C5ISR / EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) Mounted Form Factor (CMFF) Reference Architecture (RA) draft for Industry comment, and Market Research Questionnaire
RFI Title:
C5ISR / EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) Mounted Form Factor (CMFF) Reference Architecture (RA) draft for Industry comment, and Market Research Questionnaire
RFI Release Date: 10/21/2022
RFI Introduction:
This is a market survey requesting information only. The submission of this information is for planning purposes and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to procure any items/services, or for the Government to pay for the information received. No solicitation will be issued against this notice.
**This CMFF RFI update is a continuing effort to keep industry informed of design decisions being made, and to collaborate on issues seen across the CMFF strategy. Updated documents are being provided as part of this RFI to enable continuous feedback from industry.**
The Army has defined a suite of open architecture industry and Army standards to enable the reduction of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C5ISR)/Electronic Warfare (EW) system size, weight and power - cooling (SWaP-C) and ensure commonality across multiple platforms by enabling the sharing of hardware and software components among multiple C5ISR and Integrated Electronic Warfare System (IEW&S) missions (i.e. multi-mission/multi-function). In January 2021 the Army approved an Abbreviated - Capability Development Document (A-CDD) for C5ISR/Electronic Warfare (C5ISR/EW) Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) Mounted Form Factor (CMFF) to establish an initial set of Army requirements desired to develop and employ these standards in prototypes for operational assessment.
The CMFF A-CDD establishes requirements for a prototype that minimizes the need for platform specific integration, and enables the fielding of evolutionary capabilities without the need for additional cabling or mounts, or upgrades to the CMFF chassis. This CMFF capability is governed by the CMFF Reference Architecture which is guided and derived from technical requirements found in the CMOSS Interoperability Requirements Specification (IRS) v1.1, specifically including the Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSATM), Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE), Vehicular Integration for C4ISR/EW Interoperability (VICTORY), and the Modular Open RF Architecture (MORA). CMFF also includes requirements from the Standardized A-Kit Vehicle Envelope (SAVE) and the Mounted Mission Command (MMC) Environmental Specifications documents. These standards will enable CMFF to drastically improve the reliability, reusability, interoperability, and interchangeability of CMFF system components to include the chassis, payload cards, radio conditioning devices, radioheads, and key software modules.
Army Capability Manager Tactical Radios (ACM TR) has coordinated directly with representatives from Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications – Tactical (PEO C3T), PEO Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (IEW&S), and PEO Aviation for the development of Annexes to the A-CDD. These annexes included with the A-CDD provide initial performance parameters for development of CMFF payload card capabilities and supporting peripheral devices to enable tactical radio communications, electronic warfare (EW), positioning navigation and timing (PNT), mission command, data storage, local computing and switching infrastructure, and sensor capabilities for all mounted platforms, to include Aviation. CMFF systems and their payload cards will need to be simple and intuitive to install, operate, and maintain by Soldiers, and be resilient, reliable, and available to operate in all operational air and ground environments and against any enemy.
CMFF will move the implementation of C5ISR/EW capabilities away from costly and complex “stovepiped” federated legacy systems or line replaceable units (LRUs) on individual platforms. The use of CMOSS IRS v1.1, SAVE and the MMC Environmental Specifications Documents will make it simpler and more cost-effective to introduce new capabilities and keep pace with commercial technology by reducing complex integration challenges, eliminating proprietary interfaces, and enabling greater competition and reuse.
The intent of the Reference Architecture (RA) is to provide Industry with updated design constraints and guidance to continue refining and developing products to provide suitable, survivable, and certifiable CMFF products to be used by the Army. The RA collates inputs from the National Security Agency (NSA) on minimum design considerations needed to produce High Assurance products, as well as Program Executive Office Ground Combat Systems (PEO GCS) and PEO Aviation on the operationally relevant environments that CMFF will need to survive during its installed lifespan.
The Army is looking at a potential total procurement quantity of up to 5000 systems for CMFF Block 1 and 2 capabilities, with plans for Block 3 capabilities still being determined.
CMFF B1 OTA release will likely include up to 16 systems for the Ground prototyping, and up to an additional 16 systems for Aviation prototyping.
PM MC is seeking further Market Research to inform the future acquisition strategy, contracting strategy, and technical requirements in preparation for CMFF B1 and B2 Requests for White Papers and Requests for Proposals. The below RFI response guidance and sections will greatly assist with shaping future contract actions and execution plans
RFI Responses must:
Provide comments, concerns, and constructive inputs to the latest CMFF RA draft via the CRM document (no limit to CRM comments provided). Comments provided on the RA via CRM will be reviewed by multiple Government Subject Matter Experts (SME), Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), and support contractors and therefore should not include any proprietary content.
Provide additional comments, concerns, and constructive input to the documents referenced by the CMFF RA – e.g. Mounted Mission Command (MMC) Environmental Specification, Standardized A-Kit Vehicle Envelope (SAVE), etc (no limit to Comment Resolution Matrix (CRM) comments provided). Comments provided via CRM will be reviewed by multiple Government SMEs, FFRDCs, and support contractors and therefore should not include any proprietary content.
