BIGST BAA_T02_MUSE.pdf

UNCLASSIFIED

BIG-ST BAA HM047623BAA0001

Topic 02: MUSE_ 03/20/2024

BIG-ST BAA (HM0476-23-BAA-0001)

Topic # 02 – Magnifying University Science Expertise (MUSE)

For instructions on submission of abstracts and proposals and evaluation of proposals, please review BIG-ST BAA General Solicitation (HM047623BAA0001) and specifically ‘Appendix 5 -

Grants and Cooperative Agreements Proposal Preparation & Submission Instructions’ which is embedded on page 39 of the general solicitation file.

Document Change History

Date Description

Title

Magnifying University Science Expertise (MUSE)

Expected Awards

Intent of this Topic Call is the award of academic grants only.

The Government plans to make 1 – 3 awards per subject area (described below), but may make fewer (including possibly none) or more based both on the quality of the submissions and the availability of funding.

Budget

The estimated budget range is as follows: up to $500k per grant per year (with a max. of $2.5M per grant over a 5-year period).

Topic Technology Readiness Level (TRL):

This BAA Topic is limited to projects that meet Technology Readiness Level (TRL) definitions in the TRL range 1–6.

Dates Table 1 Dates

Topic Posting 20 March 2024

Questions Due 02 April 2024 @ 05:00pm ET

Q&A Posting 16 April 2024

Abstracts Due 23 April 2024 @ 05:00pm ET

Abstract Feedback 14 May 2024 @ 05:00pm ET

Proposals Due 07 June 2024 @ 05:00pm ET

Estimated Period of

Performance Start: 01 September 2024

Point of Contact (POC)

Please send all questions and submissions to the Contracting Officer (CO): Daniela Garavito

Email Address: BIGSTBAA@nga.mil

➔ Use the following email subject for all email correspondence: ‘TOPIC 02 –MUSE’

1. Topic Research Opportunity Description

This Topic Call seeks to increase the breadth and depth of knowledge to key science and technology areas of need to the geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) community and advance the state of practice in two subject areas:

1. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)

2. Geodesy

2. Background and Purpose

As stated above, this topic call is broken out into two different subject areas, which are detailed in this section and Section 3.2.

Each subject area requires the separate submission of an abstract and proposal. Any proposal which attempts to address more than one subject area in a single submission will not be considered.

An institution and a principal investigator are permitted to make a submission for more than one subject area.

Note: Abstracts and proposals shall clearly identify which of the two subject areas they are addressing.

The following sections provide specific information for each of the two subject areas.

2.1. Subject Area 1: Synthetic Aperture Radar

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a critical imaging domain for intelligence use due to its day

& night, all-weather imaging capability. There are many parts of the world that are frequently cloud-covered, and in these places, SAR may be the only way to see what is occurring on the ground. This makes SAR a necessary tool when an analyst must see what is happening now and can’t wait for ideal conditions, as is the case for many intelligence missions. Simply put, GEOINT would not be nearly as reliable and consistent without SAR.

SAR works by transmitting a series of radar pulses from a moving platform at an assumed stationary region of the ground. Each radar pulse illuminates an area of ground several kilometers wide, and gives a one-dimensional measurement of range. To obtain an image, one can think of either tomographic projection [1], or as measuring the amount of doppler shift between each (assumed stationary) object caused by the motion of the platform [2, 3]. In addition to the references cited above, an excellent overview of SAR and its applications can be found in Ager [4].

Beyond the all-weather capability, SAR also provides rich data that can be processed in a number of ways to extract features of interest, even features which are significantly sub-pixel, and can under some circumstances be a more repeatable imaging modality for automated algorithms to process. These have direct applicability to providing automated monitoring and tip/cue to both analysts and other collectors at speed and scale which is a mission/mandate that

NGA must perform every day.

