23-06 Amend 1 admin updates.docx

Amendment No. 1 to BAA FA8750-23-S-7006

The purpose of this amendment is to modify:

1. Section IV.2:

a. updated to only require one copy of the 3 page white paper;

b. BAA number referenced is updated to reflect FA8750-23-S-7006.

No other changes are made.

NAICS CODE: 541715

FEDERAL AGENCY NAME: Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514

BAA ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE: Modification

BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) TITLE: Artificial Intelligence and Next Generation Distributed Command and Control

BAA NUMBER: FA8750-23-S-7006

PART I – OVERVIEW INFORMATION

This announcement is for an Open, 2 Step BAA which is open and effective until 30 AUG 2028. Only white papers will be accepted as initial submissions; formal proposals will be accepted by invitation only. While white papers will be considered if received prior to 1600 hours Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 30 AUG 2028, the following submission dates are suggested to best align with projected funding:

FY24 by 13 SEP 2023 FY25 by 15 Mar 2024 FY26 by 15 Mar 2025 FY27 by 15 Mar 2026 FY28 by 15 Mar 2027

Offerors should monitor the Contract Opportunities on the SAM website at https://SAM.gov in the event this announcement is amended.

CONCISE SUMMARY OF TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENT:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds great potential in transforming the Department of the Air Force (DAF) and Joint Force Command and Control (C2) capabilities across strategic, operational, and tactical levels by enabling decision makers to effectively assess the battlespace, rapidly explore, create, and select the best plan, and direct and monitor forces at pace and scale in a distributed setting. This BAA is interested in exploring new and advancing existing AI and distributed C2 concepts.

By accelerating the research & development of novel AI-based and distributed capabilities to support Joint All Domain C2, the DAF can achieve a strategic decision advantage, where AI becomes a key and prevalent component to future C2 systems. With the rise of AI-based applications also comes new challenges to include the ability to effectively manage, monitor, and adapt deployed AI capabilities and effective C2 in a distributed and contested environment.

Distributed operations is a critical component of Next-Generation C2. Key to the DAF transitioning from a single monolithic C2 node to multiple distributed C2 nodes is the ability orchestrate operational processes, while optimizing for limited resources. Through the development of distributed C2 capabilities the DAF can achieve an agile, fully mobile, distributed, and virtualized C2 operational capability. This BAA is interested in key areas for advancing C2 capability for the DAF to include but not limited to development and application of AI to C2, new concepts and techniques for the battle management and orchestration of AI at pace and scale, how the use of AI by adversaries can be considered in the C2 planning and execution process and distributed and collaborative C2 to enable C2 anywhere and anyplace.

BAA ESTIMATED FUNDING: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $99M. Individual awards will not normally exceed 48 months with dollar amounts normally ranging from $200K to $20M. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value as long as the value does not exceed the available BAA ceiling amount.

ANTICIPATED INDIVIDUAL AWARDS: Multiple Awards are anticipated. However, the Air Force reserves the right to award zero, one, or more Procurement Contracts, Other Transactions, or Assistance Instruments, for all, some, or none of the solicited effort based on the offeror’s ability to perform desired work and funding fluctuations. There is no limit on the number of OTs that may be awarded to an individual offeror.

TYPE OF INSTRUMENTS THAT MAY BE AWARDED: FAR based Procurement contracts, DODGARS based grants and cooperative agreements or other transactions (OT) under 10 USC 4021, 10 USC 4022 and 10 USC 4023 (previously 10 USC 4002, 2371, 10 USC 4003, 2371b and 4004, 2373) depending upon the nature of the work proposed.

In the event that an Other Transaction for Prototype agreement is awarded as a result of this competitive BAA, and the prototype project is successfully completed, there is the potential for a prototype project to transition to award of a follow-on production contract or transaction. The Other Transaction for Prototype Agreement itself will also contain a similar notice of a potential follow-on production contract or agreement.

AGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION: All white paper submissions and any questions of a technical nature shall be directed to the cognizant Technical Point of Contact (TPOC) as specified below (unless otherwise specified in the technical area):

BAA PROGRAM MANAGER:

Gennady Staskevich

AFRL/RISC

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-4889 Email: gennady.staskevich@us.af.mil

Questions of a contractual/business nature shall be directed to the cognizant contracting officer, as specified below (email requests are preferred):

Amber Buckley Telephone (315) 330-3605 Email: Amber.Buckley@us.af.mil

Emails must reference the solicitation (BAA) number and title of the acquisition.

Pre-Proposal Communication between Prospective Offerors and Government Representatives: Dialogue between prospective offerors and Government representatives is encouraged. Technical and contracting questions can be resolved in writing or through open discussions. Discussions with any of the points of contact shall not constitute a commitment by the Government to subsequently fund or award any proposed effort. Only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government.