Provide a 10-page maximum CMFF implementation White Paper on existing products and solutions directly relevant to the CMFF RA, or potential modified solutions providing the same or greater capability. Since White Papers will be shared outside the Government with multiple FFRDCs and support contractor organizations, submissions should confirm there is no issue with the release of any proprietary documentation provided to individuals or organizations covered under a PM MC Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). White papers should include, at a minimum:
Capability Statement
Approach to meeting Size, Weight, Power, and Cooling (SWaP-C) requirements
Approach to meeting reliability requirements
Approach to meeting environmental requirements and current design and testing experience relevant to MMC Environmental Requirements, which encompasses requirements of SAVE, ATPD-2404, Airworthiness qualification plans, etc. The Government desires feedback on the feasibility to produce a common chassis (objective) and capability cards (threshold) for Ground and Aviation. Specific technical risks and issues must be documented to characterize cost and time drivers or unattainable requirements. The threshold for CMFF systems is that capability cards should be common between ground and aviation integrations. If the CMFF capability cards or chassis are unable to meet the ground/air requirements, please provide specific requirements that cannot be met within the MMC environmental specification. Please specify any MIL-STD 810 requirements that cannot be met or any other issue or test requirement inclusive of the specific front panel I/O, environmental, redundancy, capability issue. Specify solutions that can mitigate or eliminate these identified issues and provide a risk matrix detailing common ground/air chassis risks.
Approach or current capability to meeting all CMOSS IRS v1.1 sections pertaining to VICTORY, MORA, SOSA, OpenVPX and FACE, and meeting DO-178C certification. Please provide examples of code supporting MORA or VICTORY that has been written in a programming language that would support safety certification.
Experience with Anti-Jam/Anti-Spoof (AJAS) and/or Alternative Navigation (ALTNAV) antennas and their capabilities when interfacing with a CMOSS compliant Assured Position Navigation and Timing (APNT) card. Dependencies on antennas for APNT capabilities are of specific interest.
Experience with the use of ALTNAV receivers and/or antennas which contribute to a fused APNT solution via the CMOSS compliant APNT card. Integration and interoperability are of specific interest.
Experience with tightly coupled sensor fusion to blend Military Code (M-Code), Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC), ALTNAV, and/or external sensors to provide a fused APNT solution from the CMOSS compliant APNT card.
Available products which implement current tactical radio waveforms on CMOSS compliant Software Defined Radio (SDR) cards, specifically including the Manpack waveforms listed in the CMFF RA blocking strategy, and the ability to provide converged digital radioheads to support multi-channel, multi-waveform SDRs in a simultaneous fashion. Support for additional relevant tactical waveforms is also desired, though lower priority than the initial waveforms called out in the CMFF RA. Given technology today or in the near future, how many simultaneous channels of the waveforms listed in the RA can a single SDR support?
Provide any system examples and lessons learned with operating multiple tactical communications waveforms on multi-channel SDR cards that meet, or can easily meet, CMOSS IRS v1.1 requirements.
Costing
Provide anticipated unit costs for existing products proposed, in quantities ranging from 1-250, 251-499, and 500-1000, categorized and broken down by the following major components:
CMFF Chassis (not inclusive of power supply unless embedded) to include common ground and air solutions.
Switch Cards (including cryptographic or cross domain components to support multiple security enclaves)
Dedicated Crypto Cards to support multiple enclaves
Power Supply Cards
IO Intensive Single Board Computer (SBC) Cards
Payload SDR Cards which run current Tactical Radio Waveforms described in the CMFF RA blocking strategy, or envisioned for future multi-mission operations.
APNT Radial Clock Cards with tightly coupled sensor fusion blending M-Code, ALTNAV and/ or external sensor solutions
AJAS antennas intended to be coupled with the APNT cards, subcategorized by number of elements.
Digital Radioheads capable of utilizing MORA and supporting multiple tactical radio waveforms identified in the blocking strategy. This should take into account power amplification, conditioning, and the Aviation Simultaneity table below.
VICTORY converters for streaming audio to a vehicle intercom device.
Low Cost ruggedized smart displays to provide the UI for CMFF Chassis payloads
Provide anticipated lead times after receipt of order (ARO) for the above components. Are there any supply chain challenges affecting lead times currently within industry? If so which components are the highest risk?
Provide preferred contracting approach, to include feedback on OTA or FAR Based contracting, and Fixed Price vs Cost Reimbursable Contracting. Additionally, provide feedback on willingness to cost share on the initial prototyping activities.
Provide current Technical Readiness Levels (TRL) and Integration Readiness Level (IRL) of the proposed components listed above, including any products currently being fielded for DoD programs in a tactically relevant environment.
RFI addendum responses may optionally:
Provide additional maximum 5-page technical White Paper addendums titled with any/all appropriate following sections on the addendum title page. These 5-page technical white paper addendums do not count against the primary 10-page CMFF implementation white paper page count from #3 above, but offer important (optional) additional information on key CMFF design concerns.
