HR001117S0011.pdf

BAA# HR001117S0011 OFFENSIVE SWARM-ENABLED TACTICS (OFFSET)

Broad Agency Announcement OFFensive Swarm Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) Tactical Technology Office (TTO)

HR001117S0011

February 15, 2017

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Tactical Technology Office 675 North Randolph Street Arlington, VA 22203-2114

Table of Contents

I. Funding Opportunity Description A. Program Vision B. Program Description

B.1. Core Elements of the OFFSET Swarm System B.2. Defining the Swarm Systems Architecture B.3. OFFSET Swarm Ecosystem B.4. OFFSET Metrics

C. Program Structure C.1. OFFSET Capability-Based Experimentation

D. OFFSET Deliverables

II. Award Information A. General Award Information B. Fundamental Research

III. Eligibility Information A. Eligible Applicants

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

B. Organizational Conflicts of Interest C. Cost Sharing/Matching

IV. Application and Submission Information A. Address to Request Application Package B. Content and Form of Application Submission

B.1. Abstracts B.2. Proposals B.3. Proprietary and Security Information B.4. Additional Proposal Information B.5. Submission Information

C. Funding Restrictions D. Other Submission Requirements

V. Application Review Information A. Evaluation Criteria

A.1. Overall Scientific and Technical Merit A.2. Potential Contribution and Relevance to the DARPA Mission A.3. Cost and Schedule Realism A.4. Proposer’s Capabilities and/or Related Experience

B. Review of Proposals B.1. Review Process B.2. Handling of Source Selection Information B.3. Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information (FAPIIS)

VI. Award Administration Information A. Selection Notices and Notifications

A.1. Abstracts A.2. Proposals

B. Administrative and National Policy Requirements B.1. Meeting and Travel Requirements B.2. FAR and DFARS Clauses B.3. Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) on Non-DoD Information Systems B.4. Representations and Certifications B.5. Terms and Conditions (for cooperative agreements only)

C. Reporting D. Electronic Systems

D.1. Wide Area Work Flow (WAWF) D.2. i-Edison

VII. Agency Contacts

VIII. Other Information A. Proposers Day B. Collaborations and Teaming C. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) D. Associate Contractor Agreement (ACA) Clause E. List of Attachments F. Bibliography

PART I: OVERVIEW INFORMATION

Federal Agency Name – Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Tactical Technology Office (TTO)

Funding Opportunity Title – OFFensive Swarm Enabled Tactics (OFFSET)

Announcement Type – Initial Announcement

Funding Opportunity Number – HR001117S0011

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Numbers (CFDA) – 12.910 Research and Technology Development

Dates o Proposers Day: 30 January 2017, Arlington, VA o Posting Date: 15 February 2017 o Abstract Due: 01 March 2017, 12:00 noon (Eastern) o Questions Due: 13 March 2017 o Proposal Due *: 3 April 2017, 12:00 noon (Eastern)

* Swarm Systems Integrators only (See Sections I.B.3.a and I.B.3.b)

** Calls for Swarm Sprinter proposals will be issued periodically (6-month intervals are anticipated) as amendments to this BAA at future dates yet to be determined. These calls may be issued at any time up to one year from the posting date.

Concise description of the funding opportunity – The goal of OFFSET is the design, development, and demonstration of a swarm system architecture – encoded in a realistic game-based environment and embodied in physical swarm autonomous platforms – to advance the innovation, interaction, and integration of novel swarm tactics.

Total amount anticipated to be awarded – Approximately $14M

Anticipated individual awards – DARPA intends to award up to two Swarm Systems Integrators. Swarm Sprinters funding is not included in the $14M to be awarded for Swarm System Integrators.

Types of instruments that may be awarded – Procurement contract, cooperative agreement or other transaction.

Agency contact o Points of Contact

The BAA Coordinator for this effort can be reached at:

OFFSET@darpa.mil mailto:OFFSET@darpa.mil

PART II: FULL TEXT OF ANNOUNCEMENT

I. Funding Opportunity Description

This publication constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) as contemplated in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.102(d)(2) and 35.016 and 2 CFR § 200.203. Any resultant award negotiations will follow all pertinent law and regulation, and any negotiations and/or awards for procurement contracts will use procedures under FAR 15.4, Contract Pricing, as specified in the

BAA.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative proposals to expand the operational effectiveness of combat forces utilizing unmanned swarm systems.

Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.

The following information is for those wishing to respond to this BAA.

A. Program Vision

An unprecedented confluence of advanced technologies is unleashing transformative capabilities, particularly in the context of distributed, large-scale, autonomous systems. The increasing availability of such systems has renewed and reinvigorated the exploration and acceleration of swarm capabilities. These technological advances have converged to give rise to five key areas for swarm systems, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Swarm autonomy encompasses adaptive, complex, collective behaviors for intelligent movement, decisions, and interactions with the environment.

Human-swarm teaming highlights the need and ability to interact, influence, and infer swarm system behaviors.

