JHUAPL_JOTFOC_FINAL.pdf

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

VOLPE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS CENTER (VOLPE CENTER)

AIR NAVIGATION AND SURVEILLANCE DIVISION

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

PART I - TECHNICAL SUPPORTING DATA

Recommend that negotiations be conducted with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) on a non-competitive basis for award of an engineering services contract to support the Next Generation Air Traffic Control System (NextGen) program in an amount estimated to be $35,000,000 for 5 years. The supporting data for this recommendation are as follows:

A. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES

The Government’s minimum need is twofold: (1) to continue with in-service management, Air Traffic Control (ATC) and cockpit applications, and programmatic (common) support in the implementation of Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) and broadcast services as the replacement for current secondary radar in the National Airspace System (NAS) that supports the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Surveillance and Broadcast Services (SBS) Program Office; and (2) advance the Traffic Collision and Avoidance System (TCAS) as the primary, flight deck-based, anti-collision system.

B. BACKGROUND

The FAA’s SBS Program Office, created in September 2005, has been tasked to integrate, implement, certify, and commission ADS-B surveillance as well as Traffic Information Services-Broadcast (TIS-B) and Flight Information Services-Broadcast (FIS-B) as part of the NAS. Currently, surveillance services in the NAS are provided by a combination of primary and secondary radar that are technologies the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization (ATO) will phase out from its inventory of surveillance systems. The Volpe Center will continue to support the FAA’s SBS Program Office by providing program management, system engineering, and field engineering services.

Since 2006, the JHU/APL, a Federally chartered University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), has supported the Volpe Center and the FAA in SBS Monitoring System development, ADS-B system requirements, separation standards, safety and performance analysis, ADS-B applications, target-level-of-safety analyses, and modeling and simulation.

The TCAS II Version 7, known internationally as the Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS II, was released in 1998 and incorporated significant operational and technical improvements over the previous version (6.04A). The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) mandated ACAS II equipage in ANNEX 6, Part I, Chapter 6.18, by January 1, 2003, for certain operators internationally.

This mandate elevated ACAS II as the worldwide collision avoidance standard. Previously, the FAA had mandated TCAS equipage in certain classes of transport aircraft by December 1993.

Subsequent to the release of TCAS II/ACAS II, the FAA and other ICAOs established monitoring programs to measure ACAS performance operationally in the airspace. As a result of this monitoring, changes to the TCAS collision avoidance logic have been proposed. The TCAS Minimum Operational Performance Standard (MOPS) needs to be updated to reflect these changes. In preparation of the safety validation of future TCAS logic changes, the FAA is building a new U.S. TCAS Encounter model. In addition, the FAA is re-establishing a TCAS monitoring program to assess the operational performance of TCAS II. The Volpe Center has been supporting the TCAS and ACAS X programs by performing risk and safety analysis, supporting requirements and architecture development and program management.

JHU/APL has supported the FAA’s TCAS development work since 2004 (most currently under contract DTFAWA-11-C-00074) in the development of MOPS for both TCAS and the Airborne Collision Avoidance System X (ACAS X). JHU/APL continues to support future TCAS threat logic understanding activities and develop tools to analyze issues such as hybrid surveillance, the Radio Frequency (RF) environment, and TCAS avoidance logic. Since the Volpe Center supports SBS, the FAA has requested that the Volpe Center support TCAS since both ADS-B and TCAS are significant components of the FAA’s NextGen, and TCAS will be integrating ADS-B surveillance data into its platform.

In support of both ADS-B and TCAS, JHU/APL has developed and continues to maintain a variety of tools that are instrumental in advancing the FAA’s goals. Without these tools, the Government’s efforts would be significantly hampered. Some of these tools include:

• SLAP (System Level ADS-B Performance) model: JHU/APL has developed a SLAP model that provides end-to-end performance analysis of ADS-B and radar-supported ATC separation services as well as cockpit-based ADS-B applications. The model incorporates avionics (ADS-B out as well as ADS-B in), ADS-B and radar-ground surveillance, and ATC automation system functionality. This model supports concept and requirements development, providing performance predictions of ADS-B-related applications before system development and can be used to assess the performance impact of proposed system changes. As SLAP is end to end, it allows the FAA to predict performance across the system of systems involved in providing ADS- B-related applications and, ultimately, at the ATC automation system where the data is used by the controller. SLAP is modular and is easily upgraded to include new capabilities as they necessary to support new concepts. Due to the wide acceptance of SLAP as a validated ADS-B model, elements of SLAP have been licensed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology- Lincoln Laboratory for use in ACAS development.

