HR001118S0016-Amendment-01.pdf

BAA# HR001118S0016 DARPA SUBTERRANEAN (SUBT) CHALLENGE

Broad Agency Announcement DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge Tactical Technology Office (TTO)

HR001118S0016

January 25, 2018

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

A.1. Motivation for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge A.2. Program Goals A.3. Illustrative Scenario

B. Program Description B.1. Competition Overview B.2. Technical Challenge Elements B.3. Scoring Criteria and Competition Rules

C. Program Structure C.1. Challenge Tracks C.2. Program Scope C.3. Funding C.4. Prizes

D. Challenge Infrastructure D.1. Program Initiation Meeting D.2. Challenge Kickoff D.3. Technical Interchange Meetings D.4. Circuits and Final Evaluations D.5. SubT Virtual Testbed

E. DARPA Subterranean Challenge Deliverables E.1. Systems Track A Deliverables E.2. Virtual Track C 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 i

B.2. Proposals

(a) Supporting Cost and Pricing Data:

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 (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. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) C. List of Attachments ii

PART I: OVERVIEW INFORMATION

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

Funding Opportunity Title – DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge

Announcement Type – Initial Announcement

Funding Opportunity Number – HR001118S0016

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

Dates o Posting Date: January 25, 2018 o Proposers Day: January 18, 2018, Arlington, VA o Abstracts Due: February 5, 2018, 1:00 p.m. (Eastern) o Questions Due: February 20, 2018, 5:00 p.m. (Eastern) o Proposals Due: March 23, 2018, 1:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Concise description of the funding opportunity – The goal of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge is to discover innovations that enable integrated and rapid mapping, navigation, and search of complex environments.

Total amount anticipated to be awarded – Approximately $40M total. It is anticipated that funding will be allocated as shown below:

Track A Up to $30M Track C Up to $6M Prizes Approximately $4M (prize authority being sought under 10 U.S.C. § 2374a)

Anticipated individual awards – DARPA intends to award multiple contracts as explained in Section I.C.

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:

SubTChallenge@darpa.mil mailto:SubTChallenge@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 advance technologies through both a systems and virtual competition that will enhance the ability to rapidly map, navigate, and search subterranean environments. 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

A.1. Motivation for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Subterranean environments remain, in many ways, a hidden domain in spite of being broadly relevant across a range of military and civilian applications. The challenges presented by subterranean environments can vary drastically across subdomains (depicted in Figure 1), which can include human-made tunnel systems, urban and municipal underground infrastructure, and natural cave networks. Tunnels can extend many kilometers in length and can include highly constrained passages, multiple levels, and vertical shafts. Alternatively, urban underground environments are often more structured and constructed out of man-made materials, but can have complex layouts that cover multiple stories and/or span multiple city blocks. Natural cave networks often have irregular geological structures, with both constrained passages and large caverns, and unpredictable topologies often stretching large distances in extent and depth.

Figure 1: Representative examples of diverse subterranean subdomains: tunnel systems, urban underground, and cave networks

Even under ideal conditions, these complex environments present significant challenges for subterranean situational awareness. However, in time-sensitive scenarios, whether in active combat operations or disaster response settings, warfighters and first responders alike are faced with a range of increased technical challenges, including difficult and dynamic terrains, unstable structures and obstacles, degraded environmental conditions, severe communication constraints, and expansive areas of operation. In many cases, these environments pose too great a risk to deploy personnel, and current technologies fail to provide the necessary rapid and remote mapping, navigation, and search capabilities.

The multi-faceted nature of these problems presents both a need and an opportunity for breakthrough innovations for public safety scenarios as well as a wide range of military, academic, and commercial applications, including infrastructure inspection, oil/gas/mining, construction, archeology, and scientific exploration. The DARPA Subterranean Challenge (a.k.a. the SubT Challenge) aims to bring together multi-disciplinary teams and industries across disparate fields to establish a broader research community and develop these innovative leap-ahead capabilities.

Teams participating in the challenge will be tasked with designing and developing systems that address the challenges of subterranean environments across all three subdomains. DARPA is seeking authority under 10 U.S.C. § 2374a to stimulate innovations using prize competitions.

A.2. Program Goals The primary goal of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge is to discover innovative solutions that can rapidly and remotely map, navigate, and search complex environments, including human-made tunnel systems, urban and municipal underground infrastructure, and natural cave networks. Given the complex problem space presented by these environments, the DARPA Subterranean Challenge seeks to inspire and realize technological breakthroughs to offer key insights into:

Disruptive concepts of operations that both enable and exploit the capability to conduct rapid and autonomous subterranean missions; and

Composition of system capabilities to offer freedom of mobility at operationally relevant speeds in complex, unpredictable, and diverse subterranean environments.

