NOTAM Challenge Phase 1 Request for Concept Papers.pdf

Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) Request for Concept Paper (RCP)

NOTAM & AI RCP i

Contents

1. Objectives

2. Instructions to Offerors

2.1 Formatting

2.2 Minimum Acceptability

2.3 Submission Instructions

2.4 Intellectual Property Statements/Agreements/Disclosures

PATENT OWNER(S) STATEMENT

3. Evaluation Approach

3.1 Technical Approach and Architecture

3.2 Operational Approach

3.3 Communication/Collaboration Plan and Business Viability

3.4 Implementation Approach

4. Disclosure of Information

NOTAM Request for Concept Papers 1

1. Objectives

The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) mission is to provide the safest and most efficient aerospace system. To ensure the safety and efficiency of our National Airspace System (NAS), it is imperative that users have access to accurate information describing the current state of the NAS to inform their decision-making. A large component of this NAS information can be categorized as Aeronautical Information (AI), a subset of which is Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM).

Today, the FAA is facing significant challenges managing the current state lifecycle of NOTAM and AI systems. To resolve these challenges and better position us for the future of the NAS, the FAA is seeking modern, innovative solutions from industry to facilitate the transformation of NOTAMs.

This Request for Concept Paper (RCP) is being issued to conduct activities associated with the NOTAM Challenge-Based Acquisition (ChBA). The objective of this RCP (Phase 1) is to identify the vendors that will be invited to participate in future phases of the ChBA. The FAA is looking for concept papers that offer the vendor’s concept for delivering a complete NOTAM Solution.

Successful submissions will provide a narrative that presents the technical architecture approach, noting key architectural characteristics, including resiliency, such as service restoration in case of system failures. Concept papers will also be evaluated based on the pragmatism of the operational, implementation, maintenance approach, and realism of assumptions. The FAA will be carefully considering the vendor’s pricing concept and growth model description to determine business viability. Concept papers should address the vendor’s concept for delivering a complete NOTAM Solution and must provide a clear path for NOTAM solution prototype delivery. In addition, the concept must also address the potential for completion of a full NOTAM service, with a planned target date of September 2025. Respondents should provide inputs on their ability to meet this date and any associated risks and/or assumptions, as part of their Implementation Approach.

Please reference the Statement of Objectives (SOO), the Scope Considerations and Principles Document, and the NOTAM ChBA documents that are published as part of this Acquisition for the complete set of objectives and guidance in developing the concept.

2. Instructions to Offerors

2.1 Formatting

Vendors are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RCP. Concept Papers shall follow the format described below. The following Concept Paper formatting requirements apply.

• Times New Roman 12 (or larger) single-spaced, single-sided (8.5 by 11 inches)

• Smaller types may be used in figures and tables but must be clearly legible

• Margins on all sides (top, bottom, left, and right) should be at least 2.5 cm (1 inch)

NOTAM Request for Concept Papers 2

• Page limit is twenty-five (25) pages; this does not include a cover sheet and the Affirmation of Business Status Certification, Data Rights Assertions, and Intellectual Property Statement/Agreements/Disclosures.

Page limitations shall not be circumvented by including inserted text boxes/pop-ups or internet links to additional information. Such inclusions are not acceptable and will not be considered as part of the response to this RCP. Please do not submit any classified information.

A Concept Paper Cover Sheet, which is not included in the page limit, is required for all submissions, and must include the following:

• Company title/name of Proposed NOTAM and AI solution

• Date of submittal

• Primary point of contact, including name, address, phone, and email contact information

• Disclosure of information statement

• The page limit is one page

2.2 Minimum Acceptability

The FAA will evaluate RCP submissions that are deemed as “complete.” To be considered “complete,” submissions must contain, at a minimum, the following.

• Cover Sheet (Section 2.1)

• Signed Intellectual Property Statements/Agreements/Disclosures (Section 2.4)

• Address all the criteria defined in Section 3

• Compliance with the formatting requirements (Sections 2.3 and 2.1)

If the vendor fails to include/address the minimum acceptability requirements (as defined above and throughout the RCP), the Concept Paper submission will be deemed non-compliant, inadequate for further evaluation, and removed from consideration.

2.3 Submission Instructions

I. An offeror that includes in its Concept Paper data that it does not want to be disclosed to the public for any purpose or used by the FAA except for consideration and selection purposes must mark the information “Proprietary.”

