JandA (Redacted).docx

JUSTIFICATION REVIEW DOCUMENT

FAR PART 6 JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN

FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

Programs/Equipment: Oakwood Electronics L.L.C. Common Sensor Radios

Authority: 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(1) as implemented by FAR Part 6.302-1 -- Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.

Amount: [REDACTED]

Prepared by: [REDACTED]

Technical: [REDACTED]

Requirements: [REDACTED]

Reviews: I have reviewed this justification and find it adequate to support other than full and open competition.

Program Manager:

Control No: JA-22-Adel-679 Contractor: Oakwood Electronics L.L.C Supply/Service: Common Sensor Radio

FAR Part 6 Justification and Approval for Other than Full and Open Competition

1a. Contracting Activity: Adelphi Contracting Division, Army Contracting Command - Aberdeen Proving Ground (Soldier, Chemical, Research & Test), ACC-APG (SCRT), 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, Maryland 20783-1138.

1b. Requiring Activity: The United States (U.S.) Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Computational & Information Sciences Directorate (CISD), [REDACTED], 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, Maryland 20783-1138.

2. Description of Action: The Tactical Network Assurance Branch requests a Cost type contract with Oakwood Electronics, L.L.C. (261 Winding Ridge Lane, Winchester, Virginia, 22603-1640, Unique Entity ID: RPLUK5KPRG14, CAGE Code: 3HSH1). The Government projects award for August 2022 and fiscal year 2022 a short of award Purchase Request (PR) has been issued for this action.

An acquisition plan is not required because this procurement either does not meet the threshold at Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement 207.103(d)(i), or is an R&D acquisition and does not meet the definition of services in 10 U.S.C. 2330(c)(2).

3. Description of Supplies/Services:

The Common Sensor Radio (CSR) isa military-grade self-healing mesh network radio product that has of over 15 years of Research and Development (R&D) and currenty in its fourth (4th) iteration. The CSR, which was originally called the ARL Blue Radio, was augmented by Oakwood Electronics L.L.C. in collaboration with the ARL Scientific and Engineering (S&E) community to address the unique challenges faced by the DoD; this collaboration resulted in the creation of prototypes that have been used successfullyby ARL in R&D and field exercises. ARL and the United States Marine Corps (USMC) require the procurement of 85 units of the CSRs.

Period of Performance: 12 months Total Value: [REDACTED]

4. Authority Cited: 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: In Fiscal Year 2010, Oakwood submitted a proposal entitled “Blue Radio Enhancements and an Optical Communications Peripheral for the Blue Radio (BREOCP)” in response to the Sensor Network Communications Topic of the Army Research Laboratory and Army Research Office Broad Agency Announcement (W911NF-07-R-0001) to which Oakwood Electroncis was the sole interested vendor. Under the Sensor Network Communications Topic, ARL sought for proposals in the following areas of interest in order to develop communication devices and technologies for unattended sensors:

a. Ad-hoc network protocols;

b. Security protocols;

c. Robust anti-jam (AJ)/ low probability of detection (LPD) waveforms;

d. Energy efficient modems;

e. Energy efficient RF front-ends and components;

f. Low power signal processing;

g. Small broadband antenna;

h. Forward-error-correction;

i. Integration of sensor and communications processing; and

j. Efficient integration of sensor and communications into unattended sensors.

Technologies supporting unattended sensors are a signifcant area of interest to ARL with several Department of Defense (DOD) applications. For example, fielded sensor communication systems, such as radios, have been a major limiting factor in the utility of Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS). UGS are critical to maintaining battlefield situational awareness as they provide capabilities such as remote sensing; target detection, location and classification; and remote imaging. Among the many shortcomings, many existing radio communication systems do not have autonomous mesh networking capabilities, do not perform duty cycling of the receivers to reduce battery consumption, and have limited data rate capability.

The ad hoc and rapid deployment of UGS, their use in challenging tactical environments, and their unattended nature all present challenges to convention radio techniques and systems.

Deploying many UGS in ad hoc configurations, often potentially using unconventional means, requires that the UGS establish a communications network with minimal user intervention. These systems operate in a dynamic tactical environment, and the network of UGS itself can be dynamic as systems enter and leave the network and/or establish and lose connectivity. For these reasons, and given that the unattended nature of UGS precludes manual intervention, mesh networking protocols that automatically adapt to the environment to establish and continuously reconfigure the network are necessary.

The unattended nature of UGS also implies that these systems must be able to operate for long periods of time without manual replacement of energy. Size limitations on these system preclude excessive battery size, implying that UGS, including the communication network subsystem, must operate with high energy efficiency.

In addition, challenging, high variable environments associated with near-ground communications and highly varying deployment configurations, require that UGS communications provide high dynamic range of operation and, particularly in extremely challenging high path-loss situations, low communications overhead (so as to reserve available throughput for payload).

