Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contracts Management Office (CMO), 3701 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington, VA 22203-1714

A -- AGILE INFORMATION CONTROL ENVIRONMENT SOL BAA98-26 DUE 012999 POC Mr. Robert Beaton, DARPA, FAX No. (703) 696-2203 WEB: http://www.darpa.mil, http://www.darpa.mil. E-MAIL: BAA98-26@darpa.mil, BAA98-26@darpa.mil. OBJECTIVE: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office (ISO) is soliciting proposals (technical and cost) from qualified corporations, research centers and universities for the Agile Information Control Environment (AICE) program under BAA 98-26. Joint Vision 2010 and many other Department of Defense documents have stressed the importance of winning the information war in any future conflict. A key component of the information war is the ability of US Forces to manage and control their information flows in a manner that is faster, more efficient, and more precise than that of our adversaries. We define this ability to dynamically and precisely control the flow of information across interlinked networks as Information Control. Enabling Information Control represents the first important step of moving beyond the network and into the disciplined use of the network to perform military activities. The importance of Information Control becomes more and more critical as DoD moves from stove-piped to shared information infrastructure because it leads to resource contention. Today there are no mechanisms for implementing comprehensive control mechanisms for managing this contention. The purpose of this BAA is to fund research and development activities aimed at developing, demonstrating and transitioning the technologies required to enable agile information control across heterogeneous military and commercial networks. The Agile Information Control Environment (AICE) Program will develop the theoretical foundations and innovative technologies that enable dynamic information control, and subsequently integrate and transition the resultant technologies into DoD pilot services and operational environments. The scope of the AICE program is development, demonstration, and transition of advanced technologies encompassing all activities required to observe, understand, predict, manage, and especially control information flows in support of military operations. Of particular interest are technologies that permit real-time information flows (those involving hard time constraints for delivery) in support of mission- or life-critical applications, such as targeting, air-traffic control or tele-robotics, to operate in a shared environment. ACQUISITION INFORMATION: This BAA solicits proposals in three categories (Theory, Technology Development, and Performance Analysis and Integration (PA&I)) using a two phased acquisition approach. The first acquisition phase covers the Theory and Technology Development categories. The second acquisition phase covers the Performance Analysis and Integration category. Following submission of the proposals for the Theory and Technology Development Proposal Categories, additional information will be published in the Commerce Business Daily on an Industry Brief targeting potential offerors in the PA&I Proposal Category. Within the meaning of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) at 6.102 and 35.016, this announcement and the Proposers Information Package(PIP) constitutes DARPA's solicitation for this BAA. Evaluations of all proposals will be accomplished through a scientific review of each proposal considering the following general criteria, which are listed in descending order of relative importance: (1) innovation and technical quality, (2) technical approach, (3) experience and qualifications and (4) project plan, schedule and cost. Specific criteria for each proposal category can be found in the PIP. The scoring values for the evaluation will vary based on the proposal category. The number of anticipated awards for each proposal category is as follows: "Theory": 1-2 awards; "Technology Development": 6-15 awards; "Performance Analysis and Integration": 1 award. Toward this end, DARPA will consider all types of proposals including, traditional FAR/DFARS type contracts, grants and Other Transaction Agreements. Proposers are responsible for selecting the contract mechanism they believe to be most appropriate. Where appropriate, DARPA encourages proposers toconsider the use of Other Transaction Agreements. No portion of the BAA will be set aside for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) or minority institutions (MI) participation due to impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of research for exclusive competition among the entries. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION: Offerors in the Theory and Technology Development categories are required to submit Proposal Abstracts for a review process. DARPA is not implementing an Abstract review process in the Performance Analysis and Integration category, hence, Abstracts are not to be submitted in this category. Proposal Abstracts submitted for this BAA for the Theory and Technology Development categories are due by 10 June 1998, 1700 hours Eastern Daylight Savings Time. DARPA will review the Proposal Abstracts and respond in writing addressing the panel's overview of the abstract to the administrative points of contact. Offerors are not precluded from full proposal submittals. Proposals in response to this BAA for the Theory and Technology Development categories shall be submitted to Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Contracts Management Directorate (CMD), Attn: Ms. Algeria Tate, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714 by 4 August 1998, 1700 hours Eastern Daylight Savings Time. A submission timetable for Proposals in the Performance Analysis and Integration (PA&I) Proposal Category is not available at this time but will be established following proposal submission for the Theory and Technology Development Proposal Categories. At such time, additional information will be published in the Commerce Business Daily on a Industry Brief targeting potential offerors in the PA&I Proposal Category. Abstracts and Proposals submitted via FAX will be disregarded. Proposers must obtain the BAA 98-26 Proposers Information Package (PIP) which provides further technical and administrative detail for this BAA including the technologies of interest, evaluation criteria, funding processes, and formatsof abstracts and proposals. Proposals not meeting the specified format described in the PIP will not be considered for award. The PIP may be obtained on-line via the World Wide Web at http://www.darpa.mil/baa/ one working day after publication of the BAA. Questions regarding this BAA or comments to the PIP may be sent to baa98-26@darpa.mil. A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) compilation will be posted on-line and periodically updated. Contracts are anticipated to be awarded in November1998 Theory and Technology Development categories and in January1999 for the Performance Analysis and Integration category. A table of important dates and milestones is provided in the PIP. There will be an unclassified Industry Brief covering this BAA on 21 May 1998 from 0830 to approximately 1230 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, 2799 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Arlington, VA 22202: Phone: (703) 418-1234. Interested parties must register with the government to attend the Industry Brief. The Industry Brief registration procedures can be found in the PIP. The government shall not be liable for the cost of proposal preparation and submission. Proposals submitted shall be in accordance with this announcement and the PIP. There will be no other solicitation issued in regard to this requirement. Offerors should be alert for any BAA amendments that may be published. ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Each cost proposal shall contain a section satisfying the requirements of the following: Awards made under this BAA are subject to the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All offerors and proposed subcontractors must affirmatively state whether they are supporting any DARPA technical office(s) through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the offeror supports and identify the prime contract number. Affirmations shall be furnished at the time of proposal submission, and the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. This disclosure shall include a description of the action the offeror has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. If the offeror believes that no such conflict exists, then it shall so state in this section. It is the policy of DARPA to treat all proposals as competitive information, and to disclose the contents only for the purposes of evaluation. The Government intends to use non-government personnel as special resources to assist with the logistics of administering proposal evaluation. Support personnel are restricted by their contracts from disclosing proposal information for any purpose. Contractor personnel are required to sign the Organizational Conflict of Interest Non-Disclosure Agreements. By submission of its proposal, each offeror agrees that proposal information may be disclosed to those selected contractors for the limited purpose stated above. Any information not intended for limited release to support contractors must be clearly marked and segregated from other submitted proposal material. DARPA is seeking participation from the widest number of offerors. SPONSOR: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contracts Management Directorate (CMD), 3701 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington, VA 22203-1714. (0126)

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