The variety of built-in challenge elements and the competition structure itself are intended to address the secondary goal of increasing the diversity, versatility, cost-effectiveness, and robustness of relevant technologies and systems capable of addressing the myriad needs of a wide range of environments rather than serving single-purpose uses with specifically tailored solutions.

Another goal of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge is to establish a collaborative community by bringing together multi-disciplinary teams and cross-cutting approaches across disparate fields to tackle the autonomy, perception, networking, and mobility needs of the subterranean domain. To encourage a broader range of participants, the SubT Challenge includes both a physical Systems competition as well as a software-only Virtual competition. Teams in the Systems competition will develop and demonstrate physical systems in real-world environments, which will emphasize the interdisciplinary nature of fielding integrated solutions. Teams in the Virtual competition will use virtual models of systems, environments, and terrain to compete in simulation-based events that will focus effort on software-driven innovations.

To initiate such cross-cutting approaches, DARPA will develop the SubT Virtual Testbed comprising an extensible and validated simulation environment, automated testing and assessment tools, and associated software support infrastructure to be provided as government-furnished equipment (GFE). Teams in both the Systems and Virtual competitions will leverage this suite of GFE simulation tools to accelerate the development and evaluation of their proposed solutions. It is anticipated that this testbed will have a dramatic and long-lasting positive impact on the broader military, academic, and commercial communities by providing a way to explore the unique challenges of the subterranean domain and evaluate potential solutions in a scalable and extensible simulation environment.

A.3. Illustrative Scenario The primary scenario of interest for the SubT Challenge is providing rapid situational awareness for a team of warfighters or first responders operating in unknown and dynamic environments. The layout of the environment is unknown, could degrade or change over time (i.e., dynamic terrain), and is too high-risk to send in personnel. Potential representative scenarios involve rescue efforts in collapsed mines, post-earthquake search and rescue in urban underground settings, and/or cave rescue operations for injured or lost spelunkers. Additional scenarios include a range of military missions in which teams of systems could be sent in advance of warfighters to perform rapid search and mapping in support of follow-on operations. These scenarios present significant dangers that would preclude employing a human team, such as collapsed and unstable structures or debris, presence of hazardous materials, lack of ventilation, and potential for smoke and/or fire.

To effectively respond in these situations, teams will need to rapidly and remotely explore and exploit complex and unknown environments at large scales. The proposed systems will need to be capable of navigating the challenging terrains and obstacles found across the three subdomains.

As the systems build a context-dependent map of the environment, they will also need to search for objects of interest, which could vary in size, quantity, and detection signatures (e.g., visual, thermal, chemical).

Such complex environments are expected to present diverse morphologies, ranging from, e.g., crawl spaces, branches and dead ends, vertical shafts, larger open expanses to densely cluttered environments. The courses could vary in length from hundreds to thousands of meters, resulting in mission durations ranging from tens of minutes to several hours. Further, given the scenario’s need for urgency, it is not expected that manual and time-consuming teleoperation of individual systems is viable due to both severe communications constraints and large spatial scales of these settings.

B. Program Description

The goal of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge is to advance innovative solutions to map, navigate, and search complex subterranean environments at high operational tempos. The challenge elements and scoring objectives are designed to drive innovation in developing integrated solutions that address gaps in autonomy, perception, networking, and mobility required to operate in widely varying subterranean settings. This section provides an overview of the Challenge and describes how the technical elements relate to the DARPA Subterranean Challenge vision. Further details regarding the rules and scoring of the Challenge are to be provided at a later date.

B.1. Competition Overview The DARPA Subterranean Challenge is organized into two competitions (Systems and Virtual), each with two tracks (DARPA-funded and self-funded). Teams in the Systems tracks will develop and demonstrate physical systems to compete in live competitions on physical, representative subterranean courses. Teams in the Virtual tracks will develop software and algorithms using virtual models of systems, environments, and terrain to compete in simulation-based events.

The two competitions are designed to cross-fertilize and accelerate development across both Systems and Virtual track participants. The objectives, rules, and events for the two competitions are closely related, but provide different avenues for development of innovative approaches and technologies. The Systems competition focuses on advancing and evaluating novel physical solutions in realistic field environments, while the Virtual competition explores larger-scale runs in virtual environments that explore significantly expanded scenario sizes and durations.

The Systems and Virtual competitions will each hold concurrent and coordinated Challenge events to include three Circuit Events and a Final Event, each motivated by an illustrative vignette that will provide context and constraints for the map, navigate, and search mission.

