JA_Fermium_Realgar_Redacted_FINAL.PDF

Defense Threat Reduction Agency and

United States Strategic Command Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction

8725 John J. Kingman Road, Stop 6201

Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6201

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION

1. Nature and/or Description of Action.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) contracting activity proposes to procure without using full and open competition an effort entitled “Flexible X-Ray Test Support” to repair any damage sustained during test and evaluation, as needed, on Government-owned flexible x-ray imagers. The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) (Cage Code: 1YQ84) will be the only contractor solicited for the effort. Current address is: Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304-1314.

2. Description of the supplies/services required

DTRA’s Combating Terrorism Division (CXC) of the Research and Development Directorate

(J9) supports research and development of counter Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) technology to combat threats facing the Department of Defense (DoD) Geographical Combatant

Commanders. J9CXC endeavors to enhance the Combatant Commanders' capabilities to respond to conventional and Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Improvised and Conventional

Explosive Devices.

In a Combatant Command’s (COCOM) annual requirements letter in Fiscal Year (FY) 2008, the requirement to integrate a visual display into an existing digital x-ray flat planel was levied on

DTRA J9CXC in answer to the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). This requirement was amended in FY 2013 to make all electronics boards fully flexible to allow for integration into a formable case. This project was a collaborative partnership with the Army Research

Laboratory (ARL). DTRA J9CXC sent money to ARL to help fund this development effort under W911NF-14-2-0005 and W911NF-16-2-0057. At the end of W911NF-16-2-0057, 13 prototype imagers were delivered for test and evaluation.

PARC is the developer and sole supplier of the flexible x-ray Digital Display Assembly (DDA) imagers developed under the aforementioned ARL contracts. As DTRA takes possession of these new imagers, the requirements for testing and evaluation in support of DoD Explosive

Ordnance Disposal (EOD) forces are very demanding and potentially could exceed the imagers’ rated capacities. As such, the need to repair damaged flexible DDA imagers is paramount to project success. This new effort to repair and provide maintenance on the x-ray imagers is named Fermium Realgar.

The total period of performance for this effort will consist of a base year ($130,000) and four one-year options (averaging approximately $141,000 per year) for a total estimated dollar value of $695,000.

3. Statutory Authority

The statutory authority for this non-competitive action is 10 United States Code (U.S.C.) 2304(c)

(1), as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source.

4. Applicability of Authority

PARC is the only responsible source that has the capability to execute the effort entitled

“Flexible X-Ray Imager Test Support.” The Government accepted delivery of 13 flexible x-ray imagers developed under project Foil Ruby under ARL’s FY 2016 contract W911NF-16-2-0057.

This completed the development of the x-ray imagers and testing and evaluation will begin in FY

2017. This also ended the collabrative partnership with ARL.

As operational testing and evaluation begins on these imagers, a contract vehicle is needed to service any units damaged during testing and return them to their original specifications for continued developmental testing and evaluation. PARC is the sole company capable of servicing these items because the systems run on custom software and hardware specifically designed for the unique characteristics of these prototype detectors.

PARC is the developer of these prototype imagers and the only source capable of conducting repair and maintenance. These imagers run custom software and hardware developed by PARC that provides image processing and error correction designed specifically for the characteristics of the detector backplanes provided under DTRA funding. PARC designed the electronic boards that include micro- processors, electronics, data input chips, read out chips, and the software to operate the DDA. These cannot readily be reproduced by any other vendor without the technical data plans, schematics and software source codes. Reverse engineering by another vender would be very costly and time consuming. It would be technically challenging for another party to debug and correct, or modify the software without the source codes. It would still be considerable effort for an alternate vendor to examine and understand the software and electronics if the source codes, schematics and technical data packages were provided via USG.

Therefore only PARC has full understanding of the software and hardware system and would be able to reasonably make repairs or updates to the imagers in a timely and cost efficient manner.

To award to another offeror would result in unacceptable schedule delays to the COCOMs as testing and evaluation would be severely impacted. In addition, there would be duplicative costs that would not be recuperated through competition.

5. Effort to Solicit Potential Sources

Since PARC is the original developer of the x-ray imagers being tested, they are the only source that can meet this requirement as much of the software and some of the hardware included in the imagers is custom developed. As such, a Sources Sought Notice was not published, however, a

Notice of Contract Action will be published as required by FAR 5.202.