Offerors are cautioned that evaluation ratings may be lowered and/or proposal rejected if proposal preparation (Proposal format, content, etc.) and/or submittal instructions are not followed.

PART II – FULL TEXT ANNOUNCEMENT

BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) TITLE: AI for Next Generation C2

BAA NUMBER: BAA FA8750-23-S-7006

CATALOG OF FEDERAL DOMESTIC ASSISTANCE (CFDA) Number: 12.800, 12.910

I. TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS:

The Air Force Research Laboratory is soliciting white papers under this Broad Agency Announcement for research, development, integration, test and evaluation of technologies/techniques to support research in the following focus areas:

Technical Area 1. Command & Control of AI Systems to Achieve Mission Tailored AI Current AI/ML solutions tend to be static and require significant engineering footprint to develop and deploy. AI that was trained yesterday upon stale mission data, environment, and planning constraints will fail to account for the adversary and unique mission states of today and tomorrow. Despite our best efforts to instill general purpose knowledge into AI, predictive models become fragile and obsolete in the face of changing mission environments. Adversaries are highly dynamic and it’s technically infeasible (theoretically impossible) to train a single AI that handles all cases a priori. An alternative approach is to take a more reactive posture – design and deploy tailorable, mission focused AI models that will be continuously evaluated and updated during mission execution on the battlefield.

The objective of TA1, is to realize the concept of Battle Management for AI models, with focus on assessment and adaptation AI models in situ, and to define the roles, responsibilities, and the supporting infrastructure. More specifically, is to explore and develop battle management tools to effectively bring together a distributed team of specialists that use an orchestration of sophisticated development tools to design, train, select, and deploy mission tailored AI. During mission execution, these AI models will be continuously evaluated and updated in consideration of using limited resources. This task will: (1) assemble a comprehensive knowledge base of AI development patterns (AI playbook) that (2) connect Task Force roles to appropriate software tools for different phases in the AI lifecycle, from data collection to model deployment and model maintenance. Also, of interest will be (3) training useful models using sparse data on limited hardware resources, (4) making clear model’s accuracy and limitations, (5) identifying, and repairing mechanism for models that fail to converge. This TA is interested in exploring how battle management and decision support tools can be used to aid the management of AI in execution to include tasking, tracking AI courses of action, monitoring, and deployment. Through a series of experiments, this task will anneal operating procedures and decision support aids that enable a Task Force to build and deploy in situ “mission-tailored” AI more effectively than the status quo of experts working in enterprise settings removed from battlefield contexts, developing stale, and static solutions. The ideal outcome is the development of tools and procedures that enable the operators (with minimal number of Task Force SMEs) to define, and deploy relevant, mission tailored AI capabilities in minutes, as opposed to enterprise settings that take months to years and to provide the first battle management tools to enable deployment and management of AI systems at scale.

Technical Point of Contact:

Dr. Nicholas Del Rio

AFRL/RISC

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-3117 Email: nicholas.del_rio@us.af.mil

Technical Area 2. Federated, Composable Autonomy & AI Toolbox

The federated deployment and management of Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds vast importance for the United States and partners. The collaboration across AI tools and platforms is challenging due to the lack of common DOD and partner standards, classification boundaries, and the use of a diverse set of AI tools. The goal of this TA is to combine the technical expertise, resources, to develop tools, data, and suitable procedures to demonstrate the advanced federated deployment, and lifecycle management of AI capabilities to include but not limited to, development of common standards for data, algorithm, model, evaluation, and deployment of AI/ML capabilities, development and testing toolkits to enable third party development of AI/ML components and interoperability across a diverse set of AI/ML components, and workflow engine to facilitate orchestration, coordination, and composition of AI/ML components to form novel pipelines based on mission need. The underlying framework should be allow for federation of information and capability between new and existing AI/ML pipelines to include tracking of all metadata, data, and AI/ML sharing.

The emphases here, is on the development of collaborative federated AI tools (toolbox) and procedures that enable sharing of information, and raw data while in pursuit of common goal, while also ensuring the full compliance of policies and procedures of each federated partner. The AI toolbox should define the requisite interfaces and standards to allow third party to develop and contribute AI/ML components that encompasses all the stages, from data to AI capability, and incorporates communication and federation tools to support data and AI solutions. In essence, the toolbox must enable the composition of a wide variety of AI capability that can be stitched together to support diverse mission threads while not redeveloping or prescribing a single underlying AI/ML platform or tool.