Swarm perception involves large-scale, distributed and dispersed sensing, fusion, and distillation of information.

Swarm networking pertains to adaptive, resilient, fragmented sharing and storage of distributed information.

Swarm logistics addresses both hardware and software deployment, support, and maintenance of large-scale systems.

The goal of the OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) program is to advance and accelerate elements of these enabling swarm technologies, focusing on the swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming components of swarm system capabilities. OFFSET places specific

Figure 1: Five key enablers for swarm system capabilities. The vision for OFFSET is to catalyze revolutionary advances in the areas of swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming.

emphasis on operationally relevant swarm tactics as the basis for leap-ahead advances in swarm capabilities.

Swarm tactics specifically capitalize on the unique attributes of swarm systems to effect tactical advantage [1] , [2] , [3] . Swarm size (the number of elements in the swarm) has often been the prevailing (albeit limiting) consideration when identifying advantages of swarm technologies. The underlying premise of the OFFSET program is that the potential of swarm systems has yet to be fully explored and realized. Swarm tactics that fully leverage the richness of swarm systems beyond swarm size, to include agent and collective complexity, heterogeneity in the swarm’s composition, and collaborative interactions between humans and the swarm, lead to disruptive swarm capability advantages.

The key benefit of designating “swarm tactics” as the focal point of OFFSET is to more clearly and intuitively capture commander’s intent by representing autonomous swarm capabilities in a tactical lingua franca. A common vocabulary would anticipate, if not accelerate, rapid advances in autonomy, artificial intelligence, platform designs, and perception and embedded component technologies. The swarm tactics-centric developments envisioned by OFFSET also aim to reduce the cognitive impedance mismatch that currently limits interactions with existing multi-robot system technologies. Figure 2 illustrates the swarm tactics-centered framework with which OFFSET seeks to advance swarm system capabilities.

Figure 2: OFFSET Swarm Tactics Framework. The conventional bottom-up approach (left) leaves a gap between warfighter needs and the swarm tactics developed, whereas the swarm tactics-focused top-down approach (right) addresses warfighter needs as the driver of advances in swarm capabilities.

Considering the hierarchical framework depicted in Figure 2, the warfighter’s needs are directly dictated by the swarm mission, characterized by high-level operational objectives to be achieved by combined employment of swarm systems and associated human teammates. In contrast, swarm algorithms form the foundation of simple functions or “skills” that the swarm is capable of executing collectively. While these functions (e.g., maneuver forward, measure signal strength, sense obstacles) may not individually offer actionable operational value, the combination of these swarm algorithms into swarm primitives, or collective behaviors, can represent more integrated swarm capabilities. For example, such swarm primitives may encode behaviors to locate points of interest in an area, identify ingress points to a building, or define and secure a perimeter.

As the central focus of OFFSET, swarm tactics catalyze operationally relevant swarm system capabilities via the composition of swarm primitives, conducted in sequence and/or concurrently, to address tactical objectives in support of the mission. Although a swarm system could dramatically enhance human execution of existing tactics for, e.g., isolating and clearing a building, suppressing enemy fires, or maintaining flank security, OFFSET intends to inspire the generation of innovative swarm tactics that disruptively create new opportunities for future swarm system capabilities.

One of the many potential operating environments where future swarm capabilities may demonstrate game-changing impact is in urban operations in dense urban environments [4] .

Particular challenges include the increasingly vertical, occluded, and channelized contexts in which small-unit ground forces must maneuver, defend, and engage both dynamic environments and adversaries. Such impediments are exacerbated by the fact that such operations must often be conducted in areas where knowledge, access, and/or control of factors like infrastructure, supply chains, local conditions, and potential threats are severely limited. The very nature of these dense urban areas calls for advances in distributed and dispersed unmanned system capabilities organic to company-level and below ground units of the future.

OFFSET seeks revolutionary capabilities to assert and maintain superiority of the urban operating environment, both in the air and on the ground. OFFSET is interested in highly capable, heterogeneous swarm systems numbering upwards of 250 collaborating autonomous swarm elements, across multiple spatial and temporal scales of tactical interest, e.g., conducting operations in built-up areas up to eight city blocks in size over mission durations of up to six hours.

B. Program Description

The goal of OFFSET is the design, development, and demonstration of a swarm system architecture – encoded in a realistic game-based environment and embodied in physical swarm autonomous platforms – to advance the innovation, interaction, and integration of novel swarm tactics.

If successful, OFFSET will produce an advanced swarm system, comprising a demonstrated swarm software architecture with implementation of swarm tactics and advanced swarm interfaces; a physical swarm system testbed for substantive experimentation and operationalization; and a robust developer and user community for enduring engagement in the advancement of swarm system capabilities. The insights derived from the OFFSET program will inform not only the technological trade spaces of swarm systems design, but also and more broadly, the scalability of manned-unmanned teaming constructs, test and evaluation for autonomous systems, and open system architectures for distributed, networked capabilities.