6. Fair and Reasonable Costs

The resultant cost of this contract will be determined to be fair and reasonable based on cost/price analysis of the contractor’s proposal, comparison to the Independent Government Cost

Estimate, use of a technical evaluation, and comparison to previous DTRA contract and MIPR actions.

7. Market Research

A market survey was conducted and nothing currently exists on the commercial marketplace that can meet the user requirements and replace the currently fielded technology. The previous

Market Research Report for the Foil Ruby effort as well as other similar efforts were revisited and none of the manufacturers offer any products comparable or compatible with DTRA’s digital

X-ray imager prototype. In addition, research into Government databases yielded no projects comparable or compatible with the DTRA’s digital X-ray imager prototype. Market Research results included the following:

Flex Enable (http://www.flexenable.com/) manufactures flexible x-ray detector backplanes using organic thin-film transistors (OTFT) vice conventional amorphous silicon thin film transistors.

The difference is significant and the OTFT’s are not compatible with the electronics and mask set that are used in the PARC imagers. While promising, Flex Enables flexible OTFT’s backplanes are of poorer quality, cost more, and do not scale up to the full size of the flexible x-ray detector that is inside the current protoype PARC imager and still require development work to integrate into an x-ray imager.

SPIE Digital Library:

(http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=1692547 ) hosts publications on a host of topics including Journal of Electronic Imaging. A vast majority of publications reviewed here dealt with medical/dental x-rays and were not transportable systems.

PHYS.ORG: http://phys.org/ hosts publications & articles on various technologies. On the subject of “flexible x-ray detectors,” PHYS.ORG identified PARC as manufacturing the world’s largest flexible x-ray detectors.

Printed Electronics World: (http://www.printedelectronicsworld.com/articles/8839/worlds-largest-flexible-x-ray-detector ) review of this website yielded another article explaining that

PARC developed the world’s largest flexible x-ray detectors incorporating cutting edge technology in manufacturing portable, lightweight, and highly rugged x-ray imagers.

Meetings: Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Flexible Hybrid Electronics (MIIFHE), 13-16

Oct 2015 in Dayton OH. Adele Ratcliff (OSD Director for Manufacturing Technology) and Eric

Forsythe (Program Manager, Army Research Laboratory), chaired the meeting and led the discussion. A J9CXC Program Manager attended the meeting with the MIIFHE, a consortium of

162 companies, universities, and non-profits led by the FlexTech Alliance. The focus of this meeting was to discuss the most promising products incorporating “flexible electronics”. The prototype flexible x-ray detector developed by DTRA in conjunction with PARC were identified as one of the products they will support in FY 17 under the AFRL FLEXTEC program.

http://www.flexenable.com/ http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=1692547 http://phys.org/ http://www.printedelectronicsworld.com/articles/8839/worlds-largest-flexible-x-ray-detector http://www.printedelectronicsworld.com/articles/8839/worlds-largest-flexible-x-ray-detector

Based on the aforementioned facts and data, PARC is the only source capable of repairing the custom software used for processing and error correction designed specifically for the characteristics of the current prototypes.

8. Other Facts

PARC is the developer of these prototype imagers and is the only source capable of conducting repair and maintenance.

9. Interested Sources

None

10. Subsequent actions

After the imagers(s) have been repaired, they will be returned to the Government for continued test and evaluation in support of the Nickel Ruby and Foil Ruby projects. The Government will continue to attend conferences, workshops, and meetings to stay current of all similar technologies. Market surveillance will occur on a continual basis in order to enhance future competition. An active effort is being coordinated in FY 2017 with OSD MANTECH, AFRL and PARC to transition the technology to a commercial product.

Technical Certification

I certify that the data and information forming the basis for this justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

WOODS.ROBERT.PA

UL.1075266037

Digitally signed by

WOODS.ROBERT.PAUL.1075266037

DN: c=US, o=U.S. Government, ou=DoD, ou=PKI, ou=DTRA, cn=WOODS.ROBERT.PAUL.1075266037 Date: 2016.12.21 11:19:30 -05'00'

Robert Woods Date

Program Manager

J9-CXC

Contracting Officer Certification and Approval

Based on the above justification, I hereby approve accomplishment of this acquisition by means other than using full and open competition.

Digitally signed by

FAHERTY.MEGAN.E.1259038207

DN: c=US, o=U.S. Government, ou=DoD, ou=PKI, ou=DTRA, cn=FAHERTY.MEGAN.E.1259038207

Date: 2016.12.21 11:54:09 -05'00'

Megan Faherty Date

Contracting Officer

J4CRT