• RAVENS (Reconfigurable AVionics ENvironmental Simulation): RAVENS is used as an end-to-end simulation of mixed airborne and ground-based dataflow. The modular “building block” design is easily configurable for a wide range of scenarios and experiments and includes a synthesized RF environment, realistically scheduled and loaded messages, and customizable receiver models. RAVENS architecture is designed to model message generation, transmission, reception, and processing in multi-participant scenarios. RAVENS was designed to capitalize on the reuse of existing models by easily allowing the integration of external libraries such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Surveillance Simulation (MITSS) surveillance model, TCAS executables from various manufacturers, the Civil Aviation 1090MHz Simulator (CATS) receiver model, and ACAS X implementations. Additionally, RAVENS’s features include suppression-bus action, transponder down-time actions, the ability to run iterative scenarios, a variety of navigational and surveillance error modules, TCAS hybrid surveillance, ground Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System (ATCRBS) and Mode-S Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) interrogators, a suite of antenna gain models (including measured and modeled; e.g., Technical Link Assessment Team (TLAT), and a suite of receiver models. Recently, RAVENS has been a key component for several of JHU/APL’s efforts for the ACAS X project with the FAA. In particular, leading up to the 2013 ACAS Xa flight demonstration, RAVENS was used as the driver for the hardware prototype to introduce the concept to stakeholders and will continue to be used as such for future prototyping efforts. Currently, RAVENS runs are being performed in support of a Passive-to-Active Surveillance Transition study and research into the Active

Coordination Emulation (ACE) transmission rate. RAVENS is used to assess performance of alternate table representations for the ACAS X logic as well as for coordination stress testing and surveillance data playback.

• CATS: JHU/APL has developed a CATS tool that provides ADS-B functionality for the 1090ES

ADS-B data link. The tool includes validated receiver performance models for the different categories of ADS-B equipage classes as well as the capabilities of modeling different interference sources and environments and on-board transmissions. The 1090ES model can simulate every type of receiver equipage at the pulse level. CATS inputs may include air traffic and ground network scenarios, and interference seen by the receiver due to transponders, 1090ES-equipped aircraft, and co-site systems onboard the aircraft that trigger a suppression bus such as Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) and TCAS systems. Outputs from CATS include information on message receipt, probability of message receipt, use and effectiveness and of error detection and correction, message overlap, and data corruption. The model supports analysis of air- and ground-based performance of ADS-B using a variety of antenna configurations. CATS is currently supporting the 1090 MHz Spectrum Congestion Analysis effort being conducted by the

FAA.

• MAUS (Multi-Aircraft User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Simulation): MAUS is similar to CATS but focused on the UAT data link instead of the 1090ES link.

• CRABS (Comprehensive Real-Time Analysis of Broadcast Systems): CRABS performs traffic analysis, flight monitoring, data collection/recording, data playback, 2D/3D display, and custom metrics (engineering, cost/benefit) computation. Inputs from CRABS includes a wide range of supported data formats (e.g., All Purpose STructured Eurocontrol SuRveillance Information Exchange (ASTERIX), FIS-B, Common Display 2 (CD2), UAT, Common Automated Radar Terminal System (CARTS) from multiple sources and multiple interfaces.

In addition to these systems, JHU/APL also has extensive expertise in Information Assurance and cyber-related projects. In support of the FAA, JHU/APL is applying a specialized attack tree process that has been developed and vetted by JHU/APL staff on a previous project, successfully identifying desirable targets of attack and analyzing a cost-effective set of mitigations. JHU/APL is actively tailoring the attack tree process to assess the probability and expected impact of similar malicious attacks on the end-to-end ADS-B infrastructure as well as analyzing the impact of mitigations against the attackers. The FAA’s Safety Management System (SMS) explicitly excludes malicious intent. However, JHU/APL’s assessment of attacks can be used in a process very similar to the FAA’s SMS to assess safety risk due to potential attacks and support the identification of mitigations needed to reduce that risk. JHU/APL has the personnel and facilities available to work at the SECRET classification level and higher as necessary to support this sensitive area of work.

C. CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRING THE USE OF OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION

It is requested that this contract be awarded non-competitively for the following reasons:

1. FAR Clause 6.302-3(a)(2)(ii): entitled “Establish Or Maintain An Essential Engineering, Research, Or Development Capability To Be Provided By An Educational Or Other Nonprofit Institution Or A Federally Funded Research And Development Center,” states: Full and open competition need not be provided for when it is necessary to award the contract to a particular source or sources in order to establish or maintain an essential engineering, research, or development capability to be provided by an educational or other nonprofit institution or a Federally funded research and development center.