Despite these advantages, SAR’s preference among many GEOINT professionals lags well behind its optical counterpart. While there will always be imaging modality differences and SAR will never look as normal as optical imagery to the human eye, we believe that familiarity with

SAR is a key reason for this situation. This subject therefore seeks to increase knowledge, exposure, understanding, awareness, and familiarity of SAR in the next generation of GEOINT professionals, thereby increasing use and adoption of this imaging modality on which NGA and its GEOINT partners rely on extensively, thus reducing in-house training NGA and its partners must provide to new hires.

2.2. Subject Area 2: Geodesy

The Geodesy mission of the NGA’s Mapping, Charting and Geodesy (MC&G) domain is to better understand the earth to improve navigation, mapping, charting, tides, and geodetic products as called out in U.S. Code Title 10, Subtitle A, Part 1, Chapter 22. To address this mission, NGA created the World Geodetic System (WGS). NGA’s WGS is a system of geodetic systems; at its heart is the terrestrial reference frame (TRF). The Earth Gravitational Model 2008

(EGM2008), and World Magnetic Model (WMM) are two geodetic models within WGS. Future

WGS iterations could contain new models of plate motion and tides (both solid earth and ocean).

Geodesy is the science that studies the size, shape, and orientation of the earth in space, its gravity field, and how its shape and orientation, in relation to the stars and the earth’s gravity field, are changing over time. The earth’s orientation and motion through space is defined relative to the stars that are in the celestial sphere. A location in this celestial sphere is defined in terms of its coordinates in the Celestial Reference Frame (CRF), similar to the earth’s latitude and longitude system used to plot positions within the Terrestrial Reference Frame (TRF) for points residing on a reference ellipsoid.

While geodetic science is a very old, dating back to the ancient Greeks trying to understand the size and shape of the earth, it is a very important and highly relevant science today, when over 4 billion users rely on the Global Positioning System (GPS) each day to determine their position on earth. It is because of the desire to accurately determine one’s position, and understand our planet and its temporal evolution, that geodesy is one of the few science disciplines that cares about accuracies of parts per billion.

Although the relative importance of geodetic sciences to modern society has been on the increase over the past couple of decades, the research conducted, and the number of students being trained in geodetic sciences has greatly declined in U.S. colleges and universities, jeopardizing future advancements and the future geodetic sciences workforce in the United States. U.S.

government agencies involved in geodetic research and development are finding it harder to recruit personnel that is highly educated and skilled in geodetic work.

3. Project Structure/Scope

Proposers have considerable latitude to construct their project to match their individual objectives, provided they achieve the goals set out for each subject area, as discussed in section

3.2. The proposal shall provide a clear breakdown of what the proposer intends to pursue in each award year, along with a schedule and detailed milestones for these activities.

3.1 Overarching Proposal Requirements

The proposal shall assume at least a quarterly engagement with the government to review status and progress. Additionally, while no promise of a career fair or hiring event is made to those selected for award, the proposers shall facilitate such an event at their location should NGA decide to do so.

3.2 Technical Requirements for each Subject Area

3.2.1 Subject Area 1: Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)

The goal of this subject area is to increase exposure and understanding of synthetic aperture radar, and the intent is to allow considerable latitude to proposers to focus on topics of interest to them and advance the state of practice in SAR research while also increasing student involvement.

With the goal of creating a broad foundation that will allow students to move into a variety of SAR related work roles, this subject area requires student exposure to a broad set of SAR areas, including sensor design, image formation, data analysis and ground truth experience; as a minimum, proposals shall address how they will expose students to these four areas (see details following this paragraph). Beyond the mentioned areas, proposals are free to explore additional areas, like upstream sensor design and data collection, variations in collection methodology (e.g., multiple-input and multiple-output

(MIMO) or continuous waveforms), downstream exploitation, exploitation of moving objects in a SAR scene, and related SAR topics or combinations of topics that could be relevant to identifying and tracking objects in SAR imagery. Equally, proposals that focus on more classical SAR approaches, but which provide excellent student involvement and interest are equally welcome.