II. The Offeror’s response is due by 4:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, March 1, 2024.

Responses should be emailed to the Contracting Officer at Nia.Glover@faa.gov. The email subject must be “ChBA NOTAM and Aeronautical Information Request for Concept Paper.” The FAA intends to send a confirmation email within 24 hours of receipt; an offeror not receiving a confirmation email should follow up with the Contracting Officer to confirm receipt.

mailto:Angel.Jones@faa.gov

NOTAM Request for Concept Papers 3

III. Offeror’s may submit questions regarding this RCP to the Contracting Officer Nia.Glover@faa.gov until 4;00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, February 16, 2024

IV. The Cover Sheet and Concept Paper must be separate Adobe .pdf files named “RFP_CovSheet_[Offeror Name].pdf” and “RFP_Concept_[Offeror Name].pdf”. The Cover Sheet file must be formatted to letter-size paper with one-inch margins. Narrative text must be a standard font size of 12 or larger (image text may be smaller). Color is permissible, but each document should be readable if printed in black-and-white. All files must be submitted in the same email transmittal.

V. The page limitations shown above are important—cover pages, section dividers, table of contents, index, etc., are allowed, and they do not count towards the page limitations.

Thus, the Cover Sheet.pdf file and the Concept Paper.pdf file should contain only the number of pages allowed in the instructions above. Documents that exceed the page limitations will only be reviewed through the stated page limitation, which will result in the Offeror’s full concept not being evaluated fully and eliminating progression to the next phase. The email transmittal may include additional text (such as whom to contact if the files are corrupted), but those emails will not be read by the peer review panel.

An Offeror may submit multiple concept papers covering the FAA’s objective for this announcement. Each should be a separate email submittal following all instructions above.

Multiple offers should be submitted only where the concepts differ greatly in innovation or process.

The FAA desires unique and innovative concepts, if multiple Offerors submit very similar concept papers, the FAA, at its sole discretion, may select any one or more of those for future phases of this challenge.

2.4 Intellectual Property Statements/Agreements/Disclosures

I. Offerors must adhere to the Security guidelines identified in the NOTAM and AI Statement of Objectives. In addition, Offerors must provide a full accounting of the following items they plan to incorporate in their Concept:

• 3rd party software (COTS, etc.)

• Software Licenses

• Artificial Intelligence-with evolving standards and guidance for Artificial

Intelligence o Alignment with Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy

Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence o Plans for ongoing protection of Artificial Intelligence models that are part of implementation.

II. Each participant (prime contractor and each sub-contractor) shall complete the submitter statement below. The statement shall be included in the Cover Sheet.

Patents mailto:Nia.Glover@faa.gov

NOTAM Request for Concept Papers 4

I further declare that [check one]:

☐ I do not hold and do not intend to hold any patent or patent application with a claim which may cover the proposed prototype that I have submitted, known as [insert name of NOTAM Solution]

OR [check one or both of the following]:

☐ to the best of my knowledge, the products, standards, or algorithms that I have submitted, known as [insert name of NOTAM Solution], may be covered by the following U.S. and/or foreign patents: [describe and enumerate or state “none” if applicable]

☐ I do hereby declare that, to the best of my knowledge, the following pending U.S. and/or foreign patent applications may cover the practice of my submitted NOTAM solution, standards, or algorithms [describe and enumerate or state “none” if applicable].

I certify that, to the best of my knowledge, I have fully disclosed all patents and patent applications, which may cover my NOTAM Solution, standards, or algorithms.

I do hereby agree to provide the statements required by Section2.4, below, for any patent or patent application identified to cover the practice of my NOTAM Solution, standards, or algorithms and the right to use such for the purposes of the evaluation process.

PATENT OWNER(S) STATEMENT

Each participant (prime vendor and each of the sub-vendors) shall complete the Patent Owner(s) statement below. The statement shall be included as an attachment to the Concept Paper and will not count toward the page limit.

If there are any patents (or patent applications) identified by the submitter, including those held by the submitter, the following statement must be signed by each owner, or each owner’s authorized representative, of each patent and patent application identified.

I, [insert full name], of [insert full postal address], am the owner or authorized representative of the owner [print full name, if different than the signer] of the following patent(s) and/or patent application(s): [enumerate], and do hereby commit and agree to grant to any interested party on a worldwide basis, if the proposed NOTAM Solution is selected for the FAA prototype, in consideration of its evaluation and selection, a non-exclusive license for the purpose of implementing standards or algorithms [check one]:

☐ without compensation and under reasonable terms and conditions that are demonstrably free of any unfair discrimination, NOTAM Request for Concept Papers 5

OR

☐ under reasonable terms and conditions (identified in section 3.1.9 – Proposed Data Rights Assertion) that are demonstrably free of any unfair discrimination.

