DARPA-BAA-16-11.pdf

Broad Agency Announcement Complex Adaptive System Composition And Design

Environment (CASCADE)

Defense Sciences Office

DARPA-BAA-16-11

November 23, 2015

DARPA-BAA-16-11 CASCADE 2

Table of Contents I. Funding Opportunity Description

A. Introduction/Background B. Overall Program Structure C. Technical Area Descriptions D. Schedule and Milestones Meetings and Travel E. Deliverables F. Government-furnished Property/Equipment/Information G. Intellectual Property

II. Award Information A. Awards and Award Instruments B. Fundamental Research

III. Eligibility Information A. Eligible Applicants B. Procurement Integrity, Standards of Conduct, Ethical Considerations, and Organizational Conflicts of Interest C. Cost Sharing/Matching D. Other Eligibility Criteria

IV. Application and Submission Information A. Address to Request Application Package B. Content and Form of Application Submission C. Submission Dates and Times D. Funding Restrictions E. Other Submission Requirements

V. Application Review Information A. Evaluation Criteria B. Proposal Review and Selection Process

VI. Award Administration Information A. Selection Notices B. Administrative and National Policy Requirements C. Reporting

VII. Agency Contacts VIII. Other Information

A. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) B. Collaborative Efforts/Teaming C. Proposers Day

ATTACHMENT 1: ABSTRACT SLIDE TEMPLATE

ATTACHMENT 2: PROPOSAL SLIDE TEMPLATES

ATTACHMENT 3: PROPOSAL TEMPLATE – TECHNICAL & MANAGEMENT VOLUME

ATTACHMENT 4: PROPOSAL TEMPLATE – COST VOLUME

DARPA-BAA-16-11 CASCADE 3

PART I: OVERVIEW INFORMATION

Federal Agency Name: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Sciences Office (DSO)

Funding Opportunity Title: Complex Adaptive System Composition And Design Environment (CASCADE)

Announcement Type: Initial Announcement

Funding Opportunity Number: DARPA-BAA-16-11

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number(s): 12.910 Research and Technology Development

Dates (All times listed herein are Eastern Time.)

o Posting Date: November 23, 2015 o Proposers Day: December 9, 2015. See Section VIII.C.

o Teaming Profile Submission Deadline: December 2, 2015, 4:00 p.m. See Section VIII.B.

o Abstract Submission Deadline: December 15, 2015, 4:00 p.m.

o FAQ Submission Deadline: January 28, 2016, 4:00 p.m. See Section VIII.A.

o Full Proposal Submission Deadline: February 4, 2016, 4:00 p.m.

Anticipated Individual Awards: Multiple awards are anticipated in both Technical Areas.

Awards may be procurement contracts, cooperative agreements or other transactions.

Anticipated Funding Available for Award: Approximately $23M over 4 years.

Agency contacts o Technical POC: John S. Paschkewitz, Program Manager, DARPA/DSO o Solicitation Email: CASCADE@darpa.mil o Solicitation Mailing Address:

DARPA/DSO

ATTN: DARPA-BAA-16-11

675 North Randolph Street Arlington, VA 22203-2114 o DARPA/DSO Solicitation Website: http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/opportunities

Teaming Information: See Sections VIII.B and VIII.C for information on teaming opportunities.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): FAQs for this solicitation may be viewed on the DSO Solicitation Website. See Section VIII.A for further information.

mailto:CASCADE@darpa.mil http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/opportunities?tFilter=&oFilter=2&sort=name

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PART II: FULL TEXT OF ANNOUNCEMENT

I. Funding Opportunity Description

This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is being issued, and any resultant selection will be made, using procedures under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 35.016. Any negotiations and/or awards will use procedures under FAR 15.4 (or 32 CFR 22 for cooperative agreements).

Any amendments to this BAA will be posted to the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website (http://www.fbo.gov/) and, as applicable, the Grants.gov website (http://www.grants.gov/).

A. Introduction/Background The Defense Sciences Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals that will enable and demonstrate new design capabilities for complex adaptive systems. Proposed research should develop and/or exploit innovative approaches in mathematical abstraction and composition for the design of dynamic, adaptive and resilient systems with unified understanding of system structures, behaviors and interactions across multiple spatiotemporal scales. Specifically excluded is research that results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice, such as federated models for military systems, single- or limited-domain network, discrete event or Monte Carlo models, Systems Modeling Language (SySML), or abstraction and composition models with primary application to software and/or electronics.

Department of Defense (DoD) and urban infrastructure capabilities are increasingly based on the integration and coordination of heterogeneous systems using System-of-Systems (SoS) architectures. However, it is difficult to model and currently impossible to systematically design such complex systems using state-of-the-art tools, leading to inferior performance, unexpected problems, and weak resilience. This inadequacy in design capability results from the complexity of interactions between system structures and behaviors across multiple time and length scales that cannot be adequately modeled using conventional approaches.