The three Circuit events (a.k.a. the Tunnel Circuit, Urban Circuit, and Cave Circuit) will each focus on one of the three subdomains, and are intended to promote frequent “build-test-compete” iterations within and among all participating teams. For Systems teams, Circuit events will be held at selected sites based on the relevant subdomain’s distinguishing characteristics. Virtual teams will have similar virtual Circuit Events, presented with synthetic test courses also focused on a specific subdomain, but at larger spatial and temporal scales.

The Final Event will combine elements of all three subdomains into a single integrated challenge course (as notionally illustrated in Figure 2) to demonstrate the versatility of solutions developed.

Figure 2: Notional concept for an integrated subterranean competition course, illustrating elements of tunnel systems, urban underground, and cave networks

Teams are charged with pursuing high-risk, high-reward approaches to meet and exceed the objectives of the Circuits and Final Events, and are motivated by the potential for winning monetary prizes and/or incentivized by possible continued funding. Those teams selected to receive DARPA contract awards must continue to excel, as continued funding is based, in part, by their performance in these events. Such DARPA-funded teams also have the opportunity to compete for the prizes in the Final Events. Self-funded teams are competing for prize money rewarding high performance at each of the Circuits, in addition to the prizes in the Final Events.

To support the efforts in both competitions, DARPA will develop the SubT Virtual Testbed, an extensible and validated Gazebo-based simulation environment, automated testing and assessment tools, and associated software support infrastructure to be provided as government-furnished equipment (GFE). The SubT Virtual Testbed will be developed to emulate as many of the same subterranean environments and characteristics that will be presented in the physical competition and as realistically as possible. Upon initial release of its core elements ahead of the Challenge Kickoff, continuous integration and deployment of updates and features to the SubT Virtual Testbed are expected through frequent stable releases. DARPA intends to make the SubT Virtual Testbed available to all SubT Challenge competitors across both Systems and Virtual competitions. Competitors will leverage this DARPA-provided simulation environment for development and assessment of their proposed solutions.

As part of their interim deliverables, DARPA-funded Systems teams must provide virtual models of their developmental systems. DARPA will work with each of the Systems teams to perform physical validation of the virtual models and ensure that these models reflect sufficient fidelity (e.g., geometry, kinematics, performance) for integration and use in the SubT Virtual Testbed. For any unconventional approaches that may be proposed, DARPA will work with those teams to determine an appropriate virtual model on a case-by-case basis. These verified virtual models (and any revisions) will help populate the “SubT Tech Repo” – an online catalog of subterranean technologies – alongside other candidate virtual models of Government-developed and/or commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems.

The Virtual track competitors will then be able to “mix and match” using one or more models selected from the SubT Tech Repo, load their own respective software-based innovations, and compete against a field of other capability mixes. As such, Virtual track teams will not only aim to compose the best combination of available capabilities, but will also seek to optimize their software (e.g., algorithms for mapping, navigation, and search in subterranean environments) to best take advantage of those capabilities. Relevant mission constraints (e.g., total cost, packed volume, power budget), as presented in the event vignettes, will further influence this optimization. Virtual competitors must use existing models from the SubT Tech Repo. Development and use of custom mobility or sensor hardware models by Virtual teams is not permitted.

The program is organized into three phases as illustrated in Figure 3:

Phase 1: Systems track teams will have approximately 12 months to complete their baseline design, development, integration, and testing of their proposed solutions. As part of this effort, the Systems teams will develop and provide DARPA with a virtual model of their systems for inclusion in the SubT Tech Repo. Virtual track teams will have approximately 12 months to develop, integrate, and test their software-based solutions using an initial release of the SubT Tech Repo.

Figure 3: Notional program structure and schedule for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge

Phase 1 will culminate with the Tunnel Circuit events for both Systems and Virtual tracks. The Systems Tunnel Circuit is anticipated to be approximately a week-long event with teams deploying their systems in a physical competition course. The Virtual Tunnel Circuit will be conducted at approximately the same time via online (remote) participation, competing in synthetic courses that share similar characteristics as their physical counterparts, but at greater spatial and temporal scales.

Phase 2: Systems track teams will participate in two additional Circuit Events – the Urban Circuit and Cave Circuit – to be held at sites relevant to their respective subdomains. The Virtual track teams will again have similar Virtual Circuits with synthetic competition courses that include similar course elements at greater spatial and temporal scales. In Phase 2, Virtual competitors will have access to newly validated system models included in the SubT Tech Repo, which were generated and provided by the DARPA-funded Systems teams during Phase 1 development.

Phase 3: Teams in both Systems and Virtual Track competitions will continue development, refinement, and testing, culminating with their respective Final Events.

