DARPA SPO Office Wide Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) 04-40

The summary for the DARPA SPO Office Wide Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) 04-40 grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

DARPA SPO Office Wide Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) 04-40: BAA 04-40; This BAA is open and effective until 15 September 2005; POC: Dr. Joseph Guerci, DARPA/SPO Deputy Director, is the overall technical POC for this BAA, e-mail: [email protected]. Contact information for the SPO Program Managers (PMs) under each technical area is specified in Attachment 1. Bidders are strongly encouraged to contact the relevant PMs directly before submitting a response to this BAA. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES AND DESCRIPTION: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/Special Projects Office (DARPA/SPO) researches, develops, demonstrates and transitions technologies focused on addressing present and emerging national challenges. SPO investments range from the development of enabling technologies to the demonstration of large prototype systems. SPO is developing technologies to counter the emerging threat of underground facilities (UGFs), used for purposes ranging from command-and-control, to weapons storage and staging, to the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. In particular, SPO is focusing on both the detection and high-fidelity characterization of UGFs via a broad spectrum of sensing modalities and CONOPS. SPO is also investing in novel space technologies across the spectrum of space applications including rapid access, space situational awareness, space control, innovative microsatellite concepts, and persistent tactical grade sensing approaches including extremely large space apertures and structures. Novel platforms and sensors are also being developed to provide comprehensive global ?tailored tactical surveillance? with dramatically reduced logistic tails. A key enabling technology is advanced, extremely lightweight, low-power density apertures suitable for large scale airship and space deployments. Additionally, novel methods are sought for providing wide-area, rapid revisit, high-resolution/sensitivity sensing and imaging that is required by the Warfighter, especially in the cluttered urban environment. Close-in sensing of underground and urban-embedded targets including building interiors is also being pursued. Investments are being made in technologies to provide full-scale protection systems against the threat of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons attack. In particular, SPO is initiating efforts to defend against radiological weapons (so called ?dirty bombs?), and developing next generation, fast-acting chemical and biological sensors with high specificity and low false alarm rates. SPO is developing new technologies to support the entire spectrum of urban combat operations. Particular areas of focus include: ubiquitous and persistent precision surveillance including building interiors and thru-wall sensing; methods for detecting and mitigating asymmetric attacks including IEDs, RPGs, MANPADS, snipers, suicide bombers, weapons caches, and chem-bio weapons; and operational logistical support such as rapidly deployable and removable protection and barrier systems. Technologies are being pursued that allow precision navigation in GPS denied scenarios including jamming environments, building interiors, underground structures, etc. In particular, methods are sought that employ both natural and/or manmade signals of opportunity as well as novel, next generation INS technologies. In all of these areas, SPO efforts encompass the full range of activities required to develop complete prototype systems, from hardware development and characterization to algorithms, exploitation techniques, and full-scale system experimentation. Proposed efforts may address the development of prototype components, or systems; studies and modeling of existing or proposed systems; and data collections that will overcome deficiencies in existing data. Attachment 1 provides additional information and POCs for these areas of interest; bidders are encouraged to contact these POCs before submitting a response to this BAA. This information is provided to focus interest on innovative concepts that contribute to ongoing SPO investments, but is not meant to preclude white papers on other research efforts that seek to address emerging threats or enhance the US ability to operate in challenging environments. PROGRAM SCOPE: The main purpose of this BAA is to provide exploratory funding to determine the suitability of an idea for further substantial investment. Principal funding of this BAA and the anticipated award of contracts will start in FY 05 and may occur at any time through the closing date as funds are available. Individual awards are expected to be shorter than 12 months and less than $1M. Awards of efforts as a result of this BAA will be in the form of contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, or other transactions depending upon the nature of the work proposed. GENERAL INFORMATION: In response to this BAA SPO is accepting white papers followed potentially by full proposals. The purpose of the white paper is to preclude unwarranted effort on the part of an offeror whose proposed work is not of interest under this BAA. To further reduce burden, it is suggested that the offeror directly contact the cognizant Program Manager (PM) by email (preferably) or telephone prior to submission of a white paper to ensure offerors ideas are aligned with DARPA/SPO needs. Attachment 1 contains a further detailed delineation of topic areas of interest as well as a list of cognizant PMs. For those submitting white papers, a PM most closely related to the submitted topic will review within approximately 30 days. A written response will then be sent to the offeror. Those offerors submitting white papers are required to submit five (5) copies of a three (3) to four (4) page document. The page count is instituted to minimize burden on the offeror and to allow for a review in the indicated time period. While larger submissions are allowed, we can no longer guarantee that they will be reviewed in 30 days. The white paper should clearly and succinctly articulate the key innovative ideas with sufficient detail to allow an expert in the field to assess its contribution. A Cost Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) summary (delineating labor, travel, ODCs, etc) must also be included. Those offerors whose white papers are found to be of interest and consistent with the intent of this BAA will be encouraged to submit a technical and cost proposal. Such encouragement does not assure that the submitting organization will receive a subsequent award. White papers and proposals determined to not be of interest under this BAA will not be considered if resubmitted unless significant changes in the approach or new technical information becomes available. Proposals submitted will be evaluated as they are received. Individual proposal evaluations will be based on acceptability or non-acceptability without regard to other proposals submitted under the announcement. Evaluation of proposals will be performed using the following criteria: a) Overall Scientific and Technical Merit; b) Potential Contribution and Relevance to DARPA/SPO Mission; c) Plans and Capability to Accomplish Technology Transition; d) Offeror?s Capabilities and Related Experience; e) Cost Realism. Awards will be made to those offerors whose proposals are considered most advantageous to the government. All awards will be subject to availability of government funds. The government reserves the right to select for award any, all, part or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement and to make award without discussions. No portion of the BAA will be set aside for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or minority institutions (MI) participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete severable areas of research for exclusive competition among the entries. DARPA/SPO will accept classified responses to this BAA when the classification is mandated by classification guidance provided by an Original Classification Authority of the U.S. Government, or when the proposer believes the work, if successful, would merit classification. Security classification guidance in the form of a DD Form 254 (DoD Contract Security Classification Specification) will not be provided at this time since DARPA is soliciting ideas only. If a determination is made that contract award may result in access to classified information a DD Form 254 will be issued upon contract award. The point of contact for classified responses is the Director of SPO Security at 703-812-1984. Bidders who are unsure about the appropriate classification of their proposal should contact this POC before submitting a response. SUBMISSION INFORMATION: The administrative addresses for this BAA are: Fax: (703) 516-7360 (Addressed to: DARPA/SPO, BAA 04-40), Electronic Mail: [email protected], Mail: DARPA/SPO, ATTN: BAA 04-40, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. This announcement and Attachments 1 and 2 may be retrieved via the WWW at URL http://www.darpa.mil/ in the solicitations area. The cost of preparing proposals in response to this announcement is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resulting contract or any other contract. Offerors are warned that only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. Original Point of ContactDr. Joe Guerci, Deputy Director, DARPA/SPO, Phone 703-248-1511, Fax 703-741-0053, Email [email protected]