SDA HQ085021S0001-04 Networking STTR Final.pdf

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and

Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Opportunity Announcement

HQ085021S0001-04

Advanced Space Mesh Networking

Which program will fund this topic?

STTR

DoD Technology Areas:

Information Systems Technology; Space Platforms

RT&L Technology Focus Areas:

Autonomy; Space Offense & Defense; Quantum Science (including Encryption & Computing);

Fully Networked Command, Control & Communications; Cybersecurity (Offense & Defense) & Electronic Warfare

What type of proposals will be accepted?

Phase I Only

I. INTRODUCTION

The Space Development Agency (SDA) is issuing an SBIR/STTR Opportunity (SBO) inviting submissions of innovative research concepts supporting the advancement of our national defense space capabilities.

This SBO is issued under the SDA Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for SBIR/STTR, HQ085021S0001. All proposals in response to the technical area(s) described herein must be submitted in accordance with the instructions provided under HQ085021S0001, found here:

https://go.usa.gov/x724e.

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items.

Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 3.5 of the Announcement. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws.

a. Eligibility Please refer to Section 3.1, Eligible Applicants, of HQ085021S0001 for full eligibility requirements.

This SBO, HQ085021S0001-04, is being funded by the STTR program. The research objective of this SBO is also issued as an SBIR opportunity under SBO HQ085021S0001-03. Please review Section 3.1 subparagraph (b) and (c) of HQ085021S0001 for full eligibility requirements of the SBIR and STTR programs.

b. Anticipated Structure/Award Information Please refer to Section 1, Funding Opportunity Description, and Section 2, Award Information, of HQ085021S0001 for additional details on the structure of this opportunity and prospective awards.

For this SBO, SDA will accept Phase I proposals for cost of up to $250,000 for a 12-month period of performance.

Proposers awarded a Phase I contract will be eligible to submit a proposal for Phase II and will be contacted by SDA at the appropriate time during their Phase I period of performance. If selected, Phase II will have a cost of up to $1,700,000 for a duration not to exceed 24 months.

c. Proposal Preparation Instructions

Proposers should refer to Section 4, Application and Submission Information, of HQ085021S0001 for detailed proposal preparation instructions. Proposals that do not comply with the requirements detailed in HQ085021S0001 and the research objectives of this SBO are considered non-conforming and therefore will neither be evaluated nor considered for award.

The Technical Volume of Phase I proposals shall not exceed 20 pages. Phase II commercialization strategy shall not exceed 5 pages. This should be the last section of the Technical Volume and will not count against the 20-page limit. Please refer to Appendix A of HQ085021S0001 for detailed instructions on Phase I proposal preparation.

d. Evaluation of Proposals Please refer to Section 5, Evaluation of Proposals, of HQ085021S0001 for a full description of the proposal evaluation and selection process.

e. Due Date/Time Full proposal packages (Proposal Cover Sheet, Technical Volume, and Cost Volume inclusive of supporting documentation) must be submitted via the DoD SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal (DSIP) per the instructions in Section 4, Application and Submission Information, of HQ085021S0001 no later than March 31, 2021 at 12:00PM ET.

f. Company Commercialization Report Please refer to Appendix A, Section A.3.f of HQ085021S0001 for Company Commercialization Report guidance.

II. TOPIC OVERVIEW

a. Objective Develop a preliminary system design for a router/switch implementation and networking technology capable of forwarding packets/frames in excess of 50Gbps and targeted at current / next-generation space-qualified hardware (e.g. radiation-tolerant FPGAs).

b. Description SDA is responsible for orchestrating the development, fielding, and operation of the DoD’s future threat-driven National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), a resilient military sensing and data transport capability via a proliferated space architecture primarily in LEO. To achieve this mission, SDA uses novel approaches to accelerate the development and fielding of military space capabilities necessary to ensure U.S.

technological and military advantage in space for national defense.

Networked data transport is a key mission enabler. Standards-based protocols are desired in order to allow other missions to easily integrate with and leverage the SDA transport infrastructure. Current space-based networking approaches leverage hardware-based switching (e.g. switched Ethernet) or software-based IP routing implemented in soft cores on radiation-tolerant FPGAs. Current devices can support interfaces of 1 or a few Gbps and can forward data at an aggregate rate on the order of 5Gbps.