B.1. Core Elements of the OFFSET Swarm System The OFFSET Swarm System is centered on the synergistic intersection (as illustrated in Figure 3) of discovering new swarm tactics and insights from their employment (innovation), creating new ways to immerse the swarm operator with rich and intuitive access (interaction), and realizing these rapidly developing swarm capabilities in physical swarm systems (integration).

Figure 3: The three key facets for the envisioned OFFSET Swarm Systems Architecture, unifying synergies in the innovation, interaction, and integration of swarm tactics

Of interest for OFFSET are proposals detailing innovative and visionary solutions which expand and enhance the concepts for the envisioned core elements of the OFFSET swarm system described in the following sections.

B.1.a. Innovating Swarm Tactics: A Swarm Tactics Exchange A principal pillar of OFFSET is the innovation of swarm tactics, leveraging an extensible software architecture implemented in a game-based environment based on industry-standard, open-source game engines (e.g., Unity 3D, Unreal). Such an environment offers a virtual yet realistic world in which relevant operational scenarios, such as urban operations, can be extensively explored and expanded.

OFFSET envisions the ideation of novel swarm tactics via two complementary avenues, both offering relevant paths towards near-term and future swarm tactics-based capabilities:

Implement swarm tactics comprising only physically realizable components, that is, utilize only existing and/or maturing sensors, datatypes, embedded computing and network resources, as well as experimentally demonstrated swarm algorithms or swarm primitives

Design swarm tactics using synthetic swarm components, that is, leverage access to data only available within the game environment to fabricate and/or enable futuristic or emerging swarm capabilities

The former approach captures and challenges existing capabilities to lead to potential discovery of new swarm tactics. Examples of existing state-of-the-art technologies might include LIDAR, electro-optical, infrared vision sensors; occupancy grid-based decomposition of 3D environments;

collision-free navigation and multi-robot path-planning algorithms; cooperative simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) solutions.

Alternatively, the latter approach illuminates and potentially identifies those components which may dramatically impact future swarm capabilities. Examples of notional synthetic technologies that could be encoded and simulated purely within the virtual game environment might include fictitious sensors able to localize and identify all personnel; futuristic mobility and endurance capabilities for air or ground platforms; or advanced networking technologies for highly resilient communications.

Both approaches aim to inform the complex, multi-faceted considerations of swarm systems with the goal of iteratively and interactively deriving insights into swarm technology gaps as well as identifying potential swarm capabilities that give rise to strategic surprise.

A construct by which to capture these insights is the concept of a swarm tactics exchange or marketplace for cultivating community contributions of swarm tactics and/or supporting components. In an effort to promote and explore innovative ideas for swarm system employment in tactical contexts, a swarm tactics exchange can provide an interface that the community may use to experiment, expand, enhance, and then contribute swarm tactics and/or the necessary building blocks, i.e., swarm algorithms or swarm primitives.

Proposed designs of a swarm tactics exchange (as part of the broader swarm software architecture) should encourage and facilitate third-party development and active contribution of swarm tactics and relevant components. Other extensible features (i.e., “add-ons” or “game mods”) to be potentially considered in the design include, for example, third-party generated scenarios and maps, possible technology injects, new sensor or communications models, and support for customizable game data export formats or standard streaming protocols.

Systems should also consider various techniques to encourage and incentivize frequent and high-quality submissions, such as gamification techniques, leaderboards, or other community-fostering features. It is anticipated that in creating such an interactive repository of swarm tactics, a descriptive taxonomy of swarm tactics will become necessary and helpful for filtering, searching, and categorizing swarm tactics (e.g., by mission, by domain, by swarm primitive, by keywords), which should be explicitly designed into the proposed swarm software architecture.

Special considerations for moderated contributions (e.g., for quality assurance) and access to the proposed swarm tactics exchange should be included in proposed designs, to address potential security-related or export-controlled concerns, such as enabling Government-only versus public access repositories or interfaces.

In addition to the curation of swarm tactics, the OFFSET software architecture is envisioned to further provide the requisite game analytics capabilities to assess and explore the contributed body of swarm tactics. Features supporting such analysis may include: automated report generation on swarm tactics performance for benchmark game scenarios; the ability to conduct rigorous simulation experiments (e.g., Monte Carlo), perhaps with faster-than-real-time or headless execution (i.e., no visualization); exposed hooks enabling experimental design inputs, data extraction, and statistical analysis; and interface specifications to apply machine learning techniques to large volumes of game-generated data and results. Such features may benefit from leveraging lessons learned from emerging game analytics methodologies and associated game performance metrics.

Proposers should provide a brief self-assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the intended design of the swarm tactics exchange and the supporting software architecture, in terms of identifying key technical challenges, anticipated complexity of the software interfaces, and the impact on adoption by third-party contributors and the OFFSET community. Supporting details of interest in proposed concepts include holistic plans for ensuring up-to-date swarm tactics documentation (such as templates for user-contributed swarm tactics), as well as capture, access, and management of datasets and results from, e.g., gameplay sessions, community activity metrics, or overall performance assessments across the entire swarm tactics corpus.