I further do hereby commit and agree to license such party on the same basis with respect to any other patent application or patent hereafter granted to me, or owned or controlled by me, that is or may be necessary for the purpose of evaluating the proposed NOTAM prototype. Any future follow-on Production Contract could/will require re-negotiated terms and conditions.

I further do hereby commit and agree that I will include, in any documents transferring ownership of each patent and patent application, provisions to ensure that the commitments and assurances made by me are binding on the transferee and any future transferee.

I further do hereby commit and agree that these commitments and assurances are intended by me to be binding on successors-in-interest of each patent and patent application, regardless of whether such provisions are included in the relevant transfer documents.

I further do hereby grant to the U.S. Government, during the evaluation process, and during the lifetime of the standard, a nonexclusive, non-transferrable, irrevocable, paid-up worldwide license solely for the purpose of modifying my submitted NOTAM prototype specifications (e.g., to protect against a newly discovered vulnerability) for incorporation into the prototype efforts.

The contractor and sub-contractor agree(s) to indemnify the FAA against loss, damage, or liability for the infringement of patents that will be used in the Concept paper as well as subsequent phases of the ChBA.

Please note, the FAA reserves the rights to all the data stored in the platform/solution.

Additionally, the FAA must have the ability to audit the system to determine what data is stored, how it is stored, etc. It should also be noted that the data cannot be sold unless approved by the

FAA.

3. Evaluation Approach

The evaluation of Concept Papers will be based on the evaluation factors and associated criteria provided below in accordance with the SOO and the Scope Considerations and Principles Document. Each area will be evaluated with regard to the soundness and thoroughness of the response. Evaluators will identify strengths, weaknesses, and risks relative to the Technical Approach and Architecture, Operational Approach, Communication/Collaboration Plan and Business Viability, and Implementation Approach factors.

NOTAM Request for Concept Papers 6

The definitions of strength, weakness, and risk are listed in Table 1 below. The Evaluators will identify strengths, weaknesses, and risks for the Technical Approach and Architecture, Operational Approach, Communication/Collaboration Plan and Business Viability, and Implementation Approach factors on the basis of information presented in the concept paper.

Table 1: Definitions of Strength, Weakness, and Risk

Strength An aspect of an offeror’s concept that has a positive impact on the probability of successful performance of the solution.

Weakness An aspect of an offeror’s concept that has a negative impact on the probability of successful performance of the solution.

Risk An aspect of an offeror's concept that, when assessed as to its probability of occurrence and the magnitude of its impact, presents an uncertainty as to the ability of the offeror to successfully perform the solution.

Based upon the Evaluators’ assessment of the impact of all identified strengths, weaknesses, and risks in the concepts presented by vendors and how their concept best addresses the SOO and Scope Considerations and Principles Documents, the FAA will make a down-select decision to determine which offeror(s) move forward to the next phase of the Challenge-Based Acquisition.

3.1 Technical Approach and Architecture

Provide a proposed technical approach and architecture to meet the SOO to include a defined NOTAM service-based solution (See Part I Targeted NOTAM Solution in the Scope Considerations and Principles Document). In addition, respondents should include their approach to the incremental development of capabilities to include additional Aeronautical Information (AI) components as described in the SOO and Scope Considerations and Principles documents.

The proposed service-based solution must prioritize deploying the NOTAMs capability to originate, manage, and distribute temporary (dynamic) data changes by September 2025. The technical approach must identify any assumptions and considerations associated with the proposed approach, third-party tools that have been considered for integration into the solution, as well as any risks, associated mitigations, dependencies, or issues that emerged during the concept development.

The FAA will evaluate:

• The degree to which the offeror promotes innovative solution architectures that leverage advancements in the industry (e.g., open source, cloud computing) and modern offerings (e.g., no code/low-code, DevSecOps principles) (SOO: Architecture Objective)

• The degree to which the offeror prioritizes availability, reliability, and resiliency to minimize downtime and provide a robust backup system (SOO: Architecture Objective)

• The degree to which the offeror applies open data architecture and interoperability to best leverage NOTAM solution data for use by advanced data analytics tools, for example, for improved operational decision-making (SOO: AI Data Management Objective)

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• The degree to which the offeror supports the streamlined and adaptable origination, management, and distribution of NOTAM data (SOO: AI Lifecycle Management Objective)

• The degree to which the offeror addresses FAA safety and cyber security requirements (SOO: Security Objective)

• The degree to which the offeror supports industry-standard capabilities for real-time monitoring, alerting, and reporting of health, performance, and security status (SOO:

Monitoring Objective)

• The degree to which the offeror accommodates growth in system usage while maintaining service performance levels that do not require a disproportionate increase in resource consumption (SOO: Performance Objective)

• The degree to which the offeror supports an effective transition into the NAS that ensures continuity of operations with legacy infrastructure (SOO: Transition to Operations Objective)

3.2 Operational Approach

This section of the Concept Paper is focused on meeting the challenge of addressing user needs across the NOTAM lifecycle (i.e., origination, management, distribution). The following scenario is provided to document your operational approach.