As an example, the typical design approach for a military SoS architecture is to use a federated modeling infrastructure that couples campaign- or mission-level models via requirements to physics-based platform models, with the resulting behaviors evaluated using engagement models. To manage complexity, interfaces and interactions are controlled as much as possible with modularity being a preferred outcome. While these federated models work for traditional monolithic platforms, they fail to capture the networked, coordinated effects that cross layers of abstraction characteristic of SoS architectures. These networked effects are therefore unanticipated and are described as emergent behaviors. These models also do not include logistics or sustainment constraints explicitly in the design space, leading to challenges in addressing attrition and overall systems cost. System adaptability is limited to scenarios contemplated in the campaign- or mission-level models and is manifested as “playbooks” of behaviors in response to known scenarios. System resilience is weak because of the optimization to known threats and the limited number of reconfiguration options imposed by modularity and interfacial control.

The DARPA Complex Adaptive System Composition And Design Environment (CASCADE) http://www.fbo.gov/ http://www.grants.gov/

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program seeks to address these shortcomings and fundamentally change how systems are designed for real-time resilient response to dynamic, unexpected environments. The goal of CASCADE is to provide both a unified view of system behavior, allowing understanding and exploitation of these complex interactions, and a formal language for complex adaptive system composition and design. This unified view of system behavior, enabled by appropriate mathematical foundations, will also enable adaptation to unanticipated environments using arbitrary system components by providing a framework to dynamically identify and correct deficient system capabilities.

If successful, CASCADE will fundamentally change paradigms of system design both by elucidating underlying design principles for emergent behavior in complex systems and by highlighting counterintuitive new design strategies to achieve resilience. The program will impact the DoD by enabling the design of dynamic, adaptive and resilient SoS architectures that go beyond static “playbook” architectures as well as the development of dynamic adaptive infrastructure and plans for systematic establishment of resilient community functions (e.g., hospitals or public safety) in response to adverse events.

B. Overall Program Structure Over the course of four 12-month phases, performers in the CASCADE program will develop and exercise a set of design capabilities for complex adaptive systems starting from a foundation of nascent mathematical techniques. As a demonstration of this goal, the program will create a library of resilient and adaptive system architectures in (ideally) both the military system of systems architecture and resilient urban infrastructure domains. The design libraries will be the product of a series of progressively more difficult challenge problems in which military or urban systems will need to adapt to adverse situations including environmental changes, system attrition and co-evolving threats. These problems will be formulated and administered by an independent challenge partner (not solicited in this BAA) as described below. Both during the program and following program completion, both the tools and libraries will be available to the respective design communities using an open data and model infrastructure.

Performance in the CASCADE program will occur in two technical areas (TAs):

TA1: Mathematical foundations for unified abstraction, composition and adaptive behavior; and, TA2: Domain applications: design knowledge, problems and data in the areas of military SoS or resilient urban infrastructure.

DARPA strongly encourages fully integrated TA1 and TA2 teams. Although proposers may propose to a single TA, any initially unaffiliated TA1 or TA2 teams will be required to become part of an integrated (TA1 + TA2) team in Phases 2 through 4. DARPA will facilitate teaming both before proposal submission and during Phase 1 (see Sections I.E, VIII.B and VIII.C).

Proposals and teaming arrangements should be structured such that TA2 performers are the prime and TA1 performers are sub after Phase 1. Proposals must address all program targets, milestones and deliverables outlined herein as applicable to the proposed technical area(s).

DARPA expects all CASCADE performers to work collaboratively with one another to realize

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the program objectives outlined herein, so proposers should carefully review the goals for the entire program in order to fully understand the context of each objective within the overall program structure. Proposers choosing to address both TA1 and TA2 should note that DARPA may only select one of the proposed TAs rather than the entire proposal (see Section II.A).

As previously mentioned, the CASCADE program will also include Government Challenge and independent verification and validation (IV&V) partners. These partners will be independent from the TA1 and TA2 teams and are not part of this solicitation. The Challenge/IV&V partners will work closely with the performer teams to define specific quantitative figures of merit for system performance as well as customizing the challenge problems to the domain of interest.

The identity of the Challenge/IV&V partners will be disseminated to the CASCADE performer teams before the program kickoff meeting.

For the CASCADE program, a system is defined as a composition of structures (e.g., networks, geometry) and behaviors (e.g., communication, electrical transmission) to provide a function (e.g., healthcare, electronic warfare) subject to constraints (e.g., power budgets, logistics supply rates). Starting from these definitions, TA1 and TA2 are described in detail below.