The authority cited above applies because this procurement’s purpose is to:

• Maintain an essential capability for theoretical analyses, exploratory studies, or experiments in any field of science or technology;

• Maintain an essential capability for engineering or developmental work calling for the practical application of investigative findings and theories of a scientific or technical nature;

• Obtain services as are necessary incident to maintaining as essential capability for theoretical analyses, exploratory studies, or experiments in any field of science or technology or engineering or developmental work calling for the practical application of investigative findings and theories of a scientific or technical nature.

Without maintaining such capabilities, the Government cannot meet its need to complete all the activities associated with the implementation of ADS-B on schedule to support the 2020 mandate for aircraft equipage. In addition, the Government cannot continue improve TCAS and develop a follow-on system to TCAS, which is an impending need in an ever more crowded NAS.

2. Under previous Government contracts DTRT57-07-D-30005, DTRT57-10-D-30010, and DTFAWA- 11-C-00074, JHU/APL has played a significant role in the development and implementation of the ADS-B system and the advancement of TCAS technology for flight deck safety. Further, without JHU/APL’s technical expertise that has been developed from many years of maturing and assessing these technologies for the Government, many of the system engineering tasks necessary to meet the Volpe Center’s goals and objectives would be very difficult to accomplish.

D. MARKET RESEARCH

The previous contracts above that JHU/APL has with the Volpe Center and the FAA and the ongoing need to maintain the capabilities and provide these critical engineering services are precisely the reasons for which FAR 6.302-3(a)(2)(ii) exists. Both ADS-B and TCAS are crucial to supporting the FAA’s NextGen initiative. NextGen relies on smarter, satellite-based, and digital technologies and new procedures that combine to make air travel more convenient, predictable, and environmentally friendly. As demand for our nation's increasingly congested airspace continues to grow, NextGen improvements are enabling the FAA to guide and track aircraft more precisely on more direct routes. NextGen efficiency enhances safety, reduces delays, saves fuel, and reduces aircraft exhaust emissions. NextGen is also vital to preserving aviation's significant contributions to our national economy.

ADS-B is the backbone of NextGen and is replacing ground-based secondary radar systems to provide a more complete and accurate air picture to air traffic controllers than is currently possible with legacy systems. JHU/APL’s efforts in support of ADS-B have been and continue to be crucial to the complete deployment of the system and development of the myriad applications, both ground- and cockpit-based, that take advantage of ADS-B. Examples include vulnerability assessments, service monitoring, automation system integration, surface upgrades, communications systems, and roll-out support (including flight checks, test tools, and consolidated service volume design support). JHU/APL’s proprietary tools, such as SLAP, CATS, MAUS, and CRABS, have been essential and continue to be so;

these tools are not found elsewhere in industry and are not otherwise readily available. Seven years’ work on this project to date has given JHU/APL a body of knowledge that is now core to the program. They provide a continuity that cannot be readily replaced. The proprietary tools developed by JHU/APL provide a continuity that cannot be readily replaced. Without JHU/APL’s support thus far, ADS-B would be significantly delayed. Lack of JHU/APL’s support in the future would greatly hamper ongoing and future work.

ACAS X is the next evolution in airborne collision avoidance that will replace TCAS to accommodate NextGen capabilities that are being introduced in the NAS by minimizing unnecessary alerts during reduced separation operations, accommodating more aircraft types and working with new sensor systems.

JHU/APL’s labors in support of TCAS/ACAS development over the past decade and its experience with new surveillance capabilities (i.e., ADS-B) have been essential to the hardening of system/vendor requirements and the ultimate formalization of industry standards. Specific accomplishments include interoperability assessments, development of new surveillance coordination techniques, independent system Verification and Validation (V&V), advanced system stress testing, fast-time avionics prototyping, and vendor preparedness (e.g., algorithm speed-up and refinement, logic table compression) support. JHU/APL proprietary RAVENS simulation capability (comprised of proprietary SLAP, CATS, and MAUS tool-sets), large scale computing grid, knowledge and expertise with Julia programming language, and historical grasp with/variations between TCAS and ACAS logic designs (heuristic and decision theoretic) is essential for ensuring and maintaining worldwide stakeholder confidence and buy-in of global interoperable system performance.