Specific areas of interest for this TA include: (1) Shareable ML Models, and data representation, (2) Adaptable ML models, such as Low-shot & Interactive Learning (IL). The ability to adapt and train robust ML models in the presence of limited, incomplete, and dynamic data and operating environments is critical to all countries. (3) The federated, tailored, AI Common Operating Picture (AI-COP) to provide a shared view of all data, algorithms, and models resident with the joint toolbox. The COP provides warfighters with a comprehensive understanding of the tactical AI environment and helps the team to track capabilities, gaps, and productivity. (4) AI Management/Analysis that enables teams to optimize the time and resources used during ML data preparation, tagging, and training. (5) Federation and sharing of AI models, data, and tools that allows the best of AI resources across the federated environments.

The Government may provide Government Furnished Software (GFS) for this technical area of the AI toolbox for related efforts.

Technical Point of Contact:

Mr. Patrick Fisher

AFRL/RISC

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-7424 Email: patrick.fisher.6@us.af.mil

Technical Area 3. Advanced Wargaming Agents

Wargaming, and simulation plays an increasingly important role of modern warfare. These capabilities, provide the means to examine and explore warfighting concepts, explore scenarios from multiple perspectives and help to assess planning choices and their outcomes. As such, there is a need for a creation of a common architecture of software and hardware for campaign level planning which empowers the efficient development of artificial intelligence (AI) and enables the reuse of core AI capabilities. Over the last decade, there have been many breakthroughs in game-playing AI, however, there does not exist a method or practice to facilitate the incorporation and reuse of AI agents leading to the duplication of efforts to redeploy agents on new simulations or wargames. Given the immense importance of these AI integration in C2 decision making, there is a critical need to enable the efficient development agents at a faster pace with lower cost without the need to continuously duplicate previous efforts.

An example of possible solutions could be a wrapper for both agents and environments that could facilitate plug-n-play capabilities, or novel agent algorithms that allow for easy transferability and minimal retraining to play in new environments. This technology is focused more on learning agents such as reinforcement learning or genetic algorithms but can expand to other types of algorithms such as monte carlo tree search. AFRL/RI is not looking for hardcoded solutions to specific wargames but should apply to a general set of games (e.g. turn based hex wargames). AFRL/RI is looking to apply this technology to a collection of strategic level wargames and does not plan to utilize single unit or tactical simulation environments such as AFSIM unless to facilitate the strategic level plan.

Specific areas of interest include but are not limited to generalized approaches for unifying agents environments, new AI agents for playing diverse set of wargames, evaluation benchmarks, and gaming environments.

Technical Point of Contact:

Capt Shaun Ryer

AFRL/RISB

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-2261 Email: shaun.ryer.1@us.af.mil

Dr. Brayden Hollis 525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-2331 Email: brayden.hollis.1@us.af.mil

Technical Area 4. Interactive Learning for C4I

DoD faces significant data and human oversight challenges when attempting to employ AI/ML approaches to solving command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) problems. Interactive Learning (IL) is a data efficient ML approach that uses human in or on the loop to quickly train a model to make inferences. This approach is of interest to AFRL/RI in any situation where a user’s preference or intuition is required to solve a problem, and specifically encoding all necessary context to analytically solve the problem is infeasible.

As an example, AFRL/RI has implemented an IL approach that allows the users to interact with existing planning tools in a natural way via pairwise comparison of plan options. An AI agent observes the user’s interaction with the planning system and learns the user’s preferences for generating a “reasonable plan” that a user would accept. Essentially, the interactive learning agent asks the planning tool to generate a set of plans, using various planner input configurations or nudges, and presents the results to the use for ranking. This is akin to digital map giving the user two or three routes from start to destination and allowing the user to select which they prefer. This selection triggers the interactive learning agent to prompt the auto-planner to generate more plans in accordance with the users’ indicated preference, and then allow the user to evaluate those plans. This iterative process fits naturally into the iterative planning process, allows the user to focus on planning and not the mechanics of generating plans, allows the user to use their own experience and preference to obtain a good plan in accordance with their expectation, and leverages the speed of the machine. In addition to tactical planning, operational and strategic planning may be considered as well.

Planning is not the only area of interest for IL applications. Other applications may include but are not limited to intelligence tipping and queuing, course of action generation, image or spectrum analysis, hyper-parameter tuning, acceleration of high-fidelity modeling and simulation environments, and any DAF application of interest where human perception can be augmented via learning.

Submissions to this TA should include explanation of the query strategy (how you will solicit labels from the “oracle”) and the data efficiency of the approach (how your application will know which data to label).

Technical Point of Contact:

Daniel Carpenter

AFRL/RISA

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-7121 Email: daniel.carpenter.5@us.af.mil

Technical Area 5. C2 Complexity Dominance

Challenges to fully realizing the DoD’s JADC2 vision include the inherent complexity in joint all-domain operations. While characteristics of modern warfare such as tempo, scale of operations, interdependency, and command structures all contribute to decision complexity encountered by the DoD, adversaries also experience complexity when engaging with DoD forces in a Joint All-Domain environment.