C. Technical Area Descriptions TA1: Mathematical foundations for abstraction, composition and adaptive behavior The objective of this area is to provide a unified formal mathematical foundation for complex adaptive system design. TA1 proposers must provide an integrated solution that addresses all of the following:

Abstraction: The goal of abstraction is describing system structures, behaviors, constraints and events in a way that exposes only the information required to define the resulting function. In complex systems, standard reductionist abstraction approaches fail to correctly capture dynamic system structures or behaviors resulting from interactions at lower levels of abstraction and across layers of abstraction. Therefore, DARPA is explicitly not interested in approaches such as detailed single-domain graph theoretic models, hierarchical multi-scale decomposition, UML/SySML and simplified metamodels; frameworks such as contract- and platform-based design are not sufficient and also not of interest. Proposers must demonstrate that their alternative frameworks address the complexity of interfaces, multiscale interactions, and dynamics in a computable and computationally tractable manner. Proposers must also highlight how their frameworks can enable design across multiple scales and domains of abstraction.

Proposers must discuss how their abstraction frameworks unify stochastic, discrete and continuous dynamics. Areas of mathematics that may yield such a framework include but are not limited to category theory and model theory.

Composition: New frameworks are required to synthesize functions from structures and behaviors, subject to constraints, in response to events. Existing frameworks for composition of structures and behaviors are either entirely ad hoc or are limited to domain-specific abstractions. Proposers must demonstrate that their framework enables both compositionality (e.g., system functional properties can be computed from local

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properties of structures and behaviors) and composability (e.g., system functional properties do not change with interactions between structures, behaviors and constraints) across multiple levels of abstraction. Successful composition frameworks are likely to utilize new abstraction frameworks in concert with currently unexploited mathematical techniques to facilitate composition. For example, mathematical techniques such as algebraic topology and geometry, sheaf theory, cochain and process algebra, polytopes, triangulations and cluster algebras may be appropriate formalisms. Combinations of abstractions coupled to compositional mathematics may include concepts such as dynamical system template-anchor formalisms for behavioral composition in robotics or so-called “equation-free” methods.

Dynamic adaptation of the complex system is enabled by a unified view of and a formal language for functional composition across all possible structures and behaviors.

However, to achieve adaptation, the capability to sense, reason and act on the design composition space is also required. “Sensing” in this context means that the complex system has a means to determine its state in an a priori unknown environment with an unpredictable mix of sensing and communication modalities (i.e., how does this system know that an adaptation is required?). Proposers must explain how their frameworks will address distributed, asynchronous assessment of, and uncertainty in, determining the environmental state. Concepts that may partially address this issue include but are not limited to concepts of dynamic heterarchy, information theoretic frameworks, and primal-dual optimization.

TA2 systems will use the abstraction and composition frameworks along with environmental data to construct and act on a model of the system state in a time-dynamic manner. Since the resulting design and configuration spaces will be high-dimensional, formal methods for approximate reasoning over potentially stochastic state data will be required. Elements of theory from areas such as temporal logic, policy-based planning algorithms, agent models, or model predictive control will need radical modification to take full advantage of the new abstraction and composition frameworks. Proposers must identify the limitations of their starting approaches as well as a strategy for computationally scalable implementation in the new abstraction and composition framework.

Neither the state of the environment nor that of the responding system will be known precisely.

There will also be sources of error due to imperfect data transmission, sensing limitations, etc.

These stochastic and/or probabilistic quantities must be accounted for in a rigorous manner.

Approaches that include adding white noise to deterministic data are explicitly not of interest.

Additionally, proposed robust and resilient adaptive system designs and design frameworks must incorporate stochasticity in an intrinsic (and decidedly non-ad hoc) fashion. Proposers must address how their frameworks will enable a capability for “reasoning over uncertainty,” so that proffered actions may be assessed relative to potential costs (e.g., resources, time, etc.)

TA1 performers must also define a notional Application Program Interface (API) to facilitate integration by TA2 performers. At a minimum, this API definition must include basic definitions of data structures, functions, routines, protocols and tools that build on the core mathematical foundations and algorithms.

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TA2: Domain application in the areas of military SoS or resilient urban infrastructure TA2 performers will integrate deep knowledge of domain challenges and the novel mathematical foundations of TA1 in powerful new domain-specific modeling and design frameworks.

Proposers are expected to leverage and share available data sets or results from modeling capabilities for baselining and validation of the capabilities to be developed. TA2 performers are also expected to work closely with the Challenge/IV&V partners to define specific quantitative figures of merit for system performance as well as customizing the challenge problems to the domain of interest.

Proposers to the CASCADE program can choose to pursue either of two domains of interest:

military system of systems architectures or resilient urban infrastructure. Although other domains are possible that would demonstrate the capabilities of the techniques being developed in the CASCADE program, only the aforementioned two areas will be considered for funding.