Proposals shall endeavor to create interest in the students they reach, not only for the scientific area, but also for careers and applications in this science. This applies to both direct student involvement and curriculum development.

Direct Student Involvement: All proposals shall articulate the number of undergraduate and graduate students involved in every activity, and the scientific and technical strength of the proposal will be judged in part on this level of student involvement. Students do not need to be involved in every activity, however, proposers are expected to include substantive student involvement; specifically, involvement of undergraduate students and mentorship of students in SAR and its application. Proposals under this subject area shall demonstrate how they will address broadening the exposure of individuals to SAR.

Curriculum Development: Academic course development is a welcome but not required part of this subject area. If included, shall provide specific details on the content of the course, the length of time the course is likely to be in use, and the students the course is expected to reach.

3.2.1.1 Sensor Design

To have a full understanding of SAR, one must not only procure the data, but understand how the sensors works. This is best gained through experience. The proposal shall address how it provides this level of understanding. This could occur through the actual construction of a sensor or it could be obtained through digital designs and/or simulations without actual hardware construction.

SAR sensors can operate at a variety of bands/center frequencies and a wide range of resolutions. For this subject area, proposals shall focus on designs that would allow for the detection of objects or activity at a scale of individuals to small buildings, rather than large-scale effects such as volcanic activity or aquifer subsidence. The proposal shall also focus exclusively on frequencies which provides atmospheric transmission through clouds for day/night all-weather access. A specific center frequency or bandwidth is not required by this subject, though we note that most commercial SAR sensors operate at X band, with Radarsat-2 operating in C band. That makes sensors in these band of particular relevance. We also note that while large areas are available and appropriate for some applications (e.g., maritime surveillance), higher resolution collections on the order of 0.25m to 1m are commercially available from space and very relevant for many object detection problems.

3.2.1.2 Image Formation

Collecting raw SAR data may provide experience in radio-frequency (RF) engineering, but if imagery is not formed from this collected data then SAR experience has not been obtained. The proposal shall provide for a deep understanding of the various ways the raw RF data can be processed to form imagery while highlighting features of interest and suppressing unwanted features. Image formation work shall start with as close to the raw data as possible, and go through (as necessary) motion compensation, formation of a complex image, focusing, projection to a ground plan, and final pixel polishing.

Formation of derived products, especially those products which might require multi-image registration and interferometric processing, is not required but is a strength provided it fits the overall proposal goals.

NGA maintains several standards for SAR data formats, ranging from compensated phase history data (CPHD) for phase history to Sensor Independent Complex Data (SICD) [5] and Sensor Independent Derived Data (SIDD) [6]. Use of these standards is not required but is encouraged wherever they are applicable.

It should be noted that running a free or commercial code does not typically provide the same understanding as building the routines themselves, and thus re-creating capabilities that exist in open-source or commercial packages will not be seen as a negative for the purpose of this subject, provided such re-creation meets the grants goals of further developing individuals with expertise in this area.

3.2.1.3 Object Recognition

Increasingly, customers not just in defense but across the remote sensing community are relying on automated ways to detect objects of interest in SAR imagery. Thus, proposers shall provide students with experience in this area, and the proposal shall include efforts to obtain data with objects of interest and then develop algorithms to detect these objects.

Physics based detectors as well as machine-learning approaches are acceptable, as is the use of any derived product formed from the SAR imagery.

The objects being detected are up to the proposer. An initial set shall be specified in the proposal, though this can be refined as the work progresses. Vehicles (military, construction, buses, etc.), tracks left by vehicles, or other such objects can all make relevant objects.

While ground-based, airborne and space-borne collection is permissible, for many applications of interest to NGA collection must be space-based. Thus, applications which are compatible with collection by an object in a Keplerian orbit (e.g., sensor moving in roughly a straight line and looking down from above) are preferred over those which require other collection CONOPS.

3.2.1.4 Data Collection and Ground Truth

Real life often does not match our theoretical predictions, so all proposals shall work with real SAR data, either procured (free or commercially) or collected by proposers. This shall start at as close to the raw data coming from the hardware as possible and continue on through image formation to the detection of objects or activity of interest in the data.

