SSJ_USV DriX.pdf

Version 3.0

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN ACTION EXCEEDING THE SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION THRESHOLD

USING SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURES FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

(AUTHORITY: FAR 13.501(a), 41 U.S.C. 1901)

NM-AN0000-23-00922

1. Agency and contracting activity. Department of Commerce, NOAA Acquisition and Grants

Office, Eastern Acquisition Division and the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, Uncrewed Systems Operations Center (UxSOC).

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

NOAA/UxSOC intends to award a new sole source contract to purchase one (1) DriX Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) manufactured by Exail Inc. (formerly Ixblue, Inc.) with an option for one (1) additional USV. A Firm Fixed Priced (FFP) contract is contemplated for award.

3. Description of supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the total estimated value).

This requirement is for the purchase of one (1) DriX USV, with an option to purchase an additional unit, instrumented with hydrographic and fisheries sonar survey systems. In addition to the required instrumentation. The accessories shall include a launch and recovery system, spare parts, and vendor support for the operation of the system on NOAA ships. It is imperative that the USV be interchangeable with the existing capabilities and equipment that has been integrated onto NOAA Fishing Survey Vessels (FSVs). In Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, NOAA, the Office of Coast Survey and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) began to test the innovation of using USVs in tandem with NOAA’s traditionally crewed hydrographic or FSVs. A USV has the capability to work in an autonomous mode to execute survey instructions while being remotely supervised.

An internal initiative entitled "Use of Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs) in Tandem with NOAA Vessels to Increase Survey Efficiency" was enacted by NOAA. The trials with the USV DriX began on the NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson. The DriX proved to be well suited for the USV FSV tandem survey application. The combination of requirements for the initiative included narrow constraints for the USV characteristics, speed, sonar performance parameters and shipboard deployment. In 2022 and 2023, there has been considerable integration of infrastructure for two (2) NOAA vessels Thomas Jefferson and Oscar Dyson to accommodate the current DriX USV operations. The DriX USV was able to meet the needs of both the NMFS for fisheries acoustic surveys and the National Ocean Service for shallow water bathymetric mapping. The DriX USV acquired under this procurement will be used to expand NOAA’s capabilities with USV but will also serve as a primary backup and will be functionally swappable as maintenance and/or repairs occur with a current DriX USV in service. Therefore, for data integrity and consistency, the system must have the same characteristics of the current platform.

The minimum requirements provided below would allow for interconnectivity and the capability of NOAA Fleet systems to be interchangeable. The requirements for the USV are:

Commercial product – existing commercial product for base USV, with units designed for acoustic surveying (both fisheries and hydrography) delivered to customers.

Scientific data systems - capability to produce equivalent sonar data as NOAA ships with hydrographic and fisheries sonar instruments mounted at a depth of >1.5 m and >0.8 m away from the hull at speeds of 11 knots; must provide capability for monitoring data

NM-AN0000-23-00922

quality during operation. The current DriX has Sonar Systems: Kongsberg EM2040, EK80 (standard system on NOAA Ships). Positioning System: Applanix POS M/V (Industry standard).

Speed and Endurance – capable of keeping up with a ship for consistent operations for multiple days (40 hours at 11 knots, 160 hours at 7 knots) and burst speeds able to match NOAA ship transits (12+ kts).

Launch and recovery – compatible with existing ship davits on NOAA hydrographic and fisheries ships, recovery possible in an auto-docking mode, without manual human intervention from ship. DriX Deployment System (DDS) Launch and Recovery unit with known lifting points.

Transportability – able to fit in standard high-cube shipping container, able to be transported via regular width trailer on US roads.

Over the horizon operation – system must be fully capable of operations outside line of sight with the host vessel including ability to control and monitor quality of scientific systems, and vendor must provide monitoring capability as a service.

Operation and situational awareness – automated and human controlled modes required, autonomy must meet basic maritime collision regulations and be capable of executing survey plans with required USV Support Services included.

NOAA intends to award a contract with a delivery date within six (6) months from date of award for the first DriX, with the optional unit to be ordered within the next year. The Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) for this requirement is XXXXX.

4. Statutory authority permitting the sole source (including brand name) acquisition.

x 41 U.S.C. 1901, using SAP up to $7.5M as authorized by FAR 13.500(a) and implemented by FAR 13.501(a).

5. Demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited. The contracting officer has determined the following circumstances justify the use of a sole source as supported below:

Only one source-Only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies are unique or highly specialized.

The capabilities required by the Government are highly specialized and represent the leading edge of Uncrewed Maritime technologies. Therefore, a DriX USV is needed to match the activities outlined in the initiatives above. The DriX USV will provide support as a backup or an alternate system to the current NOAA DriX in service to provide the operational use of the USV in tandem with NOAA vessels to increase the efficiency of NOAA’s fleet for hydrographic and fisheries surveys, should the current system need maintenance or repairs, or should ship schedules overlap.

The addition of a DriX USV to the NOAA fleet will allow practical training to occur without the interruption of scheduled data collection cruises. The DriX USV will be deployed from a NOAA ship and will be used to conduct shallow water bathymetric mapping to produce nautical charts and acoustic surveys to provide data for fishery stock assessments.