Further definition of the two domains of interest are as follows:

Military System of Systems: Proposers in this space should note that while CASCADE is an unclassified program, it is anticipated that later phases of the program data and scenarios may potentially be subject to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) restrictions (See Section III.D.). Proposers for military SoS must ensure that their proposed scenarios, system definitions, and data are unclassified. Proposals must not include any classified information either in the proposal itself or in addenda to the proposal. Some example military scenarios that meet these requirements are:

o Adaptive battlefield medicine capability for forward resuscitative surgery, with options including differing novel autonomous system, teleoperation, medevac and field hospital architectures, incorporating engineering system and subsystem architectures with detailed (e.g., requiring solution of partial differential equations) time-dependent physics, communications requirements, blood transport, supply chain management, and surgical capabilities as a function of terrain, operational environment and casualty rates and types.

o Adaptive logistics capability, with options including novel autonomous and/or manned land, sea or air assets and distribution center architectures, incorporating details of engineering system and subsystem designs for delivery and distribution platforms with detailed time-dependent physics, communications and coordination modalities, infrastructure for platform learning algorithms and data sustainment, and support for both short-term “pop-up” tactical logistics and long-term sustaining support as a function of terrain, operational conditions and supply requirements, and potential adversary actions (e.g., road closures, communications jamming).

o Adaptive search and rescue capability for downed airmen or forward operators in hostile environments, with options including novel autonomous and/or manned land, sea or air assets with coordination using land, sea, air, space and cyber systems, incorporating engineering system and subsystem architectures with

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detailed, time-dependent physics, communications and control, and sensing as a function of terrain, operational environment, and adaptive adversary capabilities.

Proposers are strongly encouraged to consider these scenarios but may propose challenge problems from other military domains that entail significant complexity, involve constraints that are not represented in state-of-the-art design tools, and include multiple structural and behavioral domain areas not adequately and formally modeled in current frameworks.

Single- or limited-domain systems, such as electronic warfare (EW) or communications networks are explicitly not of interest.

Resilient Urban Infrastructure System: An example system of interest is a time-dependent and dynamic community function such as health care or public safety as a composition of power, communications, transportation, and logistics in response to changing environmental conditions. Single- or limited-domain systems such as smart grid, communications or transportation networks, or device-centric “smart city” systems are explicitly not of interest.

TA2 proposals must discuss in detail the chosen military SoS or resilient urban infrastructure system that will be assessed and redesigned for adaptive resilience. In addition, the suitability of the challenge problem for the mathematical foundations of TA1 needs to be addressed. Using TA1 frameworks as a “backplane” or a “conversion” tool between existing modeling tools is explicitly not of interest. TA2 performers must outline an integration strategy for inclusion of TA1 frameworks into a modeling and design environment.

Specifically, TA2 proposers must address the following areas:

o System definition: Proposers must define and highlight the complexity of the candidate system (or SoS) to be assessed and redesigned for maximum adaptive resilience. The system must be sufficiently complex such that existing tools are incapable of providing meaningful design insight. This implies that at a minimum there are multiple coordinated functions, with multiple levels of abstraction required to describe the structures or behaviors, non-linear coupling of constraints to structures or behaviors, and dynamic behaviors with characteristic times spanning multiple orders of magnitude.

o Design framework assessment and strategy: Proposers must articulate the limitations or inability of current modeling frameworks to correctly capture dynamic and/or emergent behaviors of the candidate system. Proposers must highlight specific difficulties in using the modeling frameworks to achieve design

– what is difficult or impossible to capture in the translation of functional needs to structural and behavioral composition? Proposers must (1) explain in detail where the new mathematical foundations of TA1 will be inserted into the modeling and design infrastructure, (2) define requirements for TA1 integration, and (3) define an insertion and testing strategy for the new capability. Proposers must also identify a strategy for extending and exercising the capability to meet the milestones in Section I.D.

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o System assessment metrics and data: Proposers must define what data or other validated models are available for benchmarking and challenge problem formulation. Proposers must identify where data are not available and articulate a modeling strategy for defining such data. TA2 performers are expected to share benchmarking data with the broader application community in either the military SoS or urban resilience areas (see Section I.F for testbed information). Proposers must also define figures of merit for system functional outcomes and relevant characteristics of constituent structures or behaviors related to these figures of merit. Proposers should anticipate refinement or modification of these figures of merit after discussion with the Challenge/IV&V partners.

To facilitate successful adoption of the tools and designs developed in CASCADE by the broader application communities, proposers are expected to clearly identify a transition strategy appropriate to the domain of interest (military SoS or resilient urban infrastructure).