B.1.b. Interacting with Swarm Tactics: Advanced Human-Swarm Interfaces With the increased swarm autonomy envisioned in OFFSET, novel human-swarm interaction frameworks and enabling technologies are necessary to address the challenges and complexities of swarm systems [10] . The use of swarm tactics elevates the types of interactions anticipated for high-level engagement with the OFFSET swarm, transforming the role of the conventional unmanned system operator into a mission-oriented “tactical coordinator” or “swarm tactician.” In contrast, previous efforts explored supervisory control methodologies, but could not yet address the scale, complexity, and dynamic interaction of interest to OFFSET and its envisioned future human-swarm teaming contexts.

Further, the richness of context required to capture and convey commander’s intent, as represented by the composition of swarm tactics, calls for a dramatically different paradigm for thinking about interfaces with the future swarm system. These interfaces will likely include rapidly advancing immersive interactive technologies, such as augmented and virtual reality, and increasingly capable naturalistic interaction modalities, such as gestures (e.g., hand or body), dialogue (e.g., with virtual assistants), touch or haptic interfaces, and other novel modalities.

Future human-swarm interactions span the diverse types and scales of complex tasks, including spatial (e.g., collective maneuver of one or more swarms), temporal (e.g., sequencing or synchronization of swarms), and logical (e.g., grouping or split/join of sub-swarms). Further, the spectrum of interaction use cases may range from swarm planning, where design of sequences of swarm tactics is conducted in an a priori fashion, all the way to “free-style” swarm interactions, where the swarm tactician can dynamically compose and modulate the execution of swarm tactics in real time.

In this manner, OFFSET is interested in the development and integration of these novel immersive environments and interaction modalities for the purpose of enhanced engagement of swarm tactics.

Also of interest are advances in presentation layer and decision support capabilities, swarm tactics design environments (e.g., graphical tools, sketch recognition, natural language), swarm mission planning tools, and other enhanced swarm tactics interfaces. Mission analysis tools, including presentation of possible courses-of-action with calculated measures of effectiveness, are of high interest.

To effect greater impact in advancing human-swarm teaming capabilities, OFFSET also seeks the design and definition of a swarm interaction grammar, which serves as a medium through which common interfaces for human-swarm interactions can be identified. By constructing such a “grammar,” -- that is, mapping efficient and effective means of interactions to swarm tactics, swarm behaviors, or even swarm algorithms -- standardization of such interfaces can enable exploration and benchmarking of the effectiveness of different interaction modalities as well as the cognitive complexity of the swarm tactics. The swarm interaction grammar would be intended to help inform and codify best practices for continuing advances in human-swarm teaming, providing insights into not only what features and parameters in swarm tactics are most relevant, but also how, when, and why to enhance them to improve swarm system and mission performance.

The design of the swarm interaction grammar should be an extensible framework to address not only currently envisioned swarm tactics, but potentially future swarm tactics as well.

Proposers should further define and describe one or more concepts of operations for their technical approach and selection of interactive technologies, representing a vision for how the human-swarm interaction with swarm tactics is manifested and managed in operational contexts. For example, for a small-unit dismounted soldier actively engaged in forward operations, full immersion in virtual reality at the expense of situational awareness and safety may not be feasible, whereas an enhanced augmented reality interface may provide sufficient swarm interactions while maintaining awareness of current surroundings. Conversely, a dedicated swarm coordinator may reside in a protected enclosure (e.g., mobile command vehicle) or at a higher-echelon base of operations (e.g., a forward operating base) where the richness of full virtual reality may provide significant advantages in dynamically interacting with the deployed swarm.

Given the increasing availability and maturation of commercial hardware (e.g., AR/VR headsets) and/or open software development kits for immersive interactive technologies of relevance to OFFSET, the design or development of new interface hardware, to include peripherals or accessories, is outside the scope of this BAA.

B.1.c. Integrating Swarm Tactics: Agile Swarm Experimentation Capabilities A primary objective for OFFSET is to integrate the developed swarm tactics in a physical swarm testbed, including aerial and ground autonomous systems, with the hopes of advancing swarm capabilities beyond the game-based virtual environment. The intention is to bring swarm technologies to a level of maturity that would enable extensive experimentation to drive concept generation; develop increased familiarity with autonomous swarm systems; inspire new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs); and identify new mission trade spaces and technology gaps for swarms in practice.

OFFSET will challenge existing capabilities and physical realizations of swarm systems to explore large-scale, heterogeneous swarms. Within OFFSET, large-scale would be a threshold of 100 with an objective of 250 combined aerial and ground autonomous systems. OFFSET invites proposed efforts to identify specification of surrogate platforms capable of collaboratively employing swarm tactics that will likely achieve the desired objective capabilities detailed in Table 1, by operational contexts and program vignette.