The C2 Complexity Dominance technical area is focused on research to exploit operational complexity. By judiciously enhancing the complexity encountered by adversary forces through non-cyber means, DoD forces can shape the adversary’s understanding of the battlespace and their ultimate decisions and actions to the DoD’s advantage. In particular, this technical area is interested in approaches to develop, model, deploy, and assess techniques to impose complexity on both human and AI agents on the adversary’s side, in order to ultimately shape the adversary’s decisions and actions.

Technical Point of Contact:

Dr. Ashley Prater-Bennette

AFRL/RISB

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-2033 Email: ashley.prater-bennette@us.af.mil

Technical Area 6. Generative AI C4I

With advancements of large language models and generative AI, it is now possible able to generate answers as if curated by human, write poems & documents that are contextual, to writing executable code, and generating useful web pages. These advancements are already having disruptions across fields like education (i.e., students use ChatGPT to write essays), code development, natural language web search and other areas. Some of the drawbacks of commercial solutions are the generated results could be constrained due to policies, or inability to fine-tune models.

The interest of this TA is to explore potential advantages of utilizing generative artificial Intelligence (GAI) in the domain of C4I and DAF application through prototyping relevant use-cases hosted in IL 6> environments, guided by successful applications of GAI in academia and industry. More specifically, this TA is interested in the following areas: (1) Aggregate: Utilize unstructured data by exploiting latent embedding space learned by latest Generative Transformer architectures (ChatGPT). (2) Reason: Develop a mapping capability between learned concepts in the NLP domain to actionable plans expressed in temporal causal logic (scenarios generated in predefined markup [*] represented as event flow models). (3) Assess: Train GPT style models to aggregate IL>6 information to allow objective conditional probabilities (in contrast to probabilities of token occurrence) to be extracted from unstructured data. (4) React: Fill gaps in operational data through plausible generative sampling constrained by learned distributions (Stable Diffusion). In addition, this TA is interested in identifying novel DAF C4I generative use cases and rapidly exploring and assessing their efficacy on DAF data and environment.

Technical Point of Contact:

Dr. Edward Verenich

AFRL/RISC

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-2766 Email: edward.verenich.2@us.af.mil

Technical Area 7. Software Defined Distributed C2

Future contested fights with a near peer adversary will demand the need to command and control (C2) an increasingly dynamic set of time sensitive missions that are highly dependent on adversary, environment, and mission conditions. The evolving peer threat has created an operational reality that the Air Force (AF) must contend with; connected austere C2 nodes can be threatened and that communications avenues can be contested and degraded. This reality is driving the creation and adoption of Agile Combat Employment (ACE) Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) that are both agile and survivable by employing various adaptive basing strategies. These CONOPS have emphasized this inherent tradeoff between efficiency and resiliency in order to meet process execution timelines, balance resource utilization, and account for the capacity of distributed C2 functions.

The Software Defined Distributed C2 technical area is focused on research to optimize and orchestrate distributed C2 nodes with the associates C2 processes, functions, and resources that are distributed across the theater. By distributing C2 functions and resources through ACE CONOPS, the AF will increase the available resources and survivability of these resources. The challenge is fully realizing the AF’s vision of increasing capacity and resiliency through ACE. This technical area is interested in approaches to develop, model, and assess techniques of an orchestration logic to replace the manual lift of coordinating the execution of AF planning and operational processes across the distributed C2 nodes.

Another challenge is the expected contested operational environment that ACE is preparing for. A dynamically changing set of external factors like environment and intent of mission threads will require an approach that can orchestrate processes in execution, manage the complexity of shared resources and maximize the capacity and resiliency of the distributed C2 functions. This tech area is interested in technical concepts or proposed approaches that account for dynamic changes across the C2 nodes and apply a priority of process execution to enable the AF to efficiently utilize the distributed resources available in a contested environment.

Technical Point of Contact:

Mr. Ryan Hilliard

AFRL/RISB

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-2571 Email: ryan.hilliard.3@us.af.mil

Technical Area 8. Tactical AI

Secondary sensors distributed on the battlefield have untapped potential for DoD operations. The Air Force is heavily reliant on radiofrequency (RF) signal connectivity critical mission functions across all domains, creating a need for technologies to detect, reason over, and ultimately mitigate sources of interference. The Global Positioning System (GPS), for instance, is particularly susceptible to environmental occlusion, signal loss from multipath propagation effects, and intentional jamming and spoofing by an adversary. Mobile end-user devices already deployed and in operational use have sophisticated sensing capabilities that can be harnessed via the TAK ecosystem (Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) and TAK Server) towards the detection and localization of signals of interest such as Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) jammers/spoofers, cellular jammers, gunshots, Wi-Fi, tactical radios, and civilian UAS.