The Final Event courses will combine elements from each of the three subdomains into a single integrated competition course as notionally illustrated in Figure 2. Systems teams that are selected for Phase 3 will provide updated virtual models of their systems, which will again be validated by DARPA, added to the SubT Tech Repo, and promptly released to the Virtual Teams ahead of the Final Event.

B.2. Technical Challenge Elements The Circuits and the Finals competition courses will be designed to assess performance across various challenge elements, including: austere navigation, degraded sensing, severe communication constraints, terrain obstacles, dynamic terrain, and endurance limits. These challenge elements will also be encoded into the SubT Virtual Testbed to the fullest extent possible.

1. Austere Navigation: The challenge courses are expected to include features such as multiple levels, inclines, loops, dead-ends, slip-inducing terrain interfaces, and sharp turns.

Such environments with limited visibility, difficult terrain, and/or sparse features can lead to significant localization error and drift over the duration of an extended run. Proposed systems will need to be capable of navigating in complex environments without the use of GPS. Considerations should be made for geological and physical content of the subterranean environment that impact such navigation methods.

2. Degraded Sensing: The courses are expected to include elements that range from constrained passages to large openings, lighted areas to complete darkness, and wet to dusty conditions. Perception and proprioceptive sensors will need to reliably operate in these low-light, obscured, and/or scattering environments while having the dynamic range to accommodate such varying conditions. Dust, fog, mist, water, and smoke are within scope of this challenge element. Extreme temperatures, fire, and hazardous materials are not expected to be within scope. Various sensor modalities and combinations will be allowed, including but not limited to: LIDAR, acoustic, visual, RF, tactile, RADAR, gravity, compass/magnetic, wind, and chemical. The SubT Virtual Testbed will incorporate as many of these sensing challenge elements and modalities as possible, with priority given to those that are more readily observed in real-world subterranean environments and/or more aligned with operational needs.

3. Severe Comms: Limited line-of-sight, RF propagation challenges, and effects of varying geology in subterranean environments impose significant impediments to reliable networking and communications links. The physical competition courses as well as the SubT Virtual Testbed environments will be designed to include these severe communications constraints to the extent possible. Proposers are encouraged to consider innovative approaches to overcome these constraints, including novel combinations of hardware, software, waveforms, protocols, distributed or dispersed concepts, and/or deployment methods.

4. Terrain Obstacles: Proposed systems will be required to demonstrate robustness in navigating a range of mobility-stressing terrain features and obstacles. Terrain elements and obstacles may include constrained passages, sharp turns, large drops/climbs, inclines, steps, ladders, and mud, sand, and/or water. The environments may include organic or human-made materials; structured or unstructured clutter; and intact or collapsed structures and debris.

5. Dynamic Terrain: Terrain features and obstacles may also include dynamic elements, which could include, e.g., mobile obstacles, moving walls and barriers, falling debris, and/or other physical changes to the environment that test the agility of the system autonomy to reason, react, and potentially recover from the possibility of a changing map.

6. Endurance Limits: While the physical course designs may be constrained by practical limits in their spatial scales, it is expected that proposed systems will need to be capable of a team-aggregated endurance between 30–180 minutes to be mission-relevant. Virtual teams are likely to be tasked with mapping, navigating, and searching courses with potentially much longer durations. These requirements are driven by the desire to explore operationally relevant spatial and temporal scales within the context of time and logistics constraints of executing the competition events. This aggregate endurance requirement may require novel deployment concepts, energy-aware planning, heterogeneous agents of varying endurance, energy harvesting or transfer technologies, and/or a combination of various approaches to overcome the various challenge elements.

Combined, these technical challenge elements highlight some of the unique challenges presented to systems that operate in subterranean environments. DARPA is interested in proposals that offer holistic approaches to addressing these challenge elements.

Competing teams will be assessed based on technological progress to be evaluated at each of the three (Tunnel, Urban, Cave) Circuit Events as well as the Final Events. DARPA seeks breakthrough capabilities beyond the current state-of-the-art.

B.3. Scoring Criteria and Competition Rules The scoring criteria and competition rules are anticipated to be released by Challenge Kickoff.

DARPA expects to apply the following context in their formulation.

The primary scenario of interest for the SubT Challenge is providing rapid situational awareness for a team of warfighters or first responders operating in unknown and dynamic environments. The layout of the environment is unknown, could degrade or change over time (i.e., dynamic terrain), and is too high-risk to send in personnel. The proposed systems would be deployed to provide rapid situational awareness through mapping of the unknown environment and localization of objects of interest (e.g., electrical boxes, leaking valves). As the systems explore and map the environment, it will be crucial to provide these situational awareness updates via reach-back to human emergency personnel in as close to real-time as possible. The urgency in completing the course objectives and providing near-real-time situational awareness updates will be a consistent focus of the competition.