SDA is interested in the preliminary design of a network switch/router implementation and networking technology that:

1. Supports unicast delivery of IP Datagrams;

2. Supports one or more 10- or 100Gbps interfaces using IP over Ethernet encapsulation for communication with a host network;

3. Supports at least 5 other external interfaces that each support one or more of the IEEE

802.3 standards for 100Gbps Ethernet;

4. Can route frames/datagrams among the interfaces in excess of 50Gbps (aggregate);

5. Can traffic shape output data rates to given values, queueing any overflow to a buffer of configurable size but supporting at least 10 megabytes;

6. Supports at least 8 data priorities with strict priority queueing (though not necessarily preemption)

7. Removes traffic that has been in the network ‘too long’ (i.e. traffic that might be looping)

8. Can be deployed onto current and/or next-generation space-qualified (radiation tolerant) hardware (e.g. FPGAs).

In addition, the ability to support efficient multicast / broadcast mechanisms is also desired.

Note that the above requirements may be implemented using a mixture of technologies at OSI layers 2 and 3. Transmissions across the external interfaces may use encapsulation / addressing mechanisms designed as part of this work and delivered from the switch/router to transmitters via 100Gbps Ethernet.

SDA’s network will leverage high-speed inter-satellite links (ISLs) that, in future tranches, may each operate at rates in excess of 10- or 100Gbps. Each spacecraft may have as many as 5 such links that run bi-directionally, and so may have to route data at up to 5 times the ISL rate.

A successful design will have a deployment path to current and/or next-generation space-qualified hardware (whether FPGA-based or ASIC-based), and may draw on current technologies such as the Xilinx RT Kintex UltraScale FPGA (1), FPGA IP cores for Ethernet (2), IETF routing and switching (e.g. (3)), and/or current academic work in FPGA-based packet forwarding (4). While the technology must be able to transport IP packets, it may or may not do so directly over the inter-satellite links; i.e. acceptable solutions that implement the desired capabilities using OSI layer-2 technology such as switched Ethernet or layer-2.5 technologies such as MPLS to effect inter-satellite switching/routing are acceptable.

The figure below shows a conceptual diagram of the desired system.

Figure 1: Conceptual diagram of desired system.

This program will address the SDA mission need by producing a Phase I end item data package (EIDP) comprised of a preliminary design report, requirements verification analysis report, and Phase II validation test plan for the space-based router/switch that can be deployed to a spacecraft.

The Phase I preliminary instrument design report shall include a narrative that introduces the design trades, approach to interface design/implementation, and choice of network technology. Analysis results shall be compared to TPMs in a summary of findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

High-Performance Space-Based Networking Mission-Level TPMs

Networking: Interfaces Parameter Value Units Comment Local interfaces supporting IP-over- Ethernet encapsulation, number

>=1 Interface

Local interfaces supporting IP-over- Ethernet encapsulation, rate

>=10 Gbps each

External-facing interfaces capable of transporting IP traffic, number

>=5 Interface

External-facing interfaces capable of transporting IP traffic, rate

>=100 Gbps each

Networking: Data Rates Parameter Value Units Comment Sustained forwarding data rate of 1460-byte IP datagrams

>=50 Gbps

Sustained forwarding data rate of 64-byte IP datagrams

>=50 Gbps

Uncertainty in outbound data rate (per interface)

<10,000 bits per second i.e. the device should be able to rate control outbound data per interface to within 10,000 bps (assuming that there is enough outbound data to reach or exceed the target rate).

Networking: Efficiency

Overhead for unicast traffic(per IP packet)

<=100 Bytes per packet i.e. any additional framing used on the external interfaces can transport an IP packet destined for any endpoint with less than or equal to 100 bytes overhead per packet

Networking: Other

Number of supported priorities for strict priority queueing

>=8 Discrete values

c. Phase I This effort shall define and design a concept for a demonstration system to be developed and tested in Phase II. Detailed analysis of the predicted performance shall be developed.

The Phase I analysis report shall include a narrative that introduces the verification analyses that were performed and, for each analysis, discusses the objective/hypothesis, parameters, assumptions, initial conditions, and expected results. Analysis results shall be compared to TPMs in a summary of findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The Phase II validation test plan shall describe a future benchtop prototype, instrumentation, and test protocol aimed at verifying router/switch performance with synthetic traffic with destination addresses distributed over a set of at least 100,000 elements. In addition to laboratory validation testing, Phase II builds on Phase I work by producing a detailed design of the flight instrument and its supporting subsystems.