The goal of this technical area is to develop, demonstrate, and assess the scalability of efficient command and control protocols and intelligent central control processes to enable distributed signal detection and geolocation. Approaches should consider factors such as client sensing duty cycle, proximity to other sensors, status of nearby devices, battery, performance optimizations, threat levels/posture, and reporting schedules. Scalability is a primary consideration, with application deployment environments ranging from the tactical level (tens to hundreds of devices joined by a TAK server) to the civil level (leveraging government-issued and managed devices numbering in the millions). Proposals considering AI/ML may employ TAK-ML, a machine learning framework designed to facilitate data collection, training, execution, inference, and deployment of ML capabilities in the TAK ecosystem, Technical Point of Contact:

David Castello

AFRL/RISC

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315) 330-4043 Email: david.castello@us.af.mil

IMPORTANT NOTES REGARDING:

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 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.

As of the date of publication of this BAA, the Government cannot identify whether work proposed under this BAA may be considered fundamental research and may award both fundamental and non-fundamental research. 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 awardee is restricted research, a sub-awardee may be conducting fundamental research. In those cases, it is the awardee’s responsibility to explain in their proposal why its sub-awardee’s effort is fundamental research.

CLOUD COMPUTING. In accordance with DFARS Clause 252.239-7010, if the development proposed requires storage of Government, or Government-related data on the cloud, offerors need to ensure that the cloud service provider proposed has been granted Provisional Authorization by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) at the level appropriate to the requirement.

II. AWARD INFORMATION:

1. FUNDING: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $99M. The anticipated funding to be obligated under this BAA is broken out by fiscal year as follows:

FY24 - $18.2M Comment by BUCKLEY, AMBER M CIV USAF AFMC AFRL/RIKA: Equals $101.5M

FY25 - $22.7M

FY26 - $18.8M

FY27 - $20.1M

FY28 - $19.2M

a. Individual awards will not normally exceed 48 months with dollar values normally ranging from $200K to $20M. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value as long as the value does not exceed the available BAA ceiling amount.

b. The Government reserves the right to select all, part, or none of the proposals received, subject to the availability of funds. All potential Offerors should be aware that due to unanticipated budget fluctuations, funding in any or all areas may change with little or no notice.

2. FORM. Awards of efforts as a result of this announcement will be in the form of contracts, grants, cooperative agreements or other transactions depending upon the nature of the work proposed.

3. BAA TYPE: This is a two-step open broad agency announcement. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation.

As STEP ONE – The Government is only soliciting white papers at this time. DO NOT SUBMIT A FORMAL PROPOSAL. Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. See Section VI of this announcement for further details regarding the proposal.

III. ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION:

1. ELIGIBILITY: All qualified offerors who meet the requirements of this BAA may apply.

2. FOREIGN PARTICIPATION/ACCESS:

a. This BAA is closed to foreign participation. This includes both foreign ownership and foreign nationals as employees or subcontractors.

b. Exceptions.

1. Fundamental Research. If the work to be performed is unclassified, fundamental research, this must be clearly identified in the white paper and/or proposal. See Part II, Section I for more details regarding Fundamental Research. Offerors should still identify any performance by foreign nationals at any level (prime contractor or subcontractor) in their proposals. Please specify the nationals’ country of origin, the type of visa or work permit under which they are performing and an explanation of their anticipated level of involvement. You may be asked to provide additional information during negotiations in order to verify the foreign citizen’s eligibility to participate on any contract or assistance agreement or other transaction issued as a result of this announcement

2. Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence (FOCI) companies who have mitigation plans/paperwork in place. Proof of approved mitigation documentation must be provided to the contracting office focal point, Amber Buckley, Contracting Officer, telephone (315) 330-3605, or e-mail Amber.Buckley@us.af.mil prior to submitting a white paper and/or a proposal. For information on FOCI mitigation, contact the contact the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA). Additional details can be found at: Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence (dcsa.mil)

3. Foreign Nationals as Employees or Subcontractors. Applicable to any effort not considered Fundamental Research. Offerors are responsible for ensuring that all employees and/or subcontractors who will work on a resulting contract are eligible to do so. Any employee who is not a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident will be restricted from working on any resultant contract unless prior approval of the Department of State or the Department of Commerce is obtained via a technical assistance agreement or an export license. Violations of these regulations can result in criminal or civil penalties.

c. Information Regarding Non-US Citizens Assigned to this Project

1. Contractor employees requiring access to USAF bases, AFRL facilities, and/or access to U.S. Government Information Technology (IT) networks in connection with the work on contracts, assistance instruments or other transactions awarded under this BAA must be U.S. citizens. For the purpose of base and network access, possession of a permanent resident card ("Green Card") does not equate to U.S. citizenship. This requirement does not apply to foreign nationals approved by the U.S. Department of Defense or U.S. State Department under international personnel exchange agreements with foreign governments. It also does not apply to dual citizens who possess US citizenship, to include Naturalized citizens. Any waivers to this requirement must be granted in writing by the Contracting Officer prior to providing access. Specific format for waiver request will be provided upon request to the Contracting Officer. The above requirements are in addition to any other contract requirements related to obtaining a Common Access Card (CAC).