The proposal shall clearly articulate the data it plans to work with. As it fits the overall program scope, the proposal shall also include ground truth experiments with truth data to test object recognition work.

3.2.2 Subject Area 2: Geodesy

The goal of this subject area is to increase exposure and understanding of geodetic science, through research efforts with direct student involvement and course work. The intent is to allow considerable latitude to proposers to focus on geodetic topics of interest to them, and advance the state of practice in geodesy research, while also increasing student involvement and exposure to geodetic principles.

With the goal of creating a broad foundation that will allow students to move into geodesy related work or research roles, this subject area requires student exposure to these four fundamental geodetic science principles: a) “Geometric Geodesy” including terrestrial reference frame (TRF) and earth orientation parameters (EOP); b) “Physical

Geodesy and Geophysics” including potential field observations and modeling

(gravitational and magnetic fields); c) solid earth and ocean tides; and d) modern geodetic techniques and sensors. As a minimum, proposals shall address how they will expose students to these four focus areas (see details following this paragraph). Beyond these areas, proposals are free to explore additional areas, such as modern geodetic surveying techniques.

Proposals shall endeavor to create interest in the students they reach, not only for the scientific advancement, but also for careers and applications in this science. This applies to both direct student involvement and curriculum development.

Colleges and universities with strong applied mathematics, geophysics and/or aerospace engineering (orbital mechanics) programs, but little to no prior research in geodesy, are encouraged to apply, as well as institutions with prior geodetic science experience.

Direct Student Involvement: All proposals shall articulate the number of undergraduate and graduate students involved in every activity. Students do not need to be involved in every activity, however, proposers are expected to include substantial student involvement; specifically, involvement of undergraduate students and mentorship of students in geodesy and its application. Proposals under this subject area shall demonstrate how they will address broadening the exposure of individuals to geodesy.

Curriculum Development: Academic course development in one or more of the four areas listed below is strongly recommended but not required. If included, it shall provide specific details on the content of the course, the length of time the course is likely to be in use, course type (i.e., major, minor, or general elective), and the students the course is expected to reach (i.e., undergraduate and/or graduate).

3.2.2.1 Terrestrial Reference Frame and Earth Orientation Parameters

The purpose of this focus area is to gain understanding of the error sources and uncertainties within different measurement types for Terrestrial Reference Frames (TRF) and Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP). Proposers shall identify how to address these errors/uncertainties when combining different data types into TRF and EOP, with the resulting frame uncertainties understood and quantified. Understanding these uncertainties is especially important in the prediction of station motions and EOP variations before derivation/calculations of the next TRF and/or EOP.

Under this area, proposals shall focus on approaches to calculate/derive the TRF and EOP and their predictions, e.g., station positions and velocities. The proposal shall also examine error sources and uncertainties within different data types, earthquake modeling errors, and the resulting uncertainties introduced into the TRF and EOP. Investigations and evaluations of EOP prediction methods will not be seen as a negative for this subject area.

3.2.2.2 Gravitational and Magnetic Field Observations and Modeling

The purpose of this focus area is to design a way to determine the type, format, quality, and needed quantity (to reduce redundancy) of gravitational and magnetic data and models, and determine what data and models should be used to improve our understanding of earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields.

Modeling of the earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields requires use of a large amount of observations from different sources, with differing accuracies, and collected at different distances from the earth’s surface. This leads to several challenges in the modeling of these potential fields, to include the problem of downward continuation.

Furthermore, significant areas of our planet are void of the data required to develop high accuracy and resolution gravitational and crustal magnetic models. This necessitates use of forward gravity modeling techniques, employing other data sources (e.g., elevations).

In addition, satellite missions like Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and Gravity Field and Steady State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE), which form the long wavelength basis of gravitational models, suffer from aliasing and noise, and require careful treatment of solutions and associated error properties.