As stated above, both the tools and the design libraries developed by CASCADE performer teams are expected to be available to the respective design communities after program completion using an open data and model infrastructure. The details of this infrastructure are context-specific, but proposers must provide a plan for a persistent development framework after the end of the program that provides open access to data and design capability.

D. Schedule and Milestones The CASCADE program spans four 12-month phases (one base phase with 3 options) as illustrated in the generalized timeline shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: CASCADE program timeline

A target start date of August 2016 may be assumed for planning purposes. Proposers should

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provide a technical and programmatic strategy that conforms to the entire program schedule and presents an aggressive plan to fully address all program goals, metrics, milestones and deliverables. All proposals must include metrics appropriate for demonstrating progress over the course of the program. TA1 proposers should define metrics related to the milestones below.

TA2 proposers should define notional metrics for both the design tools and the systems being designed within those frameworks, but should anticipate detailed discussions regarding specific system metrics with the Challenge/IV&V partners.

DARPA expects fully integrated TA1 and 2 teams with the TA2 performer teams acting as prime and TA1 performers as subs after the base phase. Initially unaffiliated TA1 or TA2 teams will be required to become part of a larger integrated TA1 + TA2 team for Phases 2-4 (See Sections VIII.B and VIII.C.). TA2 proposals unaffiliated with any TA1 proposal must provide a technical and programmatic strategy for the option phases assuming an integrated TA1/TA2 team with the understanding that the options will not be exercised if partnering has not occurred by the end of the base phase. TA1 proposals unaffiliated with any TA2 proposals should only provide a technical and programmatic strategy for the base phase, since TA1 teams will not continue beyond this point without being part of an integrated team. Any TA1 proposal submitted without a partner must articulate a strategy for how to integrate at both a technical and organizational level with a TA2 performer team.

All proposals are expected to include the PowerPoint slides provided as Attachment 2 to the BAA posted at www.fbo.gov (Slide 1-Technical summary; Slide 2-Concept; Slide 3- Cost summary by phase; Slide 4-Cost summary by task). Proposers that fail to include this information will be deemed non-conforming1 and will be removed from consideration.

Base Phase (12 months): Design foundations Performers will develop, demonstrate and characterize unified and comprehensive frameworks for abstraction, composition and adaptation and match them to appropriate challenge problems.

Milestones:

TA1 performers:

8 months: Demonstrate a prototype for a unifying mathematical and algorithmic framework that is capable of spanning all scales of structures and time, constraints, and events and incorporates stochasticity against a set of domain-agnostic and canonical challenge problems to be posed by the Challenge/IV&V partners.

o 9 months: Demonstrate compositional algebra for functions, including both structures and behaviors, subject to constraints in response to events in the system environment.

o 11 months: Provide formal verifiability and scalability of algorithms.

TA2 performers:

o 2 months: Detailed problem and metrics definition finalized in collaboration with

Challenge/IV&V partners.

1See Section IV below for additional information on non-conforming determinations.

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o 5 months: Benchmarking of state-of-art methods for solving challenge problem and definition of figures of merit for both modeling/design capability and target system performance with Challenge/IV&V partners.

o 6 months: Definition of domain tool requirements to meet program milestones, including design library and user interface.

o 8 months - Unaffiliated teams only: Definition of interfaces and challenge problems for matching to unaffiliated TA1 teams.

o 10 months: Prototype with integration of TA1 frameworks into application design tool.

o 11 months: Prototype demonstration with integrated TA1 frameworks.

Phase 2/Option 1 (12 months): Defining Resilience Integrated performer teams will implement their framework in a design tool and use that tool to determine baseline system performance. Tool performance and model results will be validated by an independent Challenge/IV&V partner. Phase 2 will culminate in a surprise design challenge for systems that can recover capability in a changing environment.

Milestones:

3 months: Benchmark and validate time-dynamic function model against real-world data.

6 months: Determine limitations of composable abstractions and formally define composability constraints (e.g., define equivalents of tolerances and interchangeability).

8 months: Identify time-dependent optimal (or approximately optimal with formal and empirical error bounds) composition for single function (e.g., sensing).

9 months: Challenge problem - design for resilient behavior to environmental change.

Phase 3/Option 2 (12 months): Achieving Adaptation Performers will extend their design tools to model and design adaptive systems that can sense and adjust structures or behaviors in response to changing environmental conditions that cause permanent loss of constituent components or systems. Phase 3 will culminate in a surprise design challenge which removes or permanently degrades the performance of key system components.

Milestones:

6 months: Demonstrate a system self-diagnosis capability for an arbitrary set of sensors, behaviors and constraints.

6 months: Demonstrate a capability to realize closed-loop single functional recomposition from a randomized set of sub-system components.

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8 months: Demonstrate redesign of single function to achieve maximum (or approximately maximal with formal and empirical error bounds) possible resilience.