2. For the purposes of Paragraph 1, if an IT network/system does not require AFRL to endorse a contractor's application to said network/system in order to gain access, the organization operating the IT network/system is responsible for controlling access to its system. If an IT network/system requires a U.S. Government sponsor to endorse the application in order for access to the IT network/system, AFRL will only endorse the following types of applications, consistent with the requirements above:

a) Contractor employees who are U.S. citizens performing work under contracts, assistance instruments or other transactions awarded under this BAA.

b) Contractor employees who are non-U.S. citizens and who have been granted a waiver.

Any additional access restrictions established by the IT network/system owner apply.

3. FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTERS 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: FFRDCs must clearly demonstrate that the proposed work is not otherwise available from the private sector; and 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 sub-awardees.

1. Government Entities: 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. 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.

FFRDC and Government entity eligibility will be determined on a case-by-case basis; however, the burden to prove eligibility for all team members rests solely with the proposer.

Government agencies interested in performing work related to this announcement should contact the Technical Point of Contact (TPOC). If resulting discussions reveal a mutual interest, cooperation may be pursued via other vehicles.

4. ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: In accordance with FAR 9.5, offerors are required to identify and disclose all facts relevant to potential OCIs involving the offerors organization and any proposed team member (sub-awardee, consultant). Under this Section, the offeror is responsible for providing this disclosure with each proposal submitted to the solicitation. The disclosure must include the offerors, and as applicable, proposed team member’s OCI mitigation plan. The OCI mitigation plan must include a description of the actions the offeror has taken, or intends to take, to prevent the existence of conflicting roles that might bias the offerors judgment and to prevent the offeror from having unfair competitive advantage. The OCI mitigation plan will specifically discuss the disclosed OCI in the context of each of the OCI limitations outlined in FAR 9.505-1 through FAR 9.505-4.

a. Agency Supplemental OCI Policy: In addition, AFRL has a supplemental OCI policy that prohibits contractors/performers from concurrently providing Scientific Engineering Technical Assistance (SETA), Advisory and Assistance Services (A&AS) or similar support services and being a technical performer. Therefore, as part of the FAR 9.5 disclosure requirement above, an offeror must affirm whether the offeror or any proposed team member (sub-awardee, consultant) is providing SETA, A&AS, or similar support to any AFRL office(s) under: (a) a current award or subaward; or (b) a past award or subaward that ended within one calendar year prior to the proposal’s submission date. If SETA, A&AS, or similar support is being or was provided to any AFRL office(s), the proposal must include:

. The name of the AFRL office receiving the support;

. The prime contract number;

. Identification of proposed team member (sub-awardee, consultant) providing the support; and . An OCI mitigation plan in accordance with FAR 9.5.

b. Government Procedures: In accordance with FAR 9.503, 9.504 and 9.506, the Government will evaluate OCI mitigation plans to avoid, neutralize or mitigate potential OCI issues before award and to determine whether it is in the Government’s interest to grant a waiver. The Government will only evaluate OCI mitigation plans for proposals that are determined selectable under the solicitation evaluation criteria and funding availability. The Government may require proposers to provide additional information to assist the Government in evaluating the offerors OCI mitigation plan. If the Government determines that an offeror failed to fully disclose an OCI; or failed to provide the affirmation of AFRL support as described above; or failed to reasonably provide additional information requested by the Government to assist in evaluating the proposer’s OCI mitigation plan, the Government may reject the proposal and withdraw it from consideration for award.

5. S&T PROTECTION. In accordance with AFRLI 61-113, S&T Protection, Contractors/Recipients are required to submit with their proposal a Standard Form 424, "Research and Related and Senior and Key Person Profile (Expanded), as well as a Security Program Questionnaire, which are included in the RI-Specific Proposal Preparation Instructions and can be accessed at:

https://sam.gov/opp/e628c811fafe041accdddf55fb8539bf/view?keywords=AFRL-BAA-GUIDE&sort=-relevance&index=&is_active=true&page=1. Always reference the newest versions of these documents. Complete and submit the required forms with your proposal to the technical point of contact listed in Section VII-Agency Contacts AND AFRL.RIOF@us.af.mil.