For this area, proposals shall focus on addressing the several challenges in modeling gravitational and magnetic fields, including the accuracies of different data types, and how each proposed solution contributes to mitigating the uncertainties of the resulting model.

3.2.2.3 Solid Earth and Ocean Tides

The purpose of this focus area is to improve the descriptions and timing of solid earth and global ocean tides. Solid earth and global ocean tides are the result of gravitational interactions between the earth and sun, moon, and to a lesser extent other planets. With today’s big data and more sensitive instruments, the accuracies of current tidal models are no longer sufficient. Precision geodetic techniques must achieve millimeter-level precision to support NGA’s most critical geodesy missions, such as estimation of positions and trajectories of the core ground stations that define the WGS reference frame, support of the Global Positioning System (GPS), and calibration of navigational systems.

Current challenges in ocean tide modeling include improvement of tide representations in coastal and polar oceans. Comprehensive tide solutions with high spatial resolution in these regions remains elusive.

Current challenges in solid earth tide modeling include improved resolution and millimeter-level accuracy, especially in coastal regions experiencing ocean tidal loading, and regions with large ground water variations.

For this area, proposals shall focus on addressing the above challenges in solid earth and/or global ocean tidal modeling. The effort shall also examine the accuracies of the different data types used in the modeling, other error sources, and mitigating the uncertainties for the resulting tidal model. Research efforts to improve the modeling and computation of solid earth and ocean tides loading are also encouraged.

3.2.2.4 Modern Geodetic Techniques and Sensors

The purpose of this focus area is to gain a better understanding of the error sources and uncertainties within modern geodetic instrumentation and systems, and how to address them at the observation level or post-processing level.

For this area, proposals shall focus on gaining an improved understanding of error sources and uncertainties within modern geodetic observation techniques and sensors, and examine how measurements from one technique could be used to improve corrections for another geodetic technique. Proposals can also examine approaches for improved corrections for different geodetic observation techniques, using geophysical and non-geophysical modeling. Investigations solely focused on Doppler Orbitography and Radio positioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) transmitters are not encouraged.

3.3 Outside the Scope of this Topic

Any subject not explicitly described within Section 3.2 is considered outside the scope of this topic call, even if it is GEOINT related.

4. Performance Metrics

Proposers shall submit the following table with their proposed metrics as part of their proposal.

These metrics are the minimum metrics; proposers can then add their own metrics.

Table 2 Technical Requirements –Metrics

5. Deliverable Items

Table 3 Deliverables Table

# ITEM Description DUE DATE

1 Kick-off

Meeting

Briefing in support of a project kick off meeting that details the plan for the work, as well as any additional details since the proposal was submitted.

Meeting will be in person at proposer or NGA location, or virtual at the discretion of the government.

15 days after start of initial performance

2 Quarterly

Research

Performance

Progress

Report (RPPR)

RPPR status report.

Subject Area 1 & 2 shall address the following as part of the report:

No later than 5 business days after the end of each quarter of work

# Performance Metric

Name

Description Metric Milestone

Accomplishment

1 Student Involvement

Number of undergraduate and graduate students involved in development and processing

(undergraduate and graduate numbers shall be provided separately)

Multiple metrics may be listed for different milestones

(e.g. 100 students by Month 12; 500 students by Month

24 etc.)

List month when metric will be accomplished

2 Student exposure

Students exposed to subject area design and/or data processing

3 Publications

(conference or journal)

Publications enabled by this grant (not the primary goal, but beneficial)

• Description of activities conducted that quarter and accomplishments (block 25) Students doing substantive work relating to this Topic

Call

(include level, i.e. freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate as well as percentage of time) (block 33)

• Student involved with the program who obtained jobs in the field, including company and position where possible (block 40)

• Other students exposed to or trained in Topic

Call Subject Areas through classes or other activities (block 36)

• Status of academic papers (block 29, conference talks (block 29), patents or similar resulting from this work (block 31)

• Any other materials proposer wants to provide the government (block 32)

• Others items of interest pertaining to the award or student training (block 26)

If the RPRR does not provide sufficient space to submit the information above, proposers shall submit an addendum with the information as part of the RPRR.

