R&D Contracting Directorate, Bldg 7, 2530 C Street, WPAFB, OH 45433-7607

A -- AVIONICS COLLABORATIVE ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY, PART 1 OF 2 SOL PRDA No. 97-06-AAK POC Contact Kimberly K. Atkinson, Contract Negotiator, (937) 255-5252, or Cynthia Hollingsworth, Contracting Officer, (937) 255-5252 PART 1 OF 2: INTRODUCTION: Wright Laboratory (WL/AAKD) is interested in receiving proposals (technical and cost) on the research effort described below. Proposals in response to this PRDA must be received by 19 May 97, 1500 hours Eastern Time, addressed to Wright Laboratory, Directorate of R&D Contracting, Building 7, Area B, Attn: Ms. Kimberly K. Atkinson, WL/AAKD, 2530 C Street, Wright-Patterson AFB OH 45433-7607. This is an unrestricted solicitation. Proposals submitted shall be in accordance with this announcement. Proposal receipt after the cutoff date and time specified herein shall be treated in accordance with the restrictions of FAR 52.215-10; a copy of this provision may be obtained from the contracting point of contact. There will be no other solicitation issued in regard to this requirement. Offerors should be alert for any PRDA amendments that may permit subsequent submission of proposal dates. Offerors should request a copy of the WL Guide entitled "PRDA and BAA Guide for Industry" dated November 1992. This guide was specifically designed to assist offerors in understanding the PRDA/BAA proposal process. Copies may be requested from the contracting point of contact stated herein. The guide is also available on the internet at www.wl.wpafb.af.mil/contract. B -- REQUIREMENTS: (1) BACKGROUND: Modeling and Simulation (M&S) has been used for a number of years within industry and DoD as an integral part of the acquisition process. In recent years, DoD has placed an increasing emphasis on M&S as a way to reduce acquisition costs, shorten the acquisition cycle, and improve the quality of the systems produced. A number of joint M&S standards such as the Joint Modeling and Simulation System (JMASS), Joint Simulation System (JSIMS), Joint Warfighting Simulation (JWARS), High Level Architecture (HLA), and Joint Technical Architecture (JTA) are under development. In addition, many commercial products also exist which are applicable to avionics M&S applications. The Avionics Collaborative Engineering Technology program is an initiative to exploit these and other emerging M&S technologies to further the acquisition process within Wright Laboratory and DoD. The Wright Laboratory Avionics Directorate consists of six technology divisions (Radio Frequency, Electro-Optics, Combat Information, Mission Applications, System Concepts & Simulation, and Electronic Devices) and one technology management division. The concept of collaborative engineering is a key enabling technology, where a common set of tools and interfaces are shared across the domains so that each team member can contribute to the total solution. (2) TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS: Wright Laboratory intends to award a Cost Plus Fixed Fee, Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity, Delivery Order Contract to address Avionics Collaborative Engineering Technology issues. For convenience, the effort can be subdivided into a number of technology areas. The numbers in parentheses are an estimate of the percentage of the overall effort foreach technology area. Although a single award for this program is anticipated, in the event of multiple awards these numbers will be used in determining contract ceiling amounts. (a) Collaborative Avionics Engineering (10%). The contractor shall develop and implement technologies and methodologies to bring multi-disciplinary engineering to a laboratory environment in support of avionics technology development. The tools and standards needed to permit sharing of data in a multi-user development environment shall be developed. The contractor shall consider the problems associated with allowing various existing engineering design tools, real-time and non real-time simulations, software development tools, and visualization packages to interoperate within an intranet across PCs, workstations, servers, supercomputers, and massive parallel processors. (b) Environment Integration (20%). A number of software development and engineering environments are currently in use within Wright Laboratory. Examples include VHDL design tools, visual programming environments such as Khoros, commercial modeling systems such as Matlab, and Government owned systems such as JMASS, JTA, and DARPA's Simulation Based Design (SBD) program. The contractor shall develop the necessary middleware or perform the required integration to allow different engineering environments to share information. (c) Collaborative Virtual Prototyping (10%). Collaborative Virtual Prototyping can be defined as the application of distributed modeling and simulation in an integrated information system and engineering environment to support trade-off analyses throughout the product life cycle (requirements definition, design, analysis, manufacturing, testing, logistics). Collaborative Virtual Prototyping is an important technology because it enables team members to continuously and electronically interact through modeling and data exchange. It increases insight into life cycle concerns, permits earlier testing through virtual test ranges, and permits detailed knowledge earlier in conceptual and preliminary design phases to most influence life cycle cost. The contractor shall develop methodologies to implement collaborative virtual prototyping across the engineering disciplines within the Avionics Directorate and in the context of the collaborative engineering environment. (d) JMASS Technology (35%). The contractor shall perform modeling and simulation research in support of JMASS. The contractor shall conduct research into technology issues including, but not limited to, the impact of advanced languages such as Ada 95, Object Oriented Software Technologies and Database systems, and the application of the DoD High Level Architecture (HLA) to JMASS. Technologies resulting from this research shall be made available to the JMASS Program Office (ASC/SMJ) for incorporation into their baseline product. (e) Advanced Distributed Simulation (10%). The contractor shall conduct research into advanced distributed simulation concepts. The contractor shall propose solutions that allow geographically dispersed, remotely located simulations to interoperate. The goal of the research shall be platform and language independence. Real-time and non real-time simulations, Hardware In-The-Loop (HITL), and Man In-The-Loop (MITL) simulation shall also be considered. The contractor shall consider the High Level Architecture (HLA) as a means for distributed communication. (f) Scientific Visualization (5%). The contractor shall conduct