Table 1: Objective capabilities of interest for surrogate aerial and ground autonomous swarm systems

Operational Context Vignette 1 Vignette 2 Vignette 3 Mission Duration 15-30 minutes 1-2 hours 4-6 hours

Area of Operations approx. two square city blocks approx. four square city blocks approx. eight square city blocks

Swarm Size 50 100 250

The three operational contexts highlight the mission-oriented perspectives of interest to OFFSET, where capabilities of the collective swarm are not defined by system or platform specifications but rather by their ability to execute one or more swarm tactics in support of the mission.

Mission Duration describes the time during which the swarm is actively employed, potentially including transit and deployment times.

Area of Operations describes the physical size of the urban sector, including the vertical dimension, in which the swarm agents are conducting the mission.

Swarm Size describes the desired number of combined total air and/or ground agents involved in the current mission.

In conjunction with proposed narrative concepts of deployment and concepts of employment of the swarm systems, some operational analysis should be presented to preliminarily justify the proposed platform procurement and/or fabrication schedule. A proposed mix of types (fixed-wing, multi-rotor, ground), unit costs, along with technical design and/or performance specifications would be appropriate.

The capability-based experimentation activities envisioned for OFFSET (see Section I.C.1) highlight the need to physically realize swarm technologies which can serve to help inform the design and/or refinement of swarm tactics. For example, the considerations imposed by real communication constraints (e.g., intermittent connectivity, packet delays), or by uncertain hardware failure models (e.g., faulty sensors, attrition of platforms), or by limitations in platforms (e.g., endurance, mobility) may be used to design more capable, more resilient, and/or more efficient swarm tactics instances.

Note that OFFSET is not a platform development program. Proposals which devote significant resources on the design, prototyping, and/or development of new mobile robot platforms, outside of (a) modifications or refurbishments of existing platforms, or (b) procurement of cost-effective commercial-off-the-shelf platforms, will be considered nonresponsive to this Broad Agency Announcement.

B.2. Defining the Swarm Systems Architecture The proposed Swarm System Architecture, in addition to comprising the core elements highlighted in previous sections, should further include specification of the two underlying architectures, namely that of the individual agent and of the collective swarm.

The agent architecture should define an extensible software framework with which the individual autonomous system can perceive, decide, and act using local sensing, computation, and actuation resources. Open system architectures [11] will maximize modularity and extensibility, especially as both OFFSET and aligned commercial sectors accelerate and yield new productized technologies in computation, sensing, manipulation, communication, mobility, power, platform, and local agent mission management. The agent system architecture should anticipate incorporating these latest advances in sensing and/or computing, in tandem with the addition of novel swarm tactics over the course of the OFFSET program. Numerous robotic middleware capabilities, such as the Robot Operating System (ROS), have greatly facilitated the rapid rise and communal development of such agent architectures, and may be leveraged in proposed efforts to capitalize on the community-driven wealth of single-robot autonomous capabilities. Efforts that build upon proven open architectures such as ROS-based agent architectures will likely accelerate development and increase interoperability.

The software implementation of the agent architecture will inherently facilitate rapid and modular development of collaborative autonomy algorithms to accelerate implementing the underlying needs of swarm tactics in the form of plug-in modules for coordination. Similarly, the agent architecture should have the ability to create and connect multiple software-in-the-loop simulation instances, e.g., within the game-based environment, to streamline the transition from the virtual to the physical domain.

The swarm architecture represents the inter-agent capabilities as well as swarm interactions with command elements. Specification of such a system-of-systems architecture requires definition of network configurations and communication protocols; identification of standard data structures, information sharing methods for world models, and shared awareness of the state of the swarm system; and the specification of transparent swarm software interfaces that enable design and implementation of swarm tactics.

A key consideration in the realization of swarm tactics arises from the need to compose multiple swarm “building blocks” (i.e., swarm algorithms, swarm primitives, and even other swarm tactics), potentially created and contributed by disparate third-party developers. Clear specification and documentation of the relevant interfaces, including those relevant to intra-swarm as well as potential inter-swarm (e.g., when sub-swarms are present) configurations for swarm tactics, is desired.

Of significant interest are swarm architectures which can flexibly adapt, i.e., either prior to or in the midst of current collective swarm tactics execution, in the face of system uncertainty, dynamic environments, and adversarial conditions. Development of entirely new technologies in the areas of resilient communications and distributed computation are outside the scope of this BAA;

proposers are instead encouraged to maximally leverage existing state-of-the-art capabilities and open standards (e.g., established extensible message formats, public-domain algorithms, open-source distributed systems libraries).

Support for extensible access and tools for collecting, processing, and analyzing swarm system, such as data logging, playback, and visualization, is also considered essential for the swarm system architecture, with an emphasis on enabling both evaluation and exploration of swarm systems capabilities through simulation and experimentation.