Additionally, a USV system must meet NOAA Readiness Level 9 per NOAA Administrative

Order 216-105B, (Policy on Research and Development Transitions, Final System Transitioned into Operations). The USV must have a track record of use in a routine capacity for either hydrographic or fisheries applications, and must be capable of immediate deployment on, and integration with, a NOAA ship with only slight modification to the ship or USV to support a short-term need. The USV must have been previously produced, and have previously been instrumented with both hydrographic multibeam instruments and fisheries echosounders. Significant time and expense has been expended to date to ready NOAA ships to support the DriX USV system. The refitting of NOAA ships to support another USV would not only delay research operations, but increase the costs of operations. Over 500 person hours and expenses that total over $123,000.00 have been incurred to outfit NOAA ships for the DriX USV operations. The partial fulfillment of capabilities or provision of untested/prototype systems will not meet the Government’s needs.

The ability to immediately adopt and operate USVs at Readiness Level 9 on NOAA ships engaged in routine survey operations rests on the ability to leverage previous experience gained by NOAA and academic partners with these systems on NOAA ships. The team of NOAA and University of New Hampshire (UNH) integrated an Exail DriX USV with the NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson in 2019 and 2022, and the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson in 2023 and has developed operational procedures for this USV on NOAA ships. This initial testing, and modification of systems on NOAA ships would have to be repeated at significant cost (monetary and ship days) with a different vehicle. NOAA gained invaluable experience operationalizing a DriX acquired through a research proposal funded in 2021 and operated in 2022 and 2023 on two (2) NOAA ships. Since NOAA already has operational experience with Exail DriX USVs on NOAA ships, the purchase of a different manufacturer’s vehicle would negate the operational experience from prior work conducted by NOAA and UNH.

The intent of the proposed acquisition is to support rapid operational use of USVs on NOAA ships to which has become a demonstrated need within multiple NOAA Line Offices. The selection of an alternative product without the proven track record of the DriX would severely jeopardize the mission as this would require postponing the intended operations on NOAA ships while development and validation of undemonstrated capabilities proceeds. This would extend the timeline for routine use and thus, in turn, impact multiple NOAA ships with tight schedules due to synchronicity of logistic requirements, biological windows, and other constraints. Ship schedules are planned years in advance, and time for USV operation has already been allocated into ship schedules for FY 2023 and FY 2024. Thus, acquiring a USV that requires modification and testing to meet the Government’s requirements would significantly jeopardize the mission-critical goal of integrating USVs to achieve maximum efficiency of NOAA fleet operations.

The DriX is the only USV on the market that can meet NOAA requirements for interchangeability, quality of data and reliability. If NOAA were to switch the type of USV at this phase, it would cause a break in the data continuity and jeopardize the reliability of the USV.

6. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by FAR Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under FAR 5.202 applies.

A Notice of Intent to Sole Source was posted to the Government-wide Point of Entry at www.SAM.gov in accordance with FAR 5.201(b)(1)(i) on April 13, 2023 and closed on April 24, 2023. One (1) response was received from Maritime Applied Physics Corporation (MAPC).

Determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Officer will determine the anticipated price to the Government as fair and reasonable in accordance with FAR 13.106-3(a)(2)(ii), Comparison of the proposed price with prices found reasonable on previous purchases, and FAR 13.106-3(a)(2)(vi), Comparison to an independent Government estimate.

Description of the market research conducted (see Part 10) and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

Extensive market research was conducted under the previous award to determine if other sources existed outside of Ixblue’s (now Exail) DriX USV as the only known option to meet the Government’s needs. Additional market research was conducted to analyze the industry for other USV’s was conducted prior to making this sole source request. Review of the scientific and maritime trade literature, as well as technical discussions with academic and industry experts in the USV field has failed to identify other sources capable of meeting the stated need. Furthermore, Exail is the sole provider of the DriX USV and the sole provider of engineering and technical support for the USVs.

Any other facts supporting the use of a sole source (including brand name), such as:

All pertinent facts have been documented with other sections of this document. There are no additional facts to be reported in this section.

List of the sources that expressed a written interest in the acquisition.

In response to the Notice of Intent to Sole Source, an interested vendor, MAPC, expressed a written interest in the acquisition. The UMS Division Chief reviewed the information provided. The Division Chief observed that the information provided did not meet the minimum requirements needed for the USV as listed in the notice and were not compatible with NOAA ships. Therefore, the Division Chief determined that MAPC was not a viable source for this requirement.

A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required. In the future, NOAA will continue to assess whether competition for future requirements is feasible through market surveys and reviews of capability demonstrations to evaluate the existing market options. Any sources that meet all of the critical requirements at the time of future need will be considered. The Government will continue to conduct thorough market research to gauge the marketplace capabilities, and exclusivity of data rights, for future requirements.

12. Technical/Requirements Representative Certification

I certify that this requirement constitutes the Government’s minimum needs and the supporting data provided herein is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Dexter Malley Date Division Chief, Uncrewed Marine Systems

13. Office of General Counsel Concurrence

Concur

Rebecca Bailey Jacobsen Date Office of General Counsel

14. Contracting Officer’s Certification

I certify this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Jana Kolb Date Contracting Officer

15. NOAA Competition Advocate Approval:

Approve

Jeffrey S. Thomas Date NOAA Competition Advocate and Director, Acquisition and Grants Office

5/26/2023

MALLEY.DEXTER.A

ARON.1256608231

Digitally signed by

MALLEY.DEXTER.AARON.1256608231

Date: 2023.05.26 14:02:08 -05'00'

REBECCA JACOBSEN

Digitally signed by REBECCA

JACOBSEN

Date: 2023.05.31 11:19:09 -04'00'

KOLB.JANA.LEIGH-

ANN.1125231817

Digitally signed by KOLB.JANA.LEIGH-

ANN.1125231817

Date: 2023.05.31 11:46:15 -04'00'

Digitally signed by

MABE.KELLY.DANA.1229305057

Date: 2023.06.21 07:42:54 -04'00'

6/21/23