Given the large-scale nature and complexity of subterranean environments, it is anticipated that “systems of systems” could provide a distributed approach to rapid exploration and mapping as well as a heterogeneous approach to navigating and searching the competition course in a way that may not be feasible with a single mobility approach. The courses might include small passages, sharp turns, large drops/climbs, mud, water, and other mobility-stressing terrain features and obstacles. Challenge participants should expect, for example, both constrained areas with human-crawlable cross sections as well as larger underground open spaces that could include large ledges or vertical shafts. No breaching, burrowing, or use of explosives will be permitted.

Additionally, there may be a variety of objects of interests relevant to each of the three subdomains. Competition objectives will include the need to search for, detect, and provide georeferenced locations of these objects of interest, which could vary in their size, quantity, and detection signatures (e.g., visual, thermal, chemical). Examples of possible objects of interest include electrical boxes, leaking valves, smoke sources, exposed wires, doors or panels, and hand tools. Such detection and/or recognition tasks may benefit from in-situ data-gathering capabilities by physical systems maneuvering through the course.

The operational scenario suggests that approaches should be highly autonomous without need for substantive human interventions; capable of remotely mapping and/or navigating complex and dynamic terrain; and able to operate with degraded and unreliable communication links.

Systems teams are envisioned to have a single human supervisor at a “command post” external to the course; however, teams should expect to provide only high-level interactions due to the degraded communications network. DARPA may intentionally degrade communications fidelity by reducing link availability, increasing latency, and/or limiting quality of service. The scoring objectives anticipate inclusion of penalties based on the amount of data transmitted from the command station to their systems. Teams are encouraged to utilize interfaces that enable effective human monitoring despite degraded communication. It is not expected that manual teleoperation of individual systems will be a viable strategy. No manual physical intervention or entry by (human) team members on the course will be permitted.

Virtual teams will be required to develop solutions that map, navigate, and search entirely autonomously with no human operator interactions; however, proposed solutions should account for the need to present relevant information to a virtual “command post” to provide near-real-time situational awareness updates.

As the proposed system maps, navigates, and searches for objects of interest, teams should expect and plan for some level of failures and/or attrition. Such incapacitation could occur due to, e.g., inability to overcome obstacles, failed interactions with dynamic terrain (e.g., moving walls), loss in communications, or reaching of endurance limits. Proposed approaches should address such possibilities in their system design and/or contingency planning so as to enable continued operations and execution of the competition run.

DARPA is interested in proposed solutions that are cost-effective, attrition-tolerant, and capable of addressing the spatial and temporal challenges of rapidly mapping and navigating complex environments. Due to the likely broader impact of more cost-effective solutions, proposals that minimize component and systems costs, that is, those that emphasize system affordability, will be seen as positively aligning with evaluation criteria (i.e., “Potential Contribution and Relevance to the DARPA Mission”). As appropriate, DARPA may introduce explicit cost constraints to the fielded systems, e.g., limits on unit and/or aggregate systems costs.

Candidate scoring criteria include the following (not in priority order, and not an exhaustive enumeration):

Successful maneuver through course elements

Course completion time

Map fidelity, registration accuracy, or completeness

Location accuracy and identification of objects of interest

DARPA may tune the various competition design elements to drive innovation and investment.

Anticipated “tuning knobs” include course terrain difficulty, course length and/or duration, and communications constraints. Proposals offering robust, versatile approaches that can adapt to and overcome such variable adjustments are of high interest to DARPA.

C. Program Structure

This section describes the programmatic details as a funded performer in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge.

C.1. Challenge Tracks Competitors may enter the DARPA Subterranean Challenge via one of the following four distinct tracks outlined in Table 1. The Challenge is organized into two competitions (Systems and Virtual), each with two tracks for DARPA-funded and self-funded competitors.

Track Description

Track A DARPA-funded

Must submit a proposal to this BAA to be considered.

Selected Systems teams will receive a contract award. They must participate in Systems Circuit Events to be considered for the next phase of funding.

Sy st em s

C om pe tit io n

Track B Self-funded

Should not submit a proposal to this BAA. Systems teams that are self-funded will be required to qualify (per below) to compete in any of the Systems Circuits and Final Event.

Track C DARPA-funded

Must submit a proposal to this BAA to be considered.

Selected Virtual teams will receive a contract award. They must participate in Virtual Circuit Events to be considered for the next phases of funding.

V ir tu al

C om pe tit io n

Track D Self-funded

Should not submit a proposal to this BAA. Virtual teams that are self-funded will be required to qualify (per below) to compete in any of the three Virtual Circuits and Final Event.

Table 1: Descriptions of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Tracks

Teams that intend to follow Track B or Track D should not respond to this BAA and instead will be required to qualify prior to each Circuit Event and Final Event per posted guidelines.