Runway Closure Operational Scenario:

Using the SOO as a guideline, describe how your proposed solution architecture will address the following runway closure operational scenario below. This scenario is intended to exemplify an operational end-to-end process for managing the permanent and temporary AI required to originate, manage, and distribute NOTAM and AI information. While it does not address every objective included in the published SOO, this scenario should be considered in the context of the full SOO and your proposed solution in the Technical Approach and Architecture section of your response.

Airport XYZ is currently undergoing construction on Runway 01/19, necessitating a temporary closure of the runway. This closure will be communicated to air traffic operations through a NOTAM until the construction is complete.

Upon the conclusion of the construction, the runway will undergo a permanent lengthening.

To ensure that the aviation community is informed of this change, the updated runway length and the completion of the construction need to be published. This information must be disseminated to the aviation community in a timely manner.

The effective date of the new runway length must align with the next Aeronautical Information Regulation and Control cycle. Consequently, the permanent change must be published on the effective date, and the status (closed to operations) change should be communicated via NOTAM until that date.

To manage these AI changes effectively, a solution is required to facilitate end-to-end workflow, validation against business rules for runway aeronautical features, and the

NOTAM Request for Concept Papers 8 management of an integrated data model. Additionally, the solution must ensure the timely dissemination of AI to relevant stakeholders. This comprehensive approach will help streamline the process, maintain data accuracy, and ensure that the aviation community is promptly informed of the changes.

The FAA will evaluate:

• The degree to which the offeror demonstrates an understanding of the operational nature of NOTAM origination, management, and distribution.

• The degree to which the offeror demonstrates how the operational scenario is executed within the proposed Technical Approach and Architecture section of your response.

• The degree to which the offeror discusses coverage of all aspects of the proposed operational scenario.

3.3 Communication/Collaboration Plan and Business Viability

Communication/Collaboration Plan: The submission must include a communication and collaboration plan that demonstrates the partnership/teaming integration approach. The communication and collaboration plan should also articulate the vendor team’s experience and success working on projects/programs of scope, magnitude, and complexity that are similar to the NOTAM solution.

Business Viability: Business viability must be included and must describe the technical capability and resources to effectively accomplish the business needs. The FAA is looking for insight into how the vendor proposes to structure the service-based offering to the FAA. Provide a conceptual framework for the service-based offering to include a Rough Order Magnitude price range (i.e., low – high) for NOTAM service-based solution for FY26 – FY30, assuming 3.5 million NOTAMs in FY25 with 10% NOTAM growth per year.

The FAA will evaluate:

• The degree to which the partnership/teaming approach maximizes collaboration, stability, and efficiency to meet the SOO and Scope Considerations and Principles Document.

• The degree to which the partnership/teaming is viable to support this effort through the development of capabilities, testing, evaluation, and potential operational deployment of their solution.

3.4 Implementation Approach

The implementation approach must include a NOTAM solution; however, respondents should offer an implementation approach that also encompasses the AI components described in the SOO and the Scope Considerations and Principles (Part 2: Aeronautical Information (AI) Solution). The implementation approach must include the following information.

• A plan that includes the timeframes, milestones, and decision points for deploying critical features to (e.g., Roadmap of Capabilities Delivered) meet the SOO and the Scope Considerations and Principles. Respondents are encouraged to provide inputs on their

NOTAM Request for Concept Papers 9 ability to complete a full NOTAM service and should include any associated risks and/or assumptions, with a planned target date of September 2025.

• Transition plan to migrate from the existing NOTAM system to deploying your proposed NOTAM service-based solution into operations while maintaining continuity of operations.

Also, include a transition approach to expand your NOTAM solution to include additional AI components.

• The implementation approach must identify any gaps between an offeror’s proposed solution and the need to fully meet the SOO and Scope Considerations and Principles Document. This includes identification of any changes needed to their proposed solution to fill the gaps, activities required, and the associated timeline

The FAA will evaluate:

• Risk, opportunities, and technical merit of the proposed implementation plan for a NOTAM service-based solution that may be operationalized by September 2025.

4. Disclosure of Information

Non-government personnel will be used in the evaluation of the Concept Papers. The non-government advisors may have access to all aspects of the offeror’s submitted materials. By submitting Concept Papers, your company agrees with the use of non-government advisors.

4. Disclosure of Information