The quarterly report for the last quarter of the 12-month reporting period is replaced by the annual report.

3 Financial

Execution

As a minimum, cover charges made during the quarter (include labor hours charges and rate, by labor category), cumulative totals, and remaining funds.

Due with quarterly

RPPR; no later than 5 business days after the end of each quarter of work.

4 Quarterly

Status

Discussion

A discussion on status and progress in addition to the written quarterly RPRR. The first and third quarterly discussion will be approximately one hour, held virtually, and focus on only the metrics and RPPR content. The second and fourth quarterly discussions will be in person (assume one each year at the government’s location and one at the proposers for costing purposes), half a day to a day in length, and provide more detailed presentations / discussions of the work undertaken in the grant.

Quarterly, NLT 10 days following receipt of the quarterly RPRR.

5 Annual RPPR 90 days after the end of the reporting period

6 Final RPPR 90 days after the end of the expiration or termination of the award

6. Government Furnished Information/Data/Property

No government furnished data or hardware will be provided in this topic call.

7. Security Considerations

Work under this effort will be at the unclassified level.

7.1. Unclassified Work Performance Security Requirements

Uncleared Recipient personnel are authorized to work on this contract at the unclassified level without the requirement of a security clearance.

7.2. Uncleared Personnel Security Requirements

Should NGA identify the use of unauthorized personnel, the CO may direct the Recipient, at its own expense, to remove and replace any unauthorized personnel performing on the grant. Such action may be taken at the NGA's discretion without prejudice to its rights under any other grant terms and conditions.

Uncleared Recipient personnel visiting NGA facilities or other sites may receive the appropriate visitor badge and be escorted, as appropriate. The Recipient will return the visitor badge at the end of each visit day.

7.3. Information Security Requirements

NGA shall have the sole authority to determine whether, and to what extent, protected information shall be provided to the Recipient under the terms of the grant. The Recipient shall not access, download, print, or further disseminate any unclassified information outside the execution of the defined grant requirements without the guidance and written permission from the COR.

When the Recipient receives protected information under the terms of this grant, the Recipient will comply with all applicable NGA, DoD, and IC information security policies for the proper marking, handling, processing, storing, and safeguarding of unclassified and CUI material. The

Recipient will ensure that document markings are given the lowest possible security classification to maximize dissemination while still maintaining the information’s confidentiality and integrity as necessary.

8. Performance

8.1. Place of Performance:

The proposer shall perform all work in the proposer’s facilities anywhere in the United States.

The proposer shall list place or places of performance in the proposal. The proposer shall not perform any work outside of the United States.

8.2. Period of Performance (PoP):

The proposed grant shall be broken out into 1-year increments and shall not exceed 5 years.

After funding of the initial 12-month period, additional funding increments will be provided at the sole discretion of the Government. Proposers shall submit proposals that cover the entire proposed performance period; additional funding increments which were not included in the original proposal cannot be added later.

9. References

[1] Jakowatz et. al., “Spotlight mode synthetic aperture radar: a signal processing approach”, Springer, 1996.

[2] Carrara, Majewski and Goodman, “Spotlight Synthetic Aperture Radar: Signal Processing

Algorithms”, Artech House, 1995.

[3] Massonnet and Souyris, “Imaging with Synthetic Aperture Radar”, EPFL Press, 2008.

[4] Ager, “The Essentials of SAR: A Conceptual View of Synthetic Aperture Radar and Its

Remarkable Capabilities”, independently published, 2021.

[5] https://nsgreg.nga.mil/doc/view?i=4900

[6] https://nsgreg.nga.mil/doc/view?i=4906 https://nsgreg.nga.mil/doc/view?i=4900 https://nsgreg.nga.mil/doc/view?i=4906