Contractors will be required to provide documentation of their Security Program Plan for initial Institution S&T Protection Program Review. The purpose of requesting the plan is to evaluate the offeror’s capacity for protecting the Government’s S&T and failure to demonstrate a plan adequate to meet the needs of the requirement may be grounds for considering the proposal unawardable. In the event a security risk is identified and the Government has determined the security risk exceeds the acceptable threshold, the Contractor/Recipient will be notified and informed of the termination/decline of award. The Government will be only required to provide a general statement of the reasoning due to Government OPSEC measures.

After award, the Contractor/Recipient will be required to re-submit the Standard Form 424 as an annual requirement to the points of contact listed above.

IV. APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION:

All responses to this announcement must be addressed to the Technical Point of Contact (TPOC) listed in SECTION VII. DO NOT send white papers to the Contracting Officer.

All responsible sources may submit a bid, proposal, or quotation which shall be considered by the agency.

1. SUBMISSION DATES AND TIMES:

It is recommended that white papers be received by 4 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on the following dates to maximize the possibility of award:

FY24 by 13 SEP 2023 FY25 by 15 Mar 2024 FY26 by 15 Mar 2025 FY27 by 15 Mar 2026 FY28 by 15 Mar 2027

White papers will be accepted until 4 PM EST on 30 AUG 2028, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective fiscal year after the dates cited. This BAA will close on 30AUG 2028.

All offerors submitting white papers will receive notification of their evaluation results within 45 days of submission. Offerors should email the TPOC and the Contracting Officer listed in Section VII, for status of their white paper(s) after 45 days, if no such correspondence has been received.

2. CONTENT AND FORMAT: Offerors are required to submit 1 copy of a 3 page white paper summarizing their proposed approach/solution. The purpose of the white paper is to preclude unwarranted effort on the part of an offeror whose proposed work is not of interest to the Government.

The white paper will be formatted as follows:

a. Section A: Title, Period of Performance, Estimated Cost, Name/Address of Company, Technical and Contracting Points of Contact (phone and email)(this section is NOT included in the page count)

i. if proposing an OT, one of the following must be met (COTR will specify in the RFP if an OT is anticipated):

· At least one Nontraditional Defense Contractor is a significant participant in the prototype project; or

· ALL significant participants in the transaction other than the Federal Government are Small Businesses or Nontraditional Defense Contractors; or

· A Cost Share of at least 1/3 of the Total Cost of the prototype project is to be paid out of funds provided by parties to the transaction other than the Federal Government.

ii. If the offeror does not meet the definition of a nontraditional defense contractor, nonprofit research institution or small business, they must state if they plan to subcontract with entities who meet these definitions (see Section IV.4.h).

iii. this section is NOT included in the page count;

b. Section B: Task Objective; and

c. Section C: Technical Summary and Proposed Deliverables.

All white papers shall be double spaced with a font no smaller than 12 point. Please note that less than 12 point font is acceptable for graphics and illustrations (as in labels and short descriptions) as long as it is readable when printed out on standard 8x11 paper. In addition, respondents are requested to provide their Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code, their unique entity identifier and electronic funds transfer (EFT) indicator (if applicable), an e-mail address and reference BAA FA8750-23-S-7006 with their submission.

Multiple white papers within the purview of this announcement may be submitted by each offeror. If the offeror wishes to restrict its white papers, they must be marked with the restrictive language stated in FAR 15.609(a) and (b).

3. HANDLING AND MAILING INSTRUCTIONS:

a. CLASSIFICATION GUIDANCE. All Proposers should review the NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL SECURITY PROGRAM OPERATING MANUAL (NISPOM), 32 CFR Part 117, as it provides baseline standards for the protection of classified information and prescribes the requirements concerning Contractor Developed Information under paragraph §117.13. Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) Site for the NISPOM is: http://www.dcsa.mil/.

In the event of a possible or actual compromise of classified information in the submission of your white paper or proposal, immediately but no later than 24 hours, bring this to the attention of your cognizant security authority and AFRL Rome Research Site Information Protection Office (IPO):

Information Protection Office (contact only if a security compromise has occurred)

b. CLASSIFIED SUBMISSIONS. AFRL/RISC will accept classified responses to this BAA when the classification is mandated by classification guidance provided by an Original Classification Authority of the U.S. Government, or when the offeror believes the work, if successful, would merit classification.

Select one: Security classification guidance in the form of a DD Form 254 (DoD Contract Security Classification Specification) will not be provided at this time since AFRL is soliciting ideas only.