The qualification process is anticipated to include a short abstract providing details on technical approach and safety features. It is also possible that certain aspects of a Track B or Track D performer’s systems would need to be demonstrated to DARPA to verify safety and operator competency. Track B and Track D performers should also be prepared to host DARPA personnel who will conduct site visits to verify competition level of readiness.

If submitting a proposal for both Track A and Track C, proposers must submit separate proposals. Note that although proposals may be submitted for consideration for Track A and Track C, it is anticipated that a team may only be awarded a contract for either Track A or Track C.

Proposers whose proposals to Track A or Track C are not selected for funding will still be eligible to participate as self-funded teams in Track B or Track D, provided that they complete the associated qualification guidelines.

C.2. Program Scope C.2.a. Track A Scope

Phase 1: During the 12-month Phase 1, Track A teams will complete the baseline design, development, integration, and testing of their proposed solutions. The main development effort in this phase will culminate in a Critical Design Review (CDR) no later than month eight (8), during which the performer will present as deliverables a Technical Data Package and a Simulation Package.

The Technical Data Package will include (as appropriate) the following items:

Mechanical and electrical performance specifications

Computer-aided design (CAD) models of system(s) with all components (hardware, actuators, sensors, electronics)

Other design files (e.g., wiring diagrams, electrical board schematics)

Bill of materials, quotes, lead times of all major components, build plan and schedule

Mechanical, electrical, and data architecture design, including diagrams of architectures, interfaces, protocols, etc.

The Simulation Package will provide virtual models of the system(s) for inclusion in the SubT Tech Repo and will include (as appropriate) the following items:

CAD model of the system(s) for visualization in a Gazebo-compatible format. Models are not required to reveal proprietary design features. A relatively low-resolution model is often preferred for accelerated rendering purposes as long as it faithfully represents the system’s external appearance.

Faithful representation of system mobility, kinematics, and actuation in a Gazebo-compatible format. Teams should describe, reference, and/or include low-level interfaces (e.g., drivers) necessary for basic mobility.

Sensor models that faithfully represent sensing modality and performance as a Gazebo-compatible plugin.

Note: Track A Teams are not required to include perception, navigation, or advanced locomotion algorithms, but may include as much as they are willing to share to encourage teams in Track C and Track D to use their model submissions in the SubT Tech Repo.

Phase 1 culminates with the Tunnel Circuit event, which is expected to be approximately a week-long event with teams deploying their system(s) in the competition course. The results from the Tunnel Circuit will be used by DARPA, in part, to inform the decision to fund contract options for Phase 2.

Phase 2: During the 12-month Phase 2, Track A teams will continue their development efforts and participate in two additional Circuit Events – the Urban Circuit and Cave Circuit – to be held at sites relevant to their respective subdomains. In Phase 2, teams will need to demonstrate that their proposed systems provide holistic and versatile solutions to all of the challenge elements presented by the varied environments across all three subdomains. Team performance in the Urban Circuit and Cave Circuit will be used by DARPA, in part, to inform the decision to fund contract options for Phase 3.

One (1) month before the Cave Circuit, Track A teams must provide an updated Simulation Package that reflects any newly introduced systems models; updates to previous designs; or revisions of performance characteristics to be added to the SubT Tech Repo and released to the Virtual Teams before the Final Event.

Phase 3: During the 12-month Phase 3, Track A teams will continue their development, refinement, and testing efforts and participate in the Final Event. The Final Event course will combine elements from each of the three subdomains into a single integrated Final course as notionally illustrated in Figure 2. Upon completing the Final Event, Track A teams must provide a Final Technical Data Package, Final Report, and other deliverables as listed in Section I.E.1.

C.2.b. Track C Scope Phase 1: During the 12-month Phase 1, Track C performers will focus on integration within the SubT Virtual Testbed and will compete in the Tunnel Circuit in month twelve (12).

Track C teams will begin Phase 1 with an initial release of the SubT Tech Repo populated with Government-developed and/or commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems models, highlighting a variety of mobility methods (e.g., aerial, ground) and a range of common sensor modalities. Teams will compose their own combination of systems models and develop the necessary algorithms and software solutions to address the challenge elements in the Tunnel Circuit.

Phase 1 culminates with the Tunnel Circuit, which is expected to occur at approximately the same time as the Systems Tunnel Circuit, and will include similar course characteristics, but at larger spatial and temporal scales. The results from the Tunnel Circuit will be used by DARPA, in part, to inform contract award decisions for Phase 2.

Phase 2: During the 12-month Phase 2, Track C teams will continue their development efforts and participate in two additional Circuit Events, i.e., the Urban Circuit and Cave Circuit.

