Real-time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making (RAID)

The summary for the Real-time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making (RAID) 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.

Real-time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making (RAID): REAL-TIME ADVERSARIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION-MAKING (RAID), SOL BAA 04-16, DUE: 04/21/04; POC: Dr. Alexander Kott, DARPA/IXO; FAX: (703) 465-1065. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Information Exploitation Office (IXO) is soliciting proposals for the Real-time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making program under this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). BACKGROUND: The Real-time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making (RAID) program focuses on the challenge of anticipating enemy actions in a military operation. In a number of recent publications, US military leaders call for the development of techniques and tools to address this critical challenge. In the US Air Force community, the term, predictive battlespace awareness, refers to capabilities that would help the commander and staff to characterize and predict likely enemy courses of action, to relate the history of the enemy?s performance to its current and future actions, and to associate these predictions with opportunities for friendly actions and effects. A related term, predictive analysis, is being used in the US Army community to denote a process and tools for predicting future enemy actions. Today?s practices of military intelligence and decision-making do include a number of processes specifically aimed at predicting enemy actions. Currently, these processes are largely manual as well as mental, and do not involve any significant use of technical means. Even when computerized wargaming is used (albeit rarely in field conditions), it relies either on human guidance of the simulated enemy units or on simple reactive behaviors of such simulated units; in neither case is there a computerized prediction of intelligent and forward-looking enemy actions. Thus, the challenge of predicting enemy actions involves the development of computational means to reason about the future enemy actions in a way that combines: the enemy?s intelligent plans to achieve his objectives by effective use of his strengths and opportunities; the enemy?s perception of friendly strengths, weaknesses and intents; the enemy?s tactics, doctrine, training, moral, cultural and other biases and preferences; the impact of terrain, environment (including non-combatant population), weather, time and space available; the influence of personnel attrition, ammunition and other consumable supplies, logistics, communications, sensors and other elements of a military operation; and the complex interplay and mutual dependency of friendly and enemy actions, reactions and counteractions that unfold during the execution of the operation. In this program, we use the term adversarial reasoning to refer to the process of making inferences over the totality of the above factors. We also use the term deception reasoning to refer to another important aspect of predicting enemy actions: the fact that military operations are historically, crucially dependent on the ability to use various forms of concealment and deception for friendly purposes while detecting and counteracting the enemy?s concealment and deception. Therefore, adversarial reasoning must include deception reasoning. PROGRAM OBJECTIVE: The RAID Program will develop a real-time adversarial predictive analysis tool that operates as an automated enemy predictor providing a continuously updated picture of probable enemy actions in tactical ground operations. The RAID Program will strive to: prove that adversarial reasoning can be automated; prove that automated adversarial reasoning can include deception; prove that automated adversarial reasoning can account for doctrinal and cultural biases; and integrate these predictive analysis tools into a warfighter?s C2 and intelligence support system. PROGRAM STRUCTURE: This solicitation requests efforts in four related areas. Adversarial Reasoning: design and build the Adversarial Reasoning Module and internal models; continue to develop and enhance this component as the program progresses through its phases; support the program?s series of increasingly realistic experiments; share the content of the internal models with the Deception Reasoning Module via the interfaces constructed by the System Integrator; perform the efforts in close coordination with the System Integrator and according to the system specifications developed by the System Integrator.; and provide the Adversarial Reasoning Module software to the other Adversarial Reasoning Module performer for the purposes of acting as an automated red commander for in-house experiments. It is expected that there will be up to two (2) awards in this area. However, in the event of two awards for this area, only one will be carried to Phase III. Deception Reasoning: design and build the Deception Reasoning Module; continue to develop and enhance this component as the program progresses through its phases; support the program?s series of increasingly realistic experiments; utilize the content of the internal models via the interfaces constructed by the System Integrator; and perform the