Schedule/Milestones/Deliverables

• Month 1: Project kickoff briefing to SDA Transportation Cell Chief detailing the proposed technical approach and schedule with milestones.

• Month 4: Quarterly progress report including technical progress to date and the technical plan for the remainder of Phase I.

• Month 6: Interim progress briefing to the Transportation Cell Chief detailing technical progress to date, significant tasks accomplished, major risks, a technical plan for the second half of Phase I, and any potential issues or problem areas that require the attention of SDA.

• Month 7: Quarterly progress report including technical progress to date and the technical plan for the remainder of Phase I.

• Month 10: Quarterly progress report including technical progress to date and the technical plan for the remainder of Phase I.

• Month 12: Final technical progress report and briefing of the EIDP, including the preliminary switch/router design, requirements verification analysis report, and Phase II validation test plan. The briefing shall also compare the design to the state-of-the-art space-qualified routing/switching approaches.

d. Phase II Phase II executes a detailed design of the flight router/switch that builds on the results of Phase I. This includes FPGA, ASIC, or other design, specifications, and other documents that define the switch/router and its supporting subsystems in sufficient detail to enable prototyping of the flight unit in Phase III. Government furnished information (GFI), in the form of supplementary mission requirements and host spacecraft interface definitions released after Phase II kickoff, shall inform the Phase II design work.

In addition to the detailed design, Phase II shall also construct a benchtop prototype (breadboard) of the switch/router and its supporting subsystems. The breadboard is part of a validation test apparatus that includes equipment necessary to characterize router/switch performance test protocol aimed at verifying performance and capabilities such as old data purging and traffic shaping.

Detailed design and validation test reports comprise the Phase II EIDP. This, in addition to the benchtop instrument prototype shall be delivered at the end of the Phase II period of performance.

e. Dual Use Applications (Phase III) Phase III work would target transition and commercialization of the high-speed networking switch/router. Given the emergence of small satellite constellations within the commercial sector, commercial applications of this research may include the integration of the switch/router with a commercial or small satellite bus to allow data interoperability with the SDA transport infrastructure. DoD/military applications include deployment onto other systems that leverage the SDA data transport infrastructure.

f. References

(1) Xilinx RT-Kintex Ultrascale family: https://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/rt-kintex-ultrascale.html

(2) http://www.hitechglobal.com/IPCores/100GigEthernet-MAC-PCS.htm

(3) Perlman, R., et. al, “Routing Bridges (RBridges): Base Protocol Specification,” IETF

RFC6325, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6325.

(4) NetFPGA SUME https://netfpga.org/site/#/systems/1netfpga-sume/details/

g. Keywords Mesh Networking; Router

III. SUBMISSION of QUESTIONS From February 12, 2021 to March 2, 2021, this SBO is issued for Pre-Release. During the pre-release period, proposing firms have an opportunity to contact topic authors at osd.pentagon.ousd-r-e.mbx.hq085021s0001@mail.mil to ask technical questions about specific BAA topics. Questions should be limited to specific information related to improving the understanding of a particular topic’s requirement. Proposing firms may not ask for advice or guidance on solution approach and you may not submit additional material to the topic author. If information provided during an exchange with the topic author is deemed necessary for proposal preparation, that information will be made available to all parties through DSIP Topic Q&A module.

Once SDA begins accepting proposals on March 2, 2021, no further direct contact between proposers and topic authors is allowed unless the Topic Author is responding to a question submitted during the Pre-release period. However, proposers may submit written questions through the DSIP Topic Q&A module at https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/login. The DSIP Topic Q&A for this BAA opens on March 2, 2021 and closes to new questions on March 17, 2021 at 12:00PM ET. Once the BAA closes to proposal submission, no https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6325 communication of any kind with the topic author or through Topic Q&A regarding your submitted proposal is allowed.

SDA intends to use electronic mail for all correspondence regarding this SBO. Questions related to the technical aspect of the research objectives and awards specifically related to this SBO should be emailed to osd.pentagon.ousd-r-e.mbx.hq085021s0001@mail.mil. Please reference SBO HQ085021S0001-04 in the subject line. All questions must be in English and must include the name, email address, and the telephone number of a point of contact.

Technical support for the Defense SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal (DSIP) is available Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET. Requests for technical support must be emailed to DoDSBIRSupport@reisystems.com with a copy to osd.pentagon.ousd-r-e.mbx.hq085021s0001@mail.mil.

III. SUBMISSION of QUESTIONS