Atch 1 PROST SOO.pdf

FA8650-19-S-1110 Call 4 Attachment 1

Proficient Research of Onboard Subsystems Technology (PROST) - Statement of Objectives (SOO)

25 Jun 21

1.0 BACKGROUND

As operating environments become more contested and congested, aircraft survivability and air/space dominance is reliant on the ability to quickly sense the environment, process the data on the edge, and react to the gathered information. Meanwhile, sensor technology has improved to capture more data from the environment. The need to exploit this additional information within congested environments is critical for the future operation of the

United States Air Force (USAF), United States Space Force (USSF), sister services, and the nation’s security at large.

Although processing the data on the edge is critical for an immediate response, data compression is equally important to transmit the data for additional processing and forensic analysis. AFRL/RYDR is developing unique capabilities in the areas of edge processing and data compression and this effort will focus on emerging needs in this research area.

2.0 OBJECTIVE

The objective of this contract is to research and develop (R&D) and test and evaluate (T&E) electro-optical (EO), hyperspectral (HSI), radio frequency (RF), and electronic warfare (EW) subsystems, including both analog and digital components. The research and development of on-board sensor subsystems combines heterogeneous devices, including (but not limited to) CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and AI accelerators, with open system architectures. This contract will include compression techniques for multiple sensor modalities including EO, RF, HSI, and EW onboard airborne and space based platforms. In order to improve the technology maturation and transition, this effort will test and evaluate using both laboratory and field testing, which will lead to device characterization and performance metrics for comparison to current capabilities.

3.0 TASKS AND TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

The contractor shall accomplish all tasks and requirements set forth in this SOO. The contractor shall work closely with AFRL/RYD engineers, and may work within the available AFRL/RYD laboratory areas, if proposed.

3.1 RF Subsystems

The contractor shall research onboard sensor processing using the all-weather radar modality for persistent surveillance across permissive, contested, and highly contested environments. The contractor shall conduct research under this area involving active, passive, and distributed sensing techniques for onboard subsystems, compression techniques for the multitude of RF applications, and onboard sensor fusion with other sensor modalities.

3.2 EO Subsystems

The contractor shall research onboard sensor processing using sensor technology throughout the optical to infrared

(IR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The contractor shall conduct research under this area involving active, passive, and distributed sensing techniques for onboard subsystems, compression techniques for the multitude of

EO sensors, and onboard sensor fusion with other sensor modalities.

3.3 EW Subsystems

The contractor shall research onboard sensor processing using resilient, adaptive multi-spectrum warfare technologies and techniques with the goal of ensuring unrestricted access to the airspace and the electromagnetic

(EM) spectrum in contested and congested environments. The contractor shall conduct research under this area involving EO countermeasures (CM) and counter-countermeasures (CCM), RF electronic support (ES), RF electronic attack (EA), and RF electronic protection (EP), position, navigation, and timing (PNT), avionics assurance, compression techniques for onboard subsystems, and onboard sensor fusion with other sensor modalities.

3.4 Autonomous Subsystems

The contractor shall research and develop autonomous processing techniques to support on-board sensor processing. The autonomous techniques should include fundamental research to develop biological inspired neuromorphic systems to increase the performance while decreasing the SWaP for sensor subsystems. The contractor shall investigate emerging AI algorithms, architectures, and devices. The contractor shall test and demonstrate these advancements in algorithms, architectures, or devices for improvements in latency, throughput, and SWaP in multi-INT environments.

3.5 Open Architecture Research

The contractor shall conduct research and development to design, implement, and test open system architectures for on-board sensor processing. These architectures will combine adaptable interfaces for subsystems including (but not limited to) RF, IR, and EO sensors to increase the interoperability of current subsystems. The contractor shall analyze the performance and characteristics of open architectures, develop adapters for open architectures, and integrate/test these open architecture developments. The contractor shall test the open architectures in a laboratory environment and through scheduled flight tests.

3.6 System Engineering, Integration, and Analysis

The contractor shall provide subject matter expertise for the design and analysis of integrated sensor systems, mission systems, exploitation capabilities, and other data products of complex System-of-Systems (SoS). The contractor shall investigate and characterize metrics for system architecture effectiveness, analyze cause-and-effect relationships for conducting design of experiments, apply formal methodologies to verify system composition, develop data models for integration experimentation in both virtual and laboratory environments, and demonstrate these concepts using appropriate RY facilities and equipment. Activities may include, but not limited to, developing tools to facilitate experimentation, operating and maintaining equipment and facilities supporting experimentation, maintaining configuration control for experiments, experiment prep and planning, and post-experiment analysis and reporting.

3.7 Subsystem Demonstration Activities

The contractor shall design and execute test plans for subsystem demonstrations that may include, but are not limited to, autonomous computing, image processing, radar processing, open system architectures, and subsystem characterization. The contractor shall perform measurements utilizing RY facilities including, but not limited to, the ADDA lab and flight test equipment.

4.0 DELIVERABLES

Hardware including the completed system, test equipment, power supplies, and any additional hardware required to support the tasks of the SOO shall be delivered. All Software Source Code (e.g. MATLAB, VHDL, CUDA, C), design files, and simulation models developed while addressing the SOO tasks, shall be delivered.

5.0 SECURITY

General Operations Security (OPSEC) procedures, policies and awareness are required in an effort to reduce program vulnerability from successful adversary collection and exploitation of critical information. OPSEC will be applied throughout the life cycle of the contract. The Critical Information List (CIL) and the RY OPSEC Plan will be provided upon request by AFRL/RYOY Information Protection Office. While working on the government installation, OPSEC guidance and OPSEC training will be provided by AFRL/RYOY Information Protection Office. This training will ensure contractors are familiar with RY’s CIL and RY’s OPSEC Plan as it pertains to their contract. The contractor shall apply OPSEC in their management of their current program IAW AFI 10-701 Operations Security and WPAFB

Supplement to AFI-10-701.

6.0 SAFETY

The contractor will comply with all Air Force, federal, state, and local safety and environmental regulations. The contractor will develop and have an approved Safety Plan (AFI 91-202 AFRL Sup 1) before any experiment may be conducted outside of a laboratory environment. The contractor will comply with safety requirements contained in

MIL-STD 882E, Section 4, “General Requirements,” for any deliverable system or hardware. The contractor will identify safety-critical components of those systems or hardware and software interfaces with those components.

The contractor will test and verify the safety-critical hardware and software for safety acceptance.

7.0 BASE SUPPORT

AFRL/RYDR will provide the contractor with laboratory space, equipment (on a non-interference basis), and computer/network access for conducting this effort, if proposed.