SDR Multifunction Capability
Provide specific suggestions for demonstrating multi-mission/multi-function capability using shared resources. For example, how could partial reconfiguration of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) help enable multi-function operation? For example: Force Protection (EW) systems are not needed continually, could platforms share their SDR and Radiohead/antennae resources? What characteristics do the radioheads and SDRs need to ensure this is possible?
Specific emphasis is drawn to the technical challenges associated with supporting multiple simultaneous tactical waveforms on SDR cards, radioheads, and antennae. Technological solutions to these challenges are specifically sought in response to this RFI, with additional attention to multi-mission/multi-functional operations of both communications and EW payloads.
Elaborate on how products could host other vendors’ firmware and software on an SDR card, and how another vendor would host your product’s firmware and software on their SDR card. Benefits from shared hardware could be numerous. Even simply implementing an N+1 load sharing redundant bank of SDRs would have significant impact on the overall performance of the system. An example way to change modes would be on a common FPGA partial reconfiguration block. What are the barriers to providing a generic SDR card solution hosting multiple vendors’ firmware and software to provide a portfolio of functions that can be loaded without impacting or minimally impacting the larger CMFF system?
CMFF Security
Experience and approaches to meeting National Security Agency (NSA) certification requirements supporting multiple security enclaves simultaneously, and high assurance encryption devices. Include any specific experience with NSA accreditations of SOSA or CMOSS chassis and lessons learned.
Solutions for meeting red/black separation in an OpenVPX environment.
Any studies related to Multiple Security Levels within an OpenVPX environment, and concepts on defining security management software interfaces with multiple vendors. Reference data developed by the SOSA Security Enclaves Task Team for further information.
CMFF Compliance
Approaches to integrating, testing, and validating 3rd party hardware and software to include adherence to CMOSS IRS v1.1 and the CMFF RA
CMFF System Integration
Technical Documentation, Experience and lessons learned integrating communications systems to include sharing of power amplification, antenna heads, SDRs, processors, encryption devices, etc. Lessons learned could include low latency requirements of waveform x driving high backplane transmission rates.
Studies related to low latency requirements of individual waveforms listed in the aviation simultaneity table within the CMFF RA. This includes latency driven by high transmission rates or encryption latency.
Approaches to handling legacy I/O internal or external to the chassis to enable chassis reuse across all of the enterprise platforms.
Provide technical documentation related to the radiohead, radio conditioning including Power Amplifier (PA), and SDR placement. This could include digitizing at the antenna and providing data back to a compute only chassis.
Provide technical documentation related to the candidacy and grading of waveform integration based on the aviation simultaneity table within the CMFF RA.
Low cost smart display technical documentation. Provide info on how lighter/low cost smart displays or ruggedized tablets that can provide a common Humna Machine Interface into the CMFF Chassis. Provide analysis on resources/IO required to provide the necessary capabilities in the CMFF RA. Devices should have a minimum 12” viewable screen with ruggedized connectors to survive the intended operational environment in the MMC environmental spec.
CMFF Chassis Development and Systems Management
Experience developing common ground/air OpenVPX modules and meeting environmental constraints.
Experience developing common ground/air chassis and meeting environmental constraints.
Experience and technical documentation related to standard system management software that could be leveraged for OpenVPX modules and tactical communications systems. This could include module built in test, fault logging, configuration, and module and generic software application control.
Experience with out of band Chassis management software development and capabilities including VITA 46.11, Hardware Open Systems Technologies (HOST), SOSA Systems Management, Redfish, and Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI). Any lessons learned in regards to NSA certification should be provided. Any capabilities the Industry would like to see should be included as a baseline.
Experience integrating power supplies into a chassis.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACCESS TO CMFF TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION:
To receive CMFF Technical Documentation, interested parties must supply proof of International Traffic In Arms Regulation (ITAR) compliance by submitting a copy of their Department of State, Defense Trade Controls Compliance (DDTC) registration statement with valid date (vendor may redact vendor registrant code), sign the PM Mission Command Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and sign the PM Mission Command Compliance Certification. Provide all documents to cynthia.a.grove.ctr@army.mil. Upon receipt and verification, the CMFF Technical Documentation will be released to the interested party’s point of contact.
Additional information about the standards can be referenced at the following links:
• OpenVPX (http://www.vita.com)
• SOSA (http://www.opengroup.org/sosa)
• CMOSS, VICTORY, and MORA (https://sam.gov/opp/889a0f920a5f4e8db99b9ee5d35d329c/view)
• SAVE, and FACE (https://apntoil.army.mil/standards-and-specifications)
RFI Feedback:
After the Government reviews all vendor submissions there may be additional need for further follow-on questions. If so, the Government will contact each vendor to ask these follow-on questions on an individual one-on-one basis.
All information must be submitted and received no later than 1700EST 24 November 2022.
PEO_C3T_MC_20221021 Department of the Army
10/21/22, 10:32 AM