SPECIAL NOTICE
A -- Survivability of Interdependent Systems and Components RFI DARPA-SN-09-69
- Notice Date
- 9/24/2009
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- Other Defense Agencies, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Contracts Management Office, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia, 22203-1714
- ZIP Code
- 22203-1714
- Solicitation Number
- DARPA-SN-09-69
- Archive Date
- 10/31/2009
- Point of Contact
- Nozer Singpurwalla, Phone: 000-000-0000
- E-Mail Address
-
DARPA-SN-09-69@DARPA.MIL
(DARPA-SN-09-69@DARPA.MIL)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking ideas that may support a new DARPA program to demonstrate innovative concepts and technologies that dramatically increase the Department of Defense's (DoD's) technology for making realistic predictions of survivability. The DoD depends heavily on the trustworthy performance of complex, interdependent systems at all levels of its activities. For example, electronic equipment, computing infrastructure, communication networks, airborne, naval and ground vehicles, logistics chains, and force protection structures rely on the assured functioning of their components and sub-systems to satisfy their mission requirements. Realistic predictions of the survivability of such systems are essential to the DoD for planning and executing its myriad operations. Reliability, the metric of performance used over the past sixty years is unsatisfactory; therefore, ideas related to advances in traditional reliability techniques are discouraged. REQUESTED INFORMATION DARPA appreciates responses from all capable and qualified sources including, but not limited to, universities, university affiliated research centers, and private or public companies. This RFI is soliciting detailed White Papers describing research and development of a rigorous mathematical and statistical foundation for survivability assessment. This includes a description of the process for validating the foundational research and adapting it for use in an application scenario of interest to the DoD. The White Papers must address the full scope of development for either or both of the following two challenge areas: The first challenge posed is to create a rigorous and mathematically justifiable foundation for lifespan prediction via the metric of survivability. In this context, survivability is defined as an unconditional probability that a component, a sub-system, or a system is in a functioning state at any specified time, i.e. "mission time." Survivability is not the same as reliability; however, the latter is a stepping stone to the former. Reliability is a time-indexed conditional probability, conditioned on unknowable parameters, such as the mean to time failure, the failure rate, or a failure propensity. The unknown parameters, generally denoted by Greek symbols, have no observable reality. In current practice, assessing a system's performance is based on fixed and known reliabilities and assumptions of independence; in actuality, neither of these is true. Consequently, calculated assessments of system performance fall short of actual experience. Survivability, as the correct metric of system performance, has not been articulated, in theory or in practice. As systems continue to become increasingly large and increasingly interdependent, the gap between assessments and actuality will grow, creating surprises for the DoD planners and the warfighters. The second challenge area is the development of new families of probabilistic failure models that are thick tailed and that allow for extreme failure times and downtimes. The currently used probabilistic models for reliability and maintainability (such as the exponential, the gamma, the lognormal, and the Weibull) are ill suited for the realistic prognosis of extreme uptimes and downtimes. The above models are thin tailed, and lead to pessimistic predictions of lifetimes, and to potentially optimistic assessments of maintenance times. These unrealistic assessments of availability and readiness adversely affect logistics planning, system, design vis à vis redundancy allocation, and maintenance planning. The solutions to both of these challenges require the demonstration of their practical relevance to typical DoD scenarios. INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPONDERS When responding to this RFI, please include whenever possible examples of current and previous work that have addressed survivability. Respondents are encouraged to be as succinct as possible while at the same time providing actionable insight. For the first challenge area, white papers should address the development of the fundamental mathematics and stochastic processes, focusing on the theoretical basis of the calculations. Further, the white papers should describe how the resulting new mathematics would be transitioned into software. White papers addressing the second challenge area should discuss model development, including justification for using a thick-tailed model, inferential procedures for specific thick-tailed distributions, and an extreme value theory for the selected distributions. Additionally, the white papers should discuss the transition of the fundamental mathematics into software. FORMAT Responses should adhere to the following formatting and outline instructions: 1. Written submission format specifications include 12-point font, single spaced, single-sided, and 8.5 by 11 inches paper, with 1-inch margins. All submissions must be electronic, adhere to the content formatting described below and use one of the following file formats: Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word. 2. Cover Page (1-page) a. Title b. Organization c. Responder's technical and administrative points of contact (names, addresses, phone and fax numbers, and email addresses) 3. Technical areas (up to 5-pages) a. A discussion of the capability/challenge addressed (from your perspective) b. A technical description of the development of the fundamental mathematics c. Examples of success d. Identify current data (if any) e. Market readiness 4. References (1-page) a. All references to previously published work should be contained within this space. 5. Additionally, all interested parties should submit a Microsoft PowerPoint slide presentation, not to exceed three slides, addressing the technical aspects of the response. Two slides are to be used for a bulleted summarization of the information presented in the written submission. Figures not included in the written submission may be inserted into the space available on these slides. The third slide is to visually and succinctly indicate the new insights motivating the proposed effort, the main objectives, the underlying technical mechanisms, fundamental assumptions and limitations, key innovations, expected impact, and other unique aspects of the proposal. SUBMISSION Responses to this RFI should be submitted to DARPA-SN-09-69@darpa.mil. Please refer to the "Survivability RFI" in all correspondence. All technical and administrative correspondence and questions regarding this announcement should also be submitted to the same email address. DISCLAIMERS AND IMPORTANT NOTES This is an RFI issued solely for information and new program planning purposes; it does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals. 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. Submission is voluntary and is not required to propose to a subsequent Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) (if any) or other research solicitation (if any) on this topic. DARPA will NOT provide reimbursement for costs incurred in responding to this RFI. NO CLASSIFIED INFORMATION SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE RFI RESPONSE OR SLIDES. It is the submitter's responsibility to clearly define to the Government what is considered proprietary data. Any proprietary information should be clearly labeled as "proprietary". DARPA will disclose submission contents only for the purpose of review and evaluation. Respondents are advised that DARPA is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted under this RFI.
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