Challenging tactical environments (including adversarial activity) require UGS networks to be able to provide high levels of security despite the potential (given the unattended nature of the system) for eavesdropping, confiscation, and/or tampering.

Under W911NF-10-9-0002, the resultant Prototype Agreement, Oakwood’s proposal entailed developing and utilizing State-of-the-Art techniques in order to advance the ARL Blue Radio. Proposed hardware enhancements included reducing energy consumption, reducing size and cost, and solving component obsolescence issues. Proposed software enhancements included improved protocols and modulation types; better link quality assessments, increased interference mitigation, and reduction of energy consumption by improved hardware control. Oakwood’s Prototype eliminated the aforementioned shortcomings and provided sophisticated duty cycle protocols and implementations provide unparalleled energy efficiency, automatic mesh networking capabilities rapidly and efficiently initialize the network and constantly adapt it to changing conditions. It had dynamically adaptable transmittable power and its data rate enabled operation in extremely variable configurations, with very low overhead networking protocols maximizing the ability for the network to efficiency utilize potentially very limited available throughput. Strong unattended security is achieved through authentication, encryption, and key management services, including key zeroing upon tamper detection. End-to-end encryption through identity-based keying ensures intermediate nodes are unable to decipher network traffic. Sophisticated transport layer protocols overcome conventional Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) challenges in UGS applications, including enabling operation without sequential acknowledgements, which may be limiting in low throughput multihop environments, and associated premature retransmission of packets, as well as enabling regeneration of packets from intermediate nodes as opposed to initiation of packet retransmission only at the source. Similarly, adaptive media-access protocols enable the more efficient use of available resources than standard protocols such as implemented in Soldier Radio Waveform. The result is a unique communication system with excellent data security and power consumption low enough to allow battery operation for months to years, making the CSR ideally suited to applications such as the UGS.

ARL and Oakwood continue to collaborate under W911NF-21-2-0201, a Collaborative Agreement (CA) entitled “Communications of Contested and Austere Environments.” The CA’s principal purpose is to address the issues faced by modern day battlefield communications networks such as limited available energy, maximum transmit power, available spectrum, the challenges associated with the adversaries use of electronic warfare techniques, and the high path-loss that can be encountered with ground-ground communications links. The CA calls for the joint research and development of novel capabilities broken into the following technical efforts:

1.) Non-Traditional Channels such as ultra violet (UV) communications;

2.) Directional and Hybrid networking with the support of software defined networking; and 3.) Design enhancements and development of acognitive layer to autonomously adapt network characteristics that will ensure robust communications particularly in austere and resource limited environments.

ARL now requires the procurement of CSRs in order to advance internal mission research. The CA, however, is not an appropriate mechanism for the procurement of hardware and therefore necessitates the use of a contract. In addition, opportunities for partnering with other government organizations in the use of the CSR in the research and development of various technologies are plentiful. The emergence of new opportunities are difficult to predict in advance, but current interest has been expressed by United States Marine Corps (USMC). The USMC is interested in employing the CSR in a program of record developing an acoustic artillery detection system. The overall system has been designed, and the CSR has been identified as a potential subsystem to provide requisite networking capabilities, where this is a standard UGS application for which the CSR’s features are well matched. Successful integration activities could result in fielding of the system with the CSR in the next couple years. The Government expects to order 85 units of the CSRs for this effort.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Effective competition is not anticipated for this procurement based on the market research (see section 8) performed that has failed to identify any alternative products satisfy the Government requirements or resellers of the required Common Sensor Radios. Based on the market research performed, Oakwood is the developer and manufacturer and the only vendor capable of providing the required hardware that can meet the Government’s minimum requirements. Since there is no other vendor of a radio that meets the government's minimum requirements, utilizing an alternative vendor of radios would require additional time, cost, and risk associated with vendor research and development. The time delay would result in an inability for ARL to meet customer program deadlines, and the dupicatel cost of research to the Government.

The Government posted an intent to sole source synopsis to Beta.sam.gov for fifteen (15) days in order to perform additional market research. The synopsis posting closed on 04 August 2022 and no vendors responded to the posting.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: After consulting ARL Legal Counsel, it was determined that the Government retains Unlimited Rights to all data generated under the aforementioned CA and other Contractors can therefore manufacture the CSR.

However, [REDACTED] currently lacks the internal knowledge and technical material that would allow the Government to deliver sufficient documentation for another manufacturer to implement the design. Even so, the time another prospective manufacturer would need to gain expertise on the design, much less “filling in” these gaps, would be prohibitive with respect to the schedule of planned requirements.