Early in Phase 2, DARPA will release a major update to the SubT Tech Repo, which will contain additional validated system models generated and provided by the DARPA-funded Systems teams during Phase 1. Track C teams will have access to the expanded SubT Tech Repo, which may offer additional capabilities with which they may improve their respective solutions in addressing the challenge elements presented in the Urban Circuit and Cave Circuit. The Urban Circuit and Cave Circuit will again include similar course characteristics as their respective Systems Circuit courses, but at larger spatial and temporal scales. Team performance in the Urban Circuit and Cave Circuit will be used by DARPA, in part, to inform contract award decisions for Phase 3.

Phase 3: During the 12-month Phase 3, Track C teams will continue their development, refinement, and testing efforts and participate in the Final Event.

Early in Phase 3, DARPA will release another major update to the SubT Tech Repo, which will contain additional validated system models generated and provided by the DARPA-funded Systems teams during Phase 2.

The Final Event course will combine elements from each of the three subdomains into a single integrated Final course as notionally illustrated in Figure 2. After the Final Event, Track C teams must provide a Final Report and other deliverables as listed in Section I.E.2.

C.3. Funding The program has planned the following funding for Track A and Track C performer teams.

This plan is subject to changes based on the number of qualified teams and available resources.

Track Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 # Teams Up to Six (6) Up to Six (6) Up to Six (6)A Funding $1.5M per team $1.5M per team $1.5M per team

# Teams Up to Eight (8) Up to Eight (8) Up to Six (6)C Funding $250K per team $250K per team $250K per team Table 2: Funding Table for DARPA-funded teams

Track A and Track C funding will be split into a Phase 1 base (Tunnel Circuit) with costed options for Phase 2 (Urban Circuit, Cave Circuit) and Phase 3 (Final Event), as illustrated in Figure 3. Decisions to exercise contract options will be based on performance in the Circuit Events and DARPA’s assessment of progress towards achieving the technical goals of the program.

C.4. Prizes Circuit Events: Self-funded teams in Track B and Track D will compete for monetary prizes to be announced at the Challenge Kickoff. DARPA-funded teams from Track A and Track C are not be eligible for these prizes.

Systems Final Event: Teams in Track A and Track B will compete for monetary prizes, anticipated to be approximately $2M.

Virtual Final Event: Teams in Track C and Track D will compete for monetary prizes, anticipated to be approximately $750K.

Note: DARPA is seeking prize authority under 10 U.S.C. § 2374a.

D. Challenge Infrastructure

D.1. Program Initiation Meeting DARPA will hold a workshop for contracted Track A and Track C teams to discuss technical approaches and execution plans, anticipated to occur in early Fall of 2018 upon contract award.

D.2. Challenge Kickoff DARPA will hold a public event shortly after the Program Initiation Meeting to mark the official kickoff of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge and announce the structure, rules, important dates, and prizes of the Circuits and Final Event. These details will apply to both

DARPA-funded and self-funded teams across both Systems and Virtual competitions. Further details of the Challenge Kickoff event will be provided at a later date.

D.3. Technical Interchange Meetings DARPA encourages vibrant information exchange and collaborative interactions among all SubT Challenge participants, to include DARPA technical staff, representatives from Challenge teams, infrastructure developers, and other Government partners. To that end, DARPA will host several Technical Interchange Meetings, which will offer a forum for community building and cross-pollination of technical ideas and approaches:

Technical Interchange Meeting in preparation for Tunnel Circuit

Technical Interchange Meeting in preparation for Cave Circuit

Technical Interchange Meeting in preparation for the Final Event

DARPA Subterranean Challenge “Lessons Learned” Workshop

D.4. Circuits and Final Evaluations The program will host a series of evaluations, namely the three Circuit Events and the Final Events, which will assess each competing team’s approaches in representative subterranean environments.

1. Systems Competition: Systems track teams in Track A and Track B will bring their systems to a physical site, which will be identified no later than six months before each event. Systems teams can expect that these evaluations will take approximately one week and will be based in the continental United States. In their proposals, Systems competitors should plan for their team to travel in support of the four (4) Challenge events, and for key team members to travel to the four (4) Technical Interchange Meetings.

2. Virtual Competition: Virtual track teams in Track C and Track D will compete remotely via online submissions for each Circuit Event. Details on submitting software and competition execution will be provided at a later date; teams can expect to submit software products for execution and evaluation by DARPA. The Final Event for the Virtual competitors will be co-located and concurrent with the Systems Final Event.

As such, Virtual teams should plan in their proposals for travel to attend and support their effort at the Final Event venue, in addition to travel of key team members to the four (4) in-person Technical Interchange Meetings.