Offerors that intend to include classified information or data in their white paper submission or who are unsure about the appropriate classification of their white papers should contact the technical point of contact listed in Section VII for guidance and direction in advance of preparation.

c. MAILING INSTRUCTIONS.

Email Unclassified electronic submission to the TPOC identified in Section VII. Encrypt or password-protect all proprietary information prior to sending. Offerors are responsible to confirm receipt with the TPOC. AFRL is not responsible for undelivered documents. If electronic submission is used, only one copy of the documentation is required.

Questions can be directed to the TPOC listed in Section VII.

4. OTHER SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS/CONSIDERATIONS:

a. COST SHARING OR MATCHING RELATED TO FAR BASED AWARDS. Cost sharing is not a requirement. Cost sharing may be proposed and will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Cost share will not be a factor in selection for award. For OT awards, see Section IV.4.h.3.

b. SYSTEM FOR AWARD MANAGEMENT (SAM). Offerors must be registered in the SAM database to receive a contract award, and remain registered during performance and through final payment of any contract or agreement. Processing time for registration in SAM, which normally takes forty-eight hours, should be taken into consideration when registering. Offerors who are not already registered should consider applying for registration before submitting a proposal. The provision at FAR 52.204-7, System for Award Management (Oct 2018) applies.

c. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND FIRST-TIER SUBCONTRACT/ SUBRECIPIENT AWARDS: Any contract award resulting from this announcement may contain the clause at FAR 52.204-10 - Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards (Jun 2020). Any grant or agreement award resulting from this announcement may contain the award term set forth in 2 CFR, Appendix A to Part 25 which can be viewed at: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CFR-2012-title2-vol1/CFR-2012-title2-vol1-part25-appA.

d. ALLOWABLE CHARGES: The cost of preparing white papers/proposals in response to this announcement is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resulting contract or any other contract, but may be an allowable expense to the normal bid and proposal indirect cost specified in FAR 31.205-18. Incurring pre-award costs for ASSISTANCE INSTRUMENTS ONLY are regulated by 2 CFR part 200.458, Pre-Award Costs.

e. GOVERNMENT APPROVED ACCOUNTING SYSTEM: An offeror must have a government approved accounting system prior to award of a cost-reimbursement contract per limitations set forth in FAR 16.301-3(a) to ensure the system is adequate for determining costs applicable to the contract. The acceptability of an accounting system is determined based upon an audit performed by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). IMPORTANT: If you do not have a DCAA approved accounting system access the following link for instructions: https://sam.gov/opp/e628c811fafe041accdddf55fb8539bf/view?keywords=AFRL-BAA-Guide&sort=-relevance&index=&is_active=true&page=1

f. HUMAN USE: All research involving human subjects, to include the use of human biological specimens and human data, selected for funding must comply with Federal regulations for human subject protection. Further, research involving human subjects that is conducted or supported by the DoD must comply with 32 CFR 219, “Protection of Human Subjects” found at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_07/32cfr219_07.html, and DoD Instruction 3216.02, “Protection of Human Subjects and Adherence to Ethical Standards in DoD-Supported Research” found at: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/321602p.pdf.

1. Institutions awarded funding for research involving human subjects must provide documentation of a current Assurance of Compliance with Federal regulations for human subject protection, for example a Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Human Research Protection Federal Wide Assurance found at: http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp.

2. All institutions engaged in human subject research, to include subcontractors, must have a valid assurance. In addition, personnel involved in human subject research must document the completion of appropriate training for the protection of human subjects.

3. For all research that will involve human subjects in the first year or phase of the project, the institution must submit evidence of a plan for review by an institutional review board (IRB) as part of the proposal. The IRB conducting the review must be the IRB identified on the institution’s Assurance of Compliance. The protocol, separate from the proposal, must include a detailed description of the research plan, study population, risks and benefits of study participation, recruitment and consent process, data collection, and data analysis. The designated IRB should be consulted for guidance on writing the protocol. The informed consent document must comply with 32 CFR 219.116. A valid Assurance of Compliance and evidence of appropriate training by all investigators should accompany the protocol for review by the IRB.

4. In addition to a local IRB approval, an AFRL-level human subject regulatory review and approval is required for all research conducted or supported by the DoD. The Air Force office responsible for managing the award can provide guidance and information about the AFRL-level review process. Confirmation of a current Assurance of Compliance and appropriate human subjects protection training is required before AFRL-level approval can be issued.

5. The time required to complete the IRB review/approval process will vary depending on the complexity of the research and/or the level of risk to study participants; ample time should be allotted to complete the approval process. The IRB approval process can last between 1 to 3 months, followed by a DoD review that could last 3 to 6 months. No funding may be used toward human subject research until all approvals are granted.

g. SUPPLIER PERFORMANCE RISK SYSTEM…