9 months: Challenge Problem - Design for adaptive response to attrition and environmental change.

Phase 4/Option 3 (12 months): Living Systems Performers will extend their design tools to “living” systems that can dynamically recompose structures and behaviors in response to changing constraints or events. The program will conclude with a final design challenge in which all of the conditions of the first two challenges are amplified and the system is tested against a co-evolving threat.

Milestones:

6 months: Demonstrate a dynamic composition of a multi-functional system of systems from a randomized set of subsystems.

6 months: Demonstrate redesign of coordinated functions to achieve formally possible maximum (or approximately maximal with formal and empirical error bounds) resilience.

8 months: Demonstrate dynamic adaptive response to achieve formally possible re-design: e.g. instantiate a capability at the system, subset of systems, or other scale limit based on network limitations.

9 months: Challenge Problem - Design for adaptive response to a co-evolving threat coupled to attrition and environmental change.

Meetings and Travel Performers should anticipate the following meetings and travel:

Regular teleconference meetings with the Government Team (DARPA Program Manager, Contracting Officer) to report progress as well as identify issues and planned mitigation strategies.

At least one site visit per phase by the DARPA Program Manager during which performers will have the opportunity to demonstrate progress toward agreed-upon milestones.

All proposals must include travel budgets for eight meetings over the course of 48 months, with locations split between the East and West Coasts of the United States: five 2-day meetings in the Washington, D.C. area and three 3-day meetings in the San Francisco, CA area. These meetings are broken down as follows:

o Beginning with the program kickoff meeting, a two-day Principal Investigator (PI) meeting will be held approximately every six months (i.e., twice per phase) to highlight and share progress in the program.

o The second base phase PI meeting will have a teaming workshop, where any unaffiliated TA1 and TA2 performer teams will share results and establish partnerships.

o A one-day supplementary challenge workshop will be held during one of the two

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PI meetings scheduled for Phases 2 - 4. The DARPA Program Manager and IV&V/Challenge partner will announce the surprise challenge problems and discuss metrics for evaluation and continued progress in the program.

E. Deliverables Proposers are expected to provide at a minimum the following deliverables:

• Comprehensive quarterly technical reports due within ten days of the end of the given quarter, describing progress made on the specific milestones as laid out in the SOW.

• A phase completion report submitted within 30 days of the end of each phase, summarizing the research done.

• Other negotiated deliverables specific to the objectives of the individual TAs. These may include intermediate and final versions of software libraries, code, and APIs, including documentation and user manuals (TA1 and/or TA2), and/or a comprehensive assemblage of design documents, modeling data and results, and model validation data (TA2).

• Reporting as outlined in Section VI.C.

F. Government-furnished Property/Equipment/Information DARPA will provide a common cloud-based, collaborative, unified test and evaluation (T&E) environment (“testbed”) for performer teams to build and evaluate software using shared datasets provided by TA2 performers and the Challenge/IV&V partners. This Government-furnished equipment will be available within 3 months of the program start in order to facilitate agile and collaborative software development, integration and test/evaluation. DARPA will define the workflows, data handling and software architecture practices and standards for the performer teams at the program kickoff.

G. Intellectual Property Since the program will emphasize creating and leveraging open source technologies and architectures, intellectual property rights asserted by proposers are strongly encouraged to be aligned with open source regimes. See Section VI.B.1 for more information related to intellectual property.

II. Award Information A. Awards and Award Instruments

Multiple awards are anticipated. The level of funding for individual awards made under this solicitation has not been predetermined and will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. Awards under this solicitation will be made to proposers whose proposals are determined to be the most advantageous and provide best value to the Government, all factors considered, including the potential contributions of the proposed work, overall funding strategy, and availability of funding. See Section V for further information.

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The Government reserves the right to:

select for negotiation all, some, one, or none of the proposals received in response to this solicitation;

make awards without discussions with proposers;

conduct discussions with proposers if it is later determined to be necessary;

segregate portions of resulting awards into pre-priced options;

accept proposals in their entirety or to select only portions of proposals for award;

fund proposals in increments with options for continued work at the end of one or more phases;

request additional documentation once the award instrument has been determined (e.g., representations and certifications); and remove proposers from award consideration should the parties fail to reach agreement on award terms within a reasonable time or the proposer fails to provide requested additional information in a timely manner.

Proposals identified for negotiation may result in a procurement contract, cooperative agreement, or other transaction (OT), depending upon the nature of the work proposed, the required degree of interaction between parties, and other factors.