Additional Swarm Systems Architecture Capabilities:

Proposers should have a firm grounding in multi-agent architectures. The Government is interested in proposals with knowledgeable insights across the many architectures that consider messaging protocols, and which compare and contrast the proposed architecture against other architectures.

This BAA is interested in the development and demonstration of holistic, integrated swarm system capabilities.

Rapid deployment of swarm tactics and associated architectures represent another key element of the swarm capabilities envisioned and desired in an objective operational system. Potential use cases for large-scale deployments of new swarm tactics or capabilities are detailed below:

a) Need the ability to massively provision/track/manage deployments (e.g., as in Internet-of- Things (IoT) deployments), including to robotic systems with different capabilities and hardware configurations, potentially occurring prior to operational employment;

b) Need the ability to rapidly push new software elements, i.e., swarm tactics, to already forward employed systems in austere environments, which may include unfavorable and/or intermittent communications, mobile and dynamic environments, etc.

Proposed solutions should also briefly address issues of security in these types of large-scale networks for resilience to attacks for secure updates, e.g., of software, patches, and configurations.

However, development efforts focused solely or significantly on security of IoT systems (e.g., secure booting, access control, device authentication, firewalling) [12] are outside the scope of this BAA.

Note that design or development efforts of new or low-maturity domain-specific languages for multi-agent systems is also outside the scope of this effort; any proposals detailing the use of such languages must provide extremely compelling technical justification as to the utility and advantages over conventional programming paradigms, as well as explicit considerations for fostering a community around and facilitating adoption of such languages.

Also outside the scope of this BAA is any substantial level of effort for the development of new sensor and communications hardware components. Proposed approaches are instead encouraged to focus on how potential capabilities created by such novel technologies might inform or impact the design of enhanced swarm tactics.

B.3. OFFSET Swarm Ecosystem The key to success will be the creation and cultivation of a community in which swarm capabilities and enabling technologies are developed, combining systems-level architecture enhancements and direction (e.g., mission-oriented scenarios) with the underlying technological advances (e.g., distributed swarm algorithms). Participants in this OFFSET swarm ecosystem comprise Swarm Systems Integrators, Swarm Sprinters, and the OFFSET Government Team, as described below.

It is anticipated that (a) successful Swarm Systems Integrator(s) will require cooperation and interaction across the OFFSET swarm ecosystem, and will work towards achieving the program metrics (see Section I.B.4) for each of the three operational vignettes (refer to Section I.C.1), demonstrating continued technological progress and scalability of the developed capabilities. The resulting swarm system is expected to provide an open-source architecture that will be released to other performers, other Government agencies, and potentially the broader community. A successful Swarm Sprinter will collaboratively work with the Swarm Systems Integrator(s) to help achieve the OFFSET program mission quickly and affordably.

B.3.a. Swarm Systems Integrators This BAA seeks well-balanced and expert teams, referred to as Swarm Systems Integrators , capable of holistically designing, developing, and deploying the envisioned OFFSET swarm system architecture, as detailed above, to include:

an extensible game-based architecture to enable design and integration of swarm tactics a community-fostering forum (e.g., swarm tactics exchange) for curation of swarm tactics and an automated workflow for their assessment immersive interactive modalities for intuitive and robust teams of humans and swarm systems aggressive experimentation and systems integration efforts for realizing swarm capabilities

It is anticipated that Swarm Systems Integrators are high-performing, well-managed agile teams, possessing both breadth across numerous disciplines, as well as deep understanding and experience in the fundamental research and development challenges at both agent- and swarm-system levels.

Key characteristics of such Swarm Systems Integrators include exceptional vision, aptitude, and experience in:

agile game development with open-source game engines robotic systems integration (i.e., real-world hardware, software, and communications) human/cognitive interactions, including user experience design and evaluation multi-robot systems and collaborative autonomy algorithm development agile software systems engineering and federated open architectures (e.g., DevOps) online community development toolchains for distributed software, data, and computation (e.g., Internet-of-Things) statistical experimental design and simulation analysis for autonomy assessment

OFFSET intends to award up to two Swarm Systems Integrators to develop the overarching open-source architecture, to include the game-based environment, the interactive human-swarm interface technologies, and the definition of software interfaces enabling modular swarm tactics development. OFFSET anticipates that Swarm Systems Integrators will perform throughout the duration of the program to facilitate continued competition and technology alternatives deliverable to the Government. The OFFSET Swarm Systems Integrators will also be responsible for the design and execution of the capability-based experiments, working alongside the Government Team (refer to Section I.B.3.c), as well as continued integration of product increments delivered by additional performers, e.g., Swarm Sprinters.

B.3.b. Swarm Sprinters Proposals for Swarm Sprinters will be solicited via “calls” for proposals to be issued periodically (six-month intervals are anticipated) as amendments to this BAA. These calls may be issued anytime up to one year from the BAA posting date. Swarm Sprinters may comprise third-party developers and/or users. These Swarm Sprinters must be able to design swarm tactics and/or requisite supporting elements, as well as develop and integrate them according to the specifications set forth by the architectures (as developed by the Swarm Systems Integrators).