efforts in close coordination with the System Integrator and according to the system specifications developed by the System Integrator. It is expected that there will be up to two (2) awards in this area. In the event of two awards for this area, only one will be carried to Phase III. System Integration: design and build the overall architecture, interfaces, representations and formats of the RAID system, components and testbed; enable sharing of data and models between the Adversarial Reasoning Module and Deception Reasoning Module; modify, as necessary, the interfaces and entity behaviors of a combat simulation system; replace notional parameters and models with validated and realistic ones in connection with system-wide experiments; implement elements of the experimental scenario and terrain as designed by the Experimentation and evaluation performer; provide hardware, software (a combat simulation system) and facilities for experiments; design and build interfaces required for integration of the RAID capability into the target transition environment; and act as if the prime contractor and manage the efforts of the Adversarial Reasoning and the Deception Reasoning area performers. It is expected that there will be only one (1) award in this area. Experimentation and evaluation: design experiments, design wargame scenarios, define system- and component-level metrics, design instrumentation to obtain data, provide and train human players, manage and execute experiments, collect and analyze data; provide subject matter expertise to the RAID technology developers; liaison with potential users of RAID and transition partners; and maintain organizational and contractual independence from performers in other areas of the program in order to provide objective experimental evaluation of RAID performance but coordinate closely with the System Integrator. It is expected that there will be only one (1) award in this area. Teaming is encouraged. An organization can propose to more than one area, with a separate proposal for each area. However, no individual should be named in more than one proposal. PROGRAM PHASES: The RAID program will be conducted in three 12-month phases. Phase I ? Anticipation: develop mechanisms to compute adversarial, anticipative, move-countermove actions. Phase II ? Detection: develop the ability to see through the fog of war and recognize deceptions. Phase III - Transition: develop fieldable products which can integrate with existing C2 and ISR systems. The development of RAID will be driven by a rigorous program of increasingly difficult and realistic experiments. Each phase of the program will include two series of experiments. Outcomes of the experiments will have a decisive influence on continuing funding of the program or its individual efforts. For planning purposes, assume the following schedule of experiments: Phase I ? 8 and 11 months after contract; Phase II ? 18 and 23 months after contract, Phase II ? 30 and 35 months after contract. To assess RAID progress at the end of each phase DARPA will use quantitative metrics and experimental conditions as discussed in the Proposer Information Package (PIP). In addition to these program-wide experiments, RAID contractors will design and perform in-house experiments to assess the progress made toward the program goals in development of the contractor?s respective component. RAID contractors will propose specific component-level assessment metrics to be used in such component-specific experiments. AWARDS: Up to two (2) awards are anticipated in each of the two technical areas: Adversarial Reasoning and Deception Reasoning. Up to one (1) award is contemplated in the areas of: system integration and experimentation and evaluation. Non-critical path tasks that can be cleanly separated as individual modules should be proposed and costed as options. The contract will be incrementally funded by fiscal year, assuming identified milestones have been satisfactorily met. Funding in the out years is subject to satisfactory evaluation of the DARPA Go/No go criteria as well as availability of funds. Contract Mechanisms: Awards are anticipated to be in the form of Procurement Contracts or Other Transactions. Grants or Cooperative Agreements are also possible. SELECTION CRITERIA: Proposals will be selected through a technical/scientific/business decision process with technical and scientific considerations being most important. Evaluations will be performed using the following criteria listed in descending order of relative importance: (1) Technical Depth and Feasibility, (2) Consistency with RAID Program Concepts, (3) Cost Realism and Value of Proposed Work to the Government, and (4) Personnel and Corporate Capabilities and Experience. Further details may be found in the PIP which can be accessed at http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/raid/index.htm. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches and techniques that lead to or enable revolutionary advances in the state-of-the-art. Proposals are not limited to the specific strategies listed above, and alternative visions will be considered. However, proposals should be for research that substantially contributes towards the goals stated. Research should result in prototype hardware and/or software demonstrating integrated concepts and approaches. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvement to the existing state of practice or focuses on a specific system or solution. Integrated solution sets embodying significant technological advances are strongly encouraged over narrowly defined research endeavors. Proposals may involve other research groups or industrial cooperation and cost sharing. This BAA shall remain open and proposals received up to one year following this BAA?s release. GENERAL INFORMATION: A Briefing to Industry (BTI) is scheduled for 17 March 2004 to be held at the Executive Conference Center, 3601 Wilson Blvd, Suite 600, Arlington VA. Information on the RAID BTI may be found at: http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/raid/index.htm. Pre-registration for the RAID BTI is encouraged. The deadline for pre-registration is 15 March 2004 via the WWW at https://www.tfims.darpa.mil/bti/. All pertinent information and materials presented at the RAID BTI will be made available at http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/raid/index.htm. Proposal abstracts ARE NOT requested in advance of full proposals. DARPA will employ an electronic upload process for proposal submissions. Proposers may find submission guidance at: http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/raid/index.htm. Organizations must register at: http://www.tfims.darpa.mil/baa to propose. One registration per proposal should be submitted. Organizations wishing to submit multiple proposals should complete a single registration for each proposal. The deadline for registration is 14 April 2004 at the URL listed above. By registering, the Proposer has made no commitment to submit. Proposal Submissions must be unclassified. Proposers must be willing to cooperate and exchange software, data, and other information with other contractors if it contributes to the success of the program. This includes coordination with a contractor, chosen by DARPA, if appropriate. A statement of cooperation must be included in the final proposal. REQUIREMENTS/PROCEDURES: The Award Document for each proposal selected and funded will contain a mandatory requirement for submission of DARPA/IXO Quarterly Status Reports and an Annual Project Summary Report. These reports will be electronically submitted via the DARPA/IXO Technical ? Financial Information Management System (T-FIMS), utilizing the government furnished Uniform Resource Locator (URL) on the World Wide Web (WWW). Further details may be found in the PIP. PROPOSAL DELIVERY: Proposals must be uploaded no later than 1500 (EST), 21 April 2004 to be considered for the first round of funding. BAA 04-16 will be open until 1 March 2005. Proposals submitted under this BAA after the above referenced date will be accepted, but will not be considered for the first round of funding. Please reference http://www.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/raid/index.htm for complete submission instructions. PROTECTION OF INFORMATION: It is the policy of DARPA to treat all proposals as competitive information and to disclose contents only for the purposes of evaluation and assessment. The Government may use selected support contractor personnel from Solers, Schafer Corporation, CACI International, and McNeil Technologies to assist in administrative functions only. Those contractors sign binding, non-disclosure agreements with DARPA. TECHNICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INQUIRIES: DARPA intends to use electronic mail for correspondence regarding BAA 04-16 . Technical, contractual, or administrative questions must be received at [email protected] by 12:00 NOON (ET) 13 April 2004. Answers to all questions generally relevant to the technical, contractual, and administrative aspects of the solicitation will be posted at http://www.darpa.mil/IXO/Solicitations/raid/index.htm under Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for public access. OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION: The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement and to award without discussions. All responsible sources may submit a proposal that shall be considered by DARPA. Small Disadvantaged Businesses and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)/Minority Institutions (MIs) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCUs and MIs participation, due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of technology for exclusive competition among these entities. Government contractors are required to register at the Government?s Central Contractor Registration site in order to negotiate contracts with most government agencies. This URL is provided as a reference: http://www.ccr.gov. Since this FedBizOpps Announcement, along with the PIP, constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement as contemplated in the FAR 6.102 (d)(2)(i), all prospective Proposers MUST also refer to the PIP before submitting a proposal. DARPA anticipates that initial contractor selections will be made during the third quarter of fiscal year 2004. Proposals MUST NOT be submitted by fax or e-mail; any so sent will be disregarded. The administrative addresses for this BAA are: Fax: 703-465-1065 Addressed to: DARPA/IXO, BAA 04-16 Electronic Mail: BAA [email protected]. Electronic File Retrieval: http://www.darpa.mil/IXO/Solicitations/raid/index.htm. Original Point of Contact: Michael Blackstone, Contracting Officer, Phone (517) 218-4804, Fax (703) 807-4940, email [email protected].