include information that is not within the scope of this RFI, but must be relevant to the overall goals. In addition, if responses include technical requirements that have been identified as CUI in accordance with NIST SP 800-171, the documents shall be identified with the appropriate category markings. See https://www.archives.gov/cui/registry/category-marking-list for guidance. Classified responses shall NOT be mailed. Classified responses shall be marked and delivered in accordance with DoD Manual 5200.01. Classified responses must include identification of their source of classification guidance. Unclassified submissions shall be sent to NIPR email addresses as listed below. Secret level submissions shall only be sent to SIPR email addresses as listed below. Top Secret level submissions shall only be sent to JWICs email addresses as listed below. Classified delivery must be arranged in advance with the POCs listed below. This Special Notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a program or contractual solicitation. NSWC Crane is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of submissions or of the information received, or to provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted under this RFI. 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. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. The Government intends to use the information received in response to this RFI for planning purposes. The Government will not award a contract directly on the basis of this RFI or to otherwise pay for the information solicited. Participants reviewing submissions to this RFI may include: The US Government; Federally Funded R&D Centers; Systems Engineering and Integration (SE&I) government support contractors; all are bound by appropriate non-disclosure requirement and bound by all proprietary laws. Regarding this RFI, no contact is allowed with these organizations. Respondents must submit program/idea/concept white paper(s) and associated briefing(s) for review and consideration to NSWC Crane no later than 16 August 2021. White papers can be classified up to and including TS/SCI. Interested parties should notify the POCs listed below no later than 30 July 2021 of their intent to submit a response as well as the level of classification associated with the white papers. No additional forms or other materials are needed. As a result of EMS domain complexities, there may be future updates to this announcement, additional request, inquiries, and/or potential demonstrations opportunities in a shared experimentation environment. Any changes or updates to this announcement can be found at the Government Point of Entry BetaSAM. Individual notifications will not be sent to respondents. It is the respondents responsibility to monitor and respond accordingly to Government announcements. Future opportunities may become available at shared experimentation venue that will focus on representative scenarios and an environment that is conducive to evaluating the state of technology as it relates to employment and CONOPS development. Points of Contacts (POCs); Primary Point of Contact: Address any questions, comments and areas/ideas for the government to consider relative to this RFI to: Robert Gamberg NSWC Crane, Spectrum Warfare S&T Division Michelle Kitley NSWC Crane, Intelligence Systems Branch Classification Level Communication Method Submission POCs Unclassified NIPR contact@example.gov contact@example.gov Secret SIPR contact@example.gov contact@example.gov Top Secret JWICS contact@example.gov contact@example.gov Unclassified submissions shall be sent to NIPR email addresses as listed above. Secret level submissions shall only be sent to SIPR email addresses as listed above. Top Secret level submissions shall only be sent to JWICs email addresses as listed above.