The Government would like to engage with a wider developer and user audience for this capability;

therefore, OFFSET anticipates soliciting proposals for Swarm Sprinters over multiple intervals to conduct “sprints” or rapid technology development efforts to generate novel swarm tactics and to accelerate additional enabling technologies while ensuring operational relevance of the capability-based experiments.

Candidate sprint topics may include more narrowly defined thrusts (such as, for example, the design of swarm tactics relevant to searching a building for hidden caches), or broad emphasis areas (such as integration of novel maneuver specifications for heterogeneous swarm systems).

Possible sprints may also emphasize desired improvements to the overall architecture, including enabling toolkits and/or interface enhancements; payload development studies; swarm deployment technologies; and/or other focused investigations based on continued monitoring of advancing technologies relevant to the OFFSET program interests.

The development sprints comprise focused short-term efforts, with key objectives to deliver frequent product increments and integrate them with the open-source architectures provided by the Swarm Systems Integrators. Upon award, Swarm Sprinters are expected to work with the Swarm Systems Integrator(s) to further enhance the swarm systems architecture and its demonstrable capabilities. The Swarm Systems Integrator(s) are also expected to work collaboratively and openly with the Swarm Sprinters to enable smooth integration and encourage user feedback. To promote this open and transparent teamwork, OFFSET will use Associate Contractor Agreements (see Section VIII.D) and intends to prohibit any selected Swarm Systems Integrator(s), their subcontractors, and any subsidiaries from proposing to or being awarded as a Swarm Sprinter.

B.3.c. OFFSET Government Team OFFSET intends to leverage a Government Team experienced in conducting experiments and evaluations in the areas of (a) urban operations and tactical aerial and ground-based unmanned systems, (b) integrated systems and agile software engineering and development, (c) human systems integration, and (d) open system architecture assessments. This Government team will also conduct red team reviews to iteratively assess the effectiveness, safety, security, and processes used by the Swarm Systems Integrators to ensure a robust and operationally relevant swarm system capability by program completion. This Government Team will continue to adapt to the needs of the program throughout the development and experimentation process, and will work closely with both Swarm Systems Integrators and Swarm Sprinters.

B.4. OFFSET Metrics OFFSET is focused on swarm tactics and their role in furthering swarm-enabling capabilities of swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming. As such, OFFSET’s program metrics, as defined in this section and summarized in Figure 4, represent the achievable yet ambitious goals aligned with the realization of these capabilities.

Figure 4: OFFSET Program Goals and Metrics, emphasizing key advances and desired technology outcomes relevant to swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming capabilities

For Swarm Autonomy, the goal for each Swarm Systems Integrator is to have facilitated, curated, and assessed a diverse pool of swarm tactics relevant to the operational scenarios outlined throughout the OFFSET program. Proposers should envision aggressive engagement with swarm tactics developers and contributors to meet the stated goal of over 100 swarm tactics entries, demonstrated to be operable with the developed Swarm Systems Architecture.

Key sub-goals, as identified in Figure 4, that support this swarm tactics generation and assessment goal represent not only an aggressive pace of swarm tactics development, but also an emphasis on evaluating the performance and quality of the swarm tactics as well as the ease with which the overall architecture and associated swarm tactics infrastructure can be deployed to physical platforms.

For Human-Swarm Teaming, the goal for the advanced interfaces developed by the Swarm Systems Integrator(s) is to significantly revolutionize the ability to interact and engage with substantively large tactical swarm sizes to effect meaningful operational impact. Proposers should advance the interface, configuration, and supporting technologies to facilitate dynamic (i.e., “free-style”) and real-time interactions of swarm systems with over 100 swarm elements operating in concert and in support of the swarm mission.

Referring again to Figure 4, several sub-goals further accentuate the emphasis on intuitive interfaces for fluidly engaging large autonomous swarms, with the ability to conceive and author new swarm tactics quickly, to provide rich swarm decision support capabilities, and to further empower the human element of the swarm systems in conducting scalable, flexible swarm operations.

C. Program Structure

OFFSET is structured as a 42-month program effort, with six biannual capability-based experiments. The first phase extends for 18 months, with subsequent two phases conducted over 12 months each. This Broad Agency Announcement solicits proposals for the Swarm Systems Integrators, envisioned to perform throughout the duration of the OFFSET program.

Sprints will be initiated via “calls” for proposals issued as subsequent amendments to this BAA, with focus areas to be identified progressively as the program evolves, as illustrated notionally in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Notional depiction of components of the OFFSET program, including one or more Swarm Systems Integrators, multiple Swarm Sprinters, and periodic integration activities.

The duration of each Swarm Sprint is expected to be 6-9 months, to nominally include an option period to facilitate in-depth integration activities, nominally aligned (as dictated by the Sprint Topic) with the capability-based experiments for close interaction with the Swarm Systems Integrators to demonstrate the proposed component and integrated technologies.