research into advanced multi-media User Interface technology to provide a window-based, point-and-click and keyboard entry interface to allow a user to perform collaborative engineering functions/operations. Visual assembly of model components and configuration of simulations shall be a major goal of the research. Where appropriate, the contractor shall investigate technologies that support context sensitive help, hypertext/hypermedia, and error handling including meaningful error messages and graceful termination/processing. The contractor shall also conduct research intovisualization technologies such as 2-D and 3-D graphics, 2-D and 3-D animation, and virtual reality. (g) Avionics Model Development (5%). The contractor shall develop (or assist in the development of avionics technology, engineering, and phenomenological models. The models may be designed from scratch, assembled from existing lower-level objects, or adapted from existing legacy codes. In some cases, the contractor shall be required to take models developed by another agency (i.e., intelligence community) and interface them into a simulation to address a specific need. The contractor shall develop models at varying levels of granularity and fidelity (analytic, dynamic, emulative) and investigate methodologies for switching between levels of resolution. (h) Special Projects (5%). New technological breakthroughs may occur during the period-of-performance of this effort. The contractor shall propose a flexible methodology that can take advantage of new technologies, and apply them to the engineering problems described above. (3) INITIAL DELIVERY ORDER: The following is the initial Delivery Order (DO). It is intended to be representative of the type of research that might be requested by the government under this program. The offeror is asked to prepare a separate proposal for this initial DO to assist the government in its evaluation. The objective of this initial DO is to further the implementation of Collaborative Engineering technology within the Wright Laboratory Avionics Directorate. In order to meet this objective, the contractor shall perform the following sub-tasks: (a) Investigation of Avionics Facilities. The contractor shall conduct research to determine the current state of M&S and Collaborative Engineering (CE) within the Avionics Directorate. The contractor shall consider the facilities that exist, the missions that are performed, and current and planned exploratory and advanced development programs. The contractor shall make recommendations to the existing CEE Integrated Product Team (IPT) facility and M&S surveys. (b) Requirements Definition. The contractor shall conduct research to determine the specific M&S and CE requirements within the Avionics Directorate. The contractor shall pay particular attention to the interfaces between facilities/simulations. Data requirements, formats, bandwidths, compatibility across different platforms, and compatibility across different Operating Systems shall all be considered. The contractor shall also consider the interaction between the engineer/analyst and the CE environment. Requirements for User Interfaces, visual assembly of models/scenarios, and data visualization technologies shall be developed. The contractor shall approach CE requirements definition in the context of ongoing exploratory and advanced development programs within the Avionics Directorate. The contractor shall also consider the impact of the USAF Laboratory consolidation initiative on Collaborative Engineering requirements. The Collaborative Engineering concept becomes even more crucial to the acquisition process if avionics functions are located at different Air Force installations. (c) Collaborative Engineering Methodology and Process. Given a clear understanding of the Avionics CE requirements, the contractor shall then develop a methodology and proposed process for implementing collaborative engineering within the Wright Laboratory Avionics Directorate. The contractor shall design an experiment which addresses a "sensor-to-user" application. The experiment shall clearly demonstrate the CE process and provide a focusing application for the technology. The proposed methodology shall address existing facilities, upgrades to existing facilities, and new facilities and/or interfaces as required. The methodology shall be as non-intrusive as possible, so that current programs and schedules will not be perturbed. The methodology shall support the sharing of technologies and the collaborative development of avionics systems. The contractor shall estimate the Level of effort and resources required to implement the CE methodology. (d) Documentation. The contractor shall document all results of this research task in a final report and provide recommendations to update current CE Requirements Document and electronic versions of facilities and M&S surveys. (4) DELIVERABLE ITEMS: The following deliverable items shall be required on an as needed basis for each individual delivery order. Software, hardware and the following Data Items: (a) Project Planning Chart, DI-MGMT-80507A/T, monthly; (b) Status Report, DI-MGMT-80368/T, monthly; (c) Presentation Material, DI-ADMN-81373/T, as required; (d) Scientific and Technical Reports, DI-MISC-80711/T, draft and reproducible final; (e) Contract Funds Status Report, DI-MGMT-81468/T, quarterly; (f) Funds and Man-Hour Expenditure Report, DI-FNCL-80331/T, monthly; (g) Scientific and Technical Reports -- Contractor's Billing Voucher, DI-MISC-80711/T, monthly; (h) Software Requirements Specification (SRS), DI-IPSC-81433/T, as required; (i) Interface Requirements Specification (IRS), DI-IPSC-81434/T, as required; (j) System/Subsystem Design Description (SSDD), DI-IPSC-81432/T, as required; (k) Software Design Description (SDD), DI-IPSC-8145/T, as required; (l) Interface Design Description (IDD), DI-IPSC-81436/T, as required; (m) Software Version Description (SVD), DI-IPSC-81442/T, as required; (n) Software User Manual (SUM), DI-IPSC-81443/T, as required; (o) Computer Programming Manual (CPM), DI-IPSC-81447/T, as required; (p) Software Product Specification (SPS), DI-IPSC-81441/T, as required; (q) Software Test Plan (STP), DI-IPSC-81438/T, as required; (r) Software Test Report (STR), DI-IPSC-81440/T, as required. For delivery order 0001, data items (a), (b), (d), (f), and (g) are required. (5) SECURITY REQUIREMENTS: It is expected that work performed under this contract(s) will be classified up to the SECRET level. The contractor must possess the personnel and facilities to support this level of classification. (6) OTHER SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: ITAR requirements apply tothis effort. PL 98-94 applies. Offerors must submit DD Form 2345, Export-Controlled DoD Technical Data Agreement with their proposal. (0094)

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