D.5. SubT Virtual Testbed The SubT Virtual Testbed, to be provided as GFE, is planned to be released by the Program Initiation Meeting and is anticipated to be based on the Gazebo simulator. The SubT Virtual Testbed can be expected to include the following:

Support for variety of mobility methods, including but not limited to, air- and ground-based mobility platforms

Support for wide range of commonly used sensors, potentially including LIDAR, acoustic, visual, RF, RADAR, gravity, compass/magnetic, and logical/fiducials

Variety of subterranean test environments across all three subdomains with varying degrees of complexity and spatial scales

Ability to emulate some level of networking and communications constraints approaching those experienced in subterranean environments

Ability to run simulations both locally and through approved cloud service providers

Access to automated testing and assessment tools

Documentation and technical support forums

Anticipating continuous integration and improvement of features and capabilities, DARPA intends to provide an initial release by the Program Initiation Meeting, followed by stable releases of updates and enhancements. Limited allocations of cloud-computing resources will be provided by DARPA for the execution of the Virtual Circuits and Final Events. Further details will be provided with release of the SubT Virtual Testbed software and accompanying documentation.

E. DARPA Subterranean Challenge Deliverables

SubT Challenge deliverables, separated by track, are detailed below.

E.1. Systems Track A Deliverables Deliverable: Phase 1 Technical Data Package

Frequency: At Critical Design Review Format: Competitor-defined formats Description: Provide a full design technical data package (refer to Section I.C.2 for more details)

Deliverable: Phase 1 Simulation Package Frequency: At Critical Design Review Format: Gazebo-compatible models (SDF/URDF); driver/plugin software Description: Develop a simulation package of the system(s) in the SubT Virtual Testbed for inclusion in the SubT Tech Repo (refer to Section I.C.2 for more details)

Deliverable: Phase 2 Simulation Package Frequency: 1 month before Cave Circuit Format: Gazebo-compatible models (SDF/URDF); driver/plugin software Description: Update to the simulation package incorporating any updates or additions made to the systems and models in Phase 2

Deliverable: Phase 3 Simulation Package

Frequency: 1 month before Final Event Format: Gazebo-compatible models (SDF/URDF); driver/plugin software Description: Final revision to the simulation package incorporating any updates or additions made to the systems and models in Phase 3

Deliverable: Model Validation Sessions Frequency: Within 3 months of submitting updated Simulation Packages Format: N/A Description: Access to hardware provided to DARPA for the purpose of validating the mobility and sensor models of the virtual system models. This may be performed on-site at a performer location or possibly as part of the check-in process at the Challenge events

Deliverable: Progress Report Frequency: Monthly Format: Microsoft PowerPoint Description: Summary of technical accomplishments, planned actions for the next reporting period, graphical representations of work being completed, and relevant financial information

Deliverable: Circuit Report Frequency: 1 month after each Circuit Event Format: Microsoft Word; supporting videos Description: A technical report on the team’s performance at the Circuit, including details on success, failures, analyses of causes, and video highlights of the event

Deliverable: Project Documentation Frequency: As required Format: Contractor-defined formats Description: Relevant documentation developed over the course of the program, e.g., registration materials, qualification packages, briefings, technical papers and presentations, posters, multimedia, graphics

Deliverable: Final Report Frequency: Prior to contract completion Format: Microsoft Word; supporting videos Description: Detailed description of the project effort, tasks, technical approach, testing and event results, analysis of results, and lessons learned. Include revised Technical Data Package incorporating any updates or additions since Phase 1

E.2. Virtual Track C Deliverables Deliverable: Software

Frequency: As required, to be specified in Challenge rules Format: Software package (e.g., Docker container) Description: Teams will submit their software (e.g., source code and/or binaries via

Docker containers) for the three Circuit Events and the Final Event by associated qualification deadlines and submission deadlines

Deliverable: Progress Report Frequency: Monthly Format: Microsoft PowerPoint Description: Summary of technical accomplishments, planned actions for the next reporting period, graphical representations of work being completed, and relevant financial information

Deliverable: Circuit Report Frequency: 1 month after each Circuit Event Format: Microsoft Word; supporting videos Description: A technical report on the team’s performance at the Circuit, including details on success, failures, analyses of causes, and highlights of the event

Deliverable: Project Documentation Frequency: As required Format: Contractor-defined formats Description: Relevant documentation developed over the course of the program, e.g., registration materials, qualification packages, briefings, technical papers and presentations, posters, multimedia, graphics

Deliverable: Final Report Frequency: Prior to contract completion Format: Microsoft Word; supporting videos Description: Detailed description of the project effort, tasks, technical approach, testing and event results, analysis of results, and lessons learned

II. Award Information

A. General…