In addition, there are technical challenges in terms of, for example, part obsolescence and design tweaks needed to manufacture the design in the current environment with small differences from one requirement to the next. One notable example has been the effects of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). COVID-19 has induced supply chain shortages that are creating wild variations in component pricing and availability across many industries. Oakwood is primely positioned to address these challenges given their history developing the CSR.

Lastly, the design of the CSR is so specialized that even if [REDACTED] described all of its capabilities, there would be no existing radio that would meet those requirements, and it would be unrealistic and impractical to think that a different radio producer could R&D a solution.

The Government will work with Oakwood under W911NF-21-2-0201 to update design and technical material so that the Government may provide more comprehensive documentation to prospective Contractors should other CSR requirements arise in the future. In addition, the Government will continue to keep abreast of developments in commercial communication systems.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted between February 2022 and May 2022 by [REDACTED] with more than 10 years of experience. Avenues of market research included consulting subject matter experts, reviewing the files of previously awarded assistance instruments, and consulting Oakwood.

Over the course of ARL’s 10+ year relationship with Oakwood, several FCDD-RLC-NT employees have been involved in the aforementioned CSR work; these employees include: [REDACTED] not only worked with said personnel in order to develop the proposed requirements but to also gather information on anticipated customer programs such as expected CSR quantities and configurations. Documentation produced under W911NF-10-9-0002 and W911NF-21-2-0201, such as the specifications of the current CSR and the corresponding bill of materials, were instrumental in developing the requirements.

[REDACTED] employees also met with the ARL Intellectual [REDACTED] to discuss the implications of intellectual property rights connected to data generated under the previous agreements. After a careful examination of the Oakwood OTA, it was determined that the Government did indeed retain Unlimited Rights to data generated under the OTA and thus, in theory, could utilize another contractor. However, as mentioned in Section 7 of this document, ARL currently lacks the expertise to sufficiently provide the required information and documentation to prospective contractors.

One area in which ARL lacks expertise is the manufacturing process and supply chain. Operating in today’s current environment is especially challenging due to the numerous issues affecting the supply chain; the inavailability of components has drastically increased manufacturing leadtimes and has led to extreme price fluctuations. In order to get a better understanding of cost and schedule, [REDACTED] consulted Oakwood. Oakwood has carefully sourced suppliers around the world and was able to provide an Excel spreadsheet that provided an estimate per radio and enclosure based on quantity and leadtimes. Given the high fixed cost of the manufacturing process, procuring small quantites of radios is financially unviable. In addition, in order to get favorable pricing for certain components, current leadtimes can be up to 52 weeks. For the time being, certain components of the CSR can be expedited but the expected cost raises significantly.

After extensive evaluation, considering the above, it was determined that only Oakwood can meet the Government’s minimum requirements. Utilizing a Contractor other than Oakwood would not only lead to delays affecting ARL’s ability to complete its mission and support customer programs but would also cause financial harm to the Government.

9. Interested Sources: In accordance with DFARS PGI 206.302-1(d), a synopsis was posted to beta.sam on 14 July 2022. The Synopsis was posted for 15 calendar days, with a closing date of 04 August 2022 in an effort to strengthen market research efforts prior to posting solicitation. This Synopsis posting resulted in no vendor responses.

10. Other Facts:

a. Procurement History

Contract: W911NF-10-9-0002 Contractor: Oakwood Electronics, L.L.C.

Award Date: 29 September 2010 Period of Performance: 29 September 2010 – 21 January 2021 Dollar Value: [REDACTED] Competitive Status: Competitive Authority: Public Law 98369, "The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984" and subsequent amendments

Contract: W911NF-21-2-0201 Contractor: Oakwood Electronics, L.L.C.

Award Date: 23 July 2021 Period of Performance: 28 July 2021 – 27 July - 2026 Dollar Value: [REDACTED] Competitive Status: Competitive Authority: Public Law 98369, "The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984" and subsequent amendments

11. Technical Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signer’s Title: [REDACTED]

12. Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signer’s Title: [REDACTED]

13. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated cost or price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable.

This determination will be made using the following:

__ Cost analysis _X_ Price analysis __ Should cost

_X_ IGE

__ Audit:

__ Other:

As a part of this basis, certified cost or pricing data:

__ Will be required.

_X_ Will not be required and the following exception applies (FAR 15.403):

__ Prices that will be agreed upon are based on adequate price competition.

__ Prices that will be agreed upon are based on prices set by law or regulation.

__ A commercial item is being acquired.

__ A waiver has been granted by the head of the contracting activity (HCA) in accordance with DFARS PGI 215.403-1.

__ The contract action is a modification to a contract or subcontract for commercial item(s).

_X_ The estimated cost of the contract action is less than the threshold for certified cost or pricing data.

14. Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Approval

Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the procurement of Oakwood Electronics L.L.C. CSR for an estimate of [REDACTED]and for 12 months, on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(1), subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services or supplies herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

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