Through 5 years of habitual interaction with both the FAA and JHU/APL, the Volpe Center has determined that JHU/APL has the capability to perform the required tasks to support both SBS and TCAS. The Volpe Center Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) maintains regular telephonic and e-mail correspondence with JHU/APL. Through this regular interaction, the COR has determined that the work performed by JHU/APL is unique and JHU/APL has the experience, tools, and expertise to meet the Government’s continuing requirements in the program areas of ADS-B and TCAS/ACAS X currently and in-house.

JHU/APL’s long-term experience and expertise developed over years of supporting the Government in these endeavors makes it solely qualified to continue this work. If JHU/APL’s support were to be discontinued, the ADS-B and TCAS programs would incur significant disruptions. There would be a lengthy transition time and a substantial learning curve for a new contractor, significantly increasing both the cost and risk to the Government.

The FAA has forecast that it will continue to require the support that JHU/APL provides beyond 2020; that forecast is consistent with the FAA’s roll-out schedules for these programs. Because JHU/APL is an academic institution, it provides an unbiased view in assisting the FAA to support requirements and perform safety and system performance analysis. Vendors of ADS-B and TCAS avionics do not possess the same unbiased view. Moreover, the JHU/APL tools described above do not exist elsewhere in the market.

E. STEPS TO FOSTER COMPETITION

The contractor support required for ADS-B and TCAS, as noted in Part I, Section B, was attained from JHU/APL in previous years and under previous contracts for development and assessment. It is expected once the requirements and MOPS are complete, ADS-B and TCAS, and perhaps ACAS-X, will be available to any vendor or institution. Once the work to define system requirement and standards for which JHU/APL is an integral player has been completed, other vendors will be able to manufacture and market the new components such as electronic flight bags, ADS-B-in displays, and their associated applications. The phase-in of these new technologies is expected to promote future competition.

F. TECHNICAL OFFICE CERTIFICATION

The requirement set forth is initiated to satisfy a recognized Government need. As applicable, the plans, drawings, specifications, and statement of work are limited to state the minimum needs of the Government.

I certify that the above information which serves as the basis for the justification for other than full and open competition is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

ORIGINAL SIGNED BY 04/07/2014

Michael Egan Date Technical Initiator

Concurred By:

ORIGINAL SIGNED BY 04/07/2014

David Lecraw Date Division Chief

PART II – CONTRACTS SUPPORTING DATA

A. Description of the Procurement Action — This action is a re-procurement of a contract that was awarded by the Volpe Center to the JHU/APL on December 19, 2009, Contract No. DTRT57-10-D- 30010. The current contract is nearing the end of its period of performance, December 18, 2014.

Earlier contract(s) with JHU/APL had been awarded by the FAA. The new contract will be an indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ), Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee-type contract with the ability to issue term-type task orders.

B. Authority — 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(3), as implemented by FAR 6.302-3(a)(2)ii, establish or maintain an essential engineering, research, or development capability to be provided by an educational or other nonprofit institution or a federally funded research and development center.

C. Efforts to Obtain Competition — The proposed contract action will be synopsized through the

Government-wide point of entry (FedBizOpps) as required by FAR Subpart 5.2. Any statements of capability or expressions of interest received from any other potential sources in response to this synopsis will be referred for appropriate technical review.

D. Fair and Reasonable Cost — The signature of the Contracting Officer provided below represents a determination that the amount to be paid for this contract will be fair and reasonable. The contractor will be required to submit appropriately detailed cost and pricing information with its proposal. The Contracting Officer will conduct the necessary cost and price analysis on this information to either confirm the fairness and reasonableness of the amount proposed or will establish the Government’s objective position for purposes of entering into negotiations with the contractor to obtain agreement on a fair and reasonable amount for the resulting contract. This process will be appropriately documented in the contract file.

E. CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION:

I certify that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

ORIGINAL SIGNED BY 04/07/2014

Brian L. Toth Date Contracting Officer

PART III - REVIEW AND APPROVAL SIGNATURES

REVIEWED FOR LEGAL ORIGINAL SIGNED BY 04/08/2014

SUFFICIENCY: __________________________ ______________

Brian Fischenich Date Volpe Center Office of Chief Counsel

CONCURRED BY: ORIGINAL SIGNED BY 04/08/2014

Mary E. Doherty Date Director, Office of Acquisitions Volpe Center

APPROVED: ORIGINAL SIGNED BY 04/18/2014

Audrey Farley Date Head of the Contracting Agency