In all cases, the Government contracting officer shall have sole discretion to select award instrument type and to negotiate all instrument terms and conditions with selectees. Proposers are advised that if they propose cooperative agreements, DARPA may select other award instruments, as it deems appropriate. DARPA will apply publication or other restrictions, as necessary, if it determines that the research resulting from the proposed effort will present a high likelihood of disclosing performance characteristics of military systems or manufacturing technologies that are unique and critical to defense. Any award resulting from such a determination will include a requirement for DARPA permission before publishing any information or results on the program. For more information on publication restrictions, see the section below on Fundamental Research.

B. Fundamental Research It is DoD policy that the publication of products of fundamental research will remain unrestricted to the maximum extent possible. National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 189 established the national policy for controlling the flow of scientific, technical, and engineering information produced in federally funded fundamental research at colleges, universities, and laboratories. The Directive defines fundamental research as follows:

'Fundamental research' means basic and applied research in science and engineering, the results of which ordinarily are published and shared broadly within the scientific community, as distinguished from proprietary research and from industrial development, design, production, and product utilization, the results of which ordinarily are restricted for proprietary or national security reasons.

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As of the date of publication of this BAA, the Government expects that program goals as described herein may be met by proposers intending to perform fundamental research. The Government does not anticipate applying publication restrictions of any kind to individual awards for fundamental research that may result from this BAA. Notwithstanding this statement of expectation, the Government is not prohibited from considering and selecting research proposals that, while perhaps not qualifying as fundamental research under the foregoing definition, still meet the BAA criteria for submissions. If proposals are selected for award that offer other than a fundamental research solution, the Government will either work with the proposer to modify the proposed statement of work to bring the research back into line with fundamental research or else the proposer will agree to restrictions in order to receive an award.

Proposers should indicate in their proposal whether they believe the scope of the research included in their proposal is fundamental or not. While proposers should clearly explain the intended results of their research, the Government shall have sole discretion to select award instrument type and to negotiate all instrument terms and conditions with selectees. Appropriate clauses will be included in resultant awards for non-fundamental research to prescribe publication requirements and other restrictions, as appropriate.

For certain research projects, it may be possible that although the research being performed by the prime contractor is restricted research, a subawardee may be conducting fundamental research. In those cases, it is the prime contractor’s responsibility to explain in its proposal why its subawardee’s effort is fundamental research.

The following statement or similar provision will be incorporated into any resultant non-fundamental research procurement contract or other transaction:

There shall be no dissemination or publication, except within and between the contractor and any subawardees, of information developed under this contract or contained in the reports to be furnished pursuant to this contract without prior written approval of DARPA’s Public Release Center (DARPA/PRC). All technical reports will be given proper review by appropriate authority to determine which Distribution Statement is to be applied prior to the initial distribution of these reports by the contractor. With regard to subawardee proposals for Fundamental Research, papers resulting from unclassified fundamental research are exempt from prepublication controls and this review requirement, pursuant to DoD Instruction 5230.27 dated October 6, 1987.

When submitting material for written approval for open publication, the contractor/awardee must submit a request for public release to the DARPA/PRC and include the following information: (1) Document Information: document title, document author, short plain-language description of technology discussed in the material (approx.

30 words), number of pages (or minutes of video) and document type (e.g., briefing, report, abstract, article, or paper); (2) Event Information: event type (conference, principal investigator meeting, article or paper), event date, desired date for DARPA's approval; (3) DARPA Sponsor: DARPA Program Manager, DARPA office, and contract number; and (4) Contractor/Awardee's Information: POC name, email and phone. Allow four weeks for processing; due dates under four weeks require a justification. Unusual

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electronic file formats may require additional processing time. Requests may be sent either via email to public_release_center@darpa.mil or by mail at 675 North Randolph Street, Arlington VA 22203-2114, telephone (571) 218-4235. Refer to the following for link for information about DARPA’s public release process: http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/contract-management/public-release.”

III. Eligibility Information A. Eligible Applicants

All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit a proposal that shall be considered by DARPA.

1. Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and Government Entities

Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and Government entities (e.g., Government/National laboratories, military educational institutions, etc.) are subject to applicable direct competition limitations and cannot propose to this BAA in any capacity unless they meet the following conditions: (1) FFRDCs must clearly demonstrate that the proposed work is not otherwise available from the private sector; and (2) FFRDCs must provide a letter on official letterhead from their sponsoring organization citing the specific authority establishing their eligibility to propose to Government solicitations and compete with industry, and their compliance with the associated FFRDC sponsor agreement’s terms and conditions. This information is required for FFRDCs proposing to be prime contractors or subawardees.