C.1. OFFSET Capability-Based Experimentation A key component of the OFFSET program relies not only on the rapid generation of swarm tactics in game-based environments, but also on the realization, that is, the deployment and demonstration, of these developed swarm capabilities on physical swarm systems. As such, OFFSET Swarm System Architecture must be integrated and demonstrated in capability-based experiments (CBEs) to occur every six months at DARPA-designated test sites.

The intent of these capability-based experiments is to iteratively demonstrate and deliver minimum viable products, that is, it is more important to the Government to provide integrated functional capabilities, albeit incremental, at each capability-based experiment and interim integration milestones, rather than to present non-working component features. The goal is to deliver potential frequent tech off-ramps, which could manifest in the form of integration in ongoing warfighter assessment exercises, spin-off technology transition efforts, and/or Service-led developmental testing and evaluation activities.

The operational scenarios of interest, referred to as OFFSET Swarm Vignettes, will be designed and set forth in advance of each capability-based experiment, progressively increasing in complexity. An example of the small-scope vignette is a focus on isolating an urban objective, which will scale to a notional large-scope vignette of seizing key urban terrain [13] [14] .

Representative urban operational environments, tactical objectives, and Mission, Enemy, Terrain and Weather, Troops and Support Available, Time available, Civil Considerations (METT-TC) contexts are to be outlined for each experiment by DARPA and its Government Team and/or Service partners.

Demonstrations of integrated swarm capabilities, including swarm tactics development and execution via advanced swarm interfaces, are expected to utilize the swarm platforms (i.e., fixed-wing, multi-rotor, and/or ground robotic platforms) as proposed by Swarm Systems Integrators.

Significant technology development specifically for swarm system deployment (e.g., transport, charging, delivery of platforms) is not the focus of OFFSET; however, proposals are encouraged to consider and/or leverage experimentation solutions that account for such logistical challenges of swarm systems to better highlight novel insights and their impacts on swarm tactics.

OFFSET Swarm Systems Integrator(s) will create a swarm framework applicable to emerging needs for future urban warfare. OFFSET’s approach centered on swarm tactics facilitates more direct engagement between warfighters and technologists to generate operationally relevant swarm capabilities. Through agile development cycles embodied in these capability-based experiments, OFFSET will provide frequent technology off-ramps for rapid transition to the user community, which is expected to be the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army. This transition strategy will allow for the most successful components of the swarm architecture, including software, interface technologies, swarm tactics, integrated hardware solutions, and supporting tools, to be deployed expediently upon the completion of any capability based demonstration.

D. OFFSET Deliverables

Summarized and described below is a list of deliverables to be proposed by the Swarm Systems Integrator(s) for the OFFSET program.

OFFSET Deliverables Checklist At-a-Glance

1. Swarm Systems Architecture Design Document

2. Sprint Integration Plan

3. Experimentation Plan

4. Swarm Systems Platforms and Infrastructure Hardware

5. Software Development Kit and Documentation (Developers, Users)

6. Presentations, Technical Papers

7. Monthly Progress Reports

8. Final Report

Swarm Systems Architecture Design Document: Initial design documentation for each vignette shall be presented within one month after the kick off meeting for that vignette with an initial design document presented six months after initial contract award for the Swarm Systems Integrator. The architecture documentation shall describe the system in sufficient detail to permit an engineer to correctly implement the system without consulting the system designer. The algorithm documentation shall describe the algorithms in sufficient detail to permit a software engineer to correctly code the algorithms without consulting the algorithm designer.

Swarm Systems Hardware and Documentation: At the conclusion of the final vignette, the complete prototype system hardware shall be delivered. The delivered system shall be the same fully functional system used to perform the final capability based demonstration. The delivery is to include sufficient documentation so as to be completely operable, maintainable and modifiable with no reliance on any non-delivered hardware/documentation developed or procured under the OFFSET program.

Swarm Systems Software, Development Kit, and Documentation: All computer software developed or delivered under the OFFSET program must be delivered as source and as object (executable) code. Include the source listings and source code for the target computer systems. Delivered software under this effort is to be completely maintainable and modifiable with no reliance on any non-delivered computer programs or documentation. For all computer software purchased or licensed for use as a component of the software to be delivered, arrangements shall be made for licensing and maintenance agreements to be transferred to the Government at no additional cost upon the completion of the performer’s work under any contract awarded under this

BAA.

Note that it is desired that newly created noncommercial software, not proprietary, be provided as a deliverable to the Government with Unlimited Rights (procurement contract) or, at a minimum, with Government Purpose Rights (Other Transaction Agreement), as described in Section IV.B.4.e.

Documentation shall be provided within one month after the end of each vignette documenting source code, hardware description language specifications, system diagrams, and all other data necessary to maintain and to produce copies of the software. Documentation shall provide sufficient information for a tool developer to create applications that interface with this architecture.

Presentations and Technical Papers: Final presentations shall be submitted within one month after each review,…