Government entities must clearly demonstrate that the work is not otherwise available from the private sector and provide written documentation citing the specific statutory authority and contractual authority, if relevant, establishing their ability to propose to Government solicitations. At the present time, DARPA does not consider 15 U.S.C. § 3710a to be sufficient legal authority to show eligibility. While 10 U.S.C.§ 2539b may be the appropriate statutory starting point for some entities, specific supporting regulatory guidance, together with evidence of agency approval, will still be required to fully establish eligibility. DARPA will consider FFRDC and Government entity eligibility submissions on a case-by-case basis; however, the burden to prove eligibility for all team members rests solely with the proposer.

2. Foreign Participation Non-U.S. organizations and/or individuals may participate to the extent that such participants comply with any necessary nondisclosure agreements, security regulations, export control laws, and other governing statutes applicable under the circumstances. Also see Section III.D.

B. Procurement Integrity, Standards of Conduct, Ethical Considerations, and Organizational Conflicts of Interest

Current federal employees are prohibited from participating in particular matters involving conflicting financial, employment, and representational interests (18 U.S.C. §§ 203, 205, and 208). Once the proposals have been received, and prior to the start of proposal evaluations, the mailto:public_release_center@darpa.mil

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Government will assess potential conflicts of interest and will promptly notify the proposer if any appear to exist. The Government assessment does NOT affect, offset, or mitigate the proposer’s responsibility to give full notice and planned mitigation for all potential organizational conflicts, as discussed below.

Without prior approval or a waiver from the DARPA Director, in accordance with FAR 9.503, a contractor cannot simultaneously provide scientific, engineering, technical assistance (SETA) or similar support and also be a technical performer. As part of the proposal submission, all members of the proposed team (prime proposers, proposed subawardees, and consultants) must affirm whether they (their organizations and individual team members) are providing SETA or similar support to any DARPA technical office(s) through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the proposer, subawardees, consultant, or individual supports and identify the prime contract number(s). All facts relevant to the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest (FAR 9.5) must be disclosed. The disclosure must include a description of the action the proposer has taken or proposes to take to avoid, neutralize, or mitigate such conflict. If in the sole opinion of the Government after full consideration of the circumstances, a proposal fails to fully disclose potential conflicts of interest and/or any identified conflict situation cannot be effectively mitigated, the proposal will be rejected without technical evaluation and withdrawn from further consideration for award.

If a prospective proposer believes a conflict of interest exists or may exist (whether organizational or otherwise) or has questions on what constitutes a conflict of interest, the proposer should send his/her contact information and a summary of the potential conflict via email to the BAA email address before time and effort are expended in preparing a proposal and mitigation plan.

C. Cost Sharing/Matching Cost sharing is not required; however, it will be carefully considered where there is an applicable statutory condition relating to the selected funding instrument (e.g., OTs under the authority of 10 U.S.C. § 2371).

D. Other Eligibility Criteria

1. ITAR Information Access Requirements

As stated above, efforts addressing the Military System of Systems area may potentially be subject to ITAR restrictions in later phases of the program. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that prime proposers have personnel cleared to access ITAR-controlled information. While this is not a requirement for proposal submission or award, proposers should have a plan for meeting this requirement by Phase 3, if it becomes necessary. Clearance for ITAR access will be dependent on establishing that the designated individual(s) are a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident.2 It will be the

2 In the event that ITAR access becomes necessary, eligibility for designated individuals may be established by providing a copy of any of the following: (1) a valid U.S. passport, (2) an original birth certificate with a valid Government-issued photo ID (e.g., Common Access Card (CAC), state driver’s license, state ID card), or (3) a valid U.S. Green Card.

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prime’s responsibility to ensure that ITAR information is only released to verified U.S.

Citizens/Persons and is stored appropriately.

IV. Application and Submission Information Prior to submitting a full proposal, proposers are strongly encouraged to first submit an abstract as described below. This process allows a proposer to ascertain whether the proposed concept is: (1) applicable to the CASCADE BAA and (2) currently of interest. For the purposes of this BAA, applicability is defined as follows:

The proposed concept is applicable to the technical areas described herein.

The proposed concept is important to DSO’s current investment portfolio.

The proposed concept investigates an innovative approach that enables revolutionary advances, i.e., will not primarily result in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.

The proposed work has not already been completed (i.e., the research element is complete but manufacturing/fabrication funds are required).

The proposer has not already received funding or a positive funding decision for the proposed concept (whether from DARPA or another Government agency).

Abstracts and full proposals that are not found to be applicable to the CASCADE BAA as defined above may be deemed non-conforming3 and removed from consideration. All abstracts and full proposals must provide sufficient information to assess the validity/feasibility of their claims as well as comply with the requirements outlined herein for submission formatting, content and transmission to DARPA. Abstracts and full proposals that fail to do so may be deemed non-conforming and removed from consideration. Proposers will be notified of non-conforming determinations via letter.

A. Address to Request Application Package This document contains all information required to submit a response to this solicitation. No additional forms, kits, or other materials are needed except as referenced herein.