Sources Sought (1).doc

(1) Action Code: SOURCES SOUGHT

This is a Sources Sought Notice only. This is not a request for proposal, but a survey to locate potential sources. This Sources Sought does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposals, or a Request for Quotations, and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue an order or otherwise pay for the information solicited, nor is it a guarantee of a forthcoming solicitation or contract. It is for market research purposes only. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the evaluation.

The purpose of this Sources Sought Notice is to gain knowledge of interest, capabilities, and qualifications of various members of industry, to include the Small Business Community: Small Business, Section 8(a), Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUB-Zone), Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB), and Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB). The Government must ensure there is adequate competition among the potential pool of responsible contractors. Small businesses, Section 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, WOSB, & EDWOSB businesses are highly encouraged to participate.

(2) Date: 12 March 2026

(3) Classification Code : AJ

(4) NAICS Code: 541330

(5) NAICS Size Standard: $25,500,000.00

(6) Contracting Office Address:

U.S. Army Contracting Command-APG

Adelphi Contracting Division

2800 Powder Mill Road Bldg. 601 Adelphi, Maryland 20783

(7) Subject: Sources Sought for Multilingual Computing and Analysis Scientific Research, Development, Test, Analysis and Data Generation Support Services.

(8) Proposed Solicitation Number: W911QX-26-R-A012

(9) Sources Sought Closing Response Date: TEN (10) business days after posting.

(10) Contact Point: Deneise Jackson, Contract Specialist

E: deneise.c.jackson.civ@army.mil, Ph: (520) 672-9583 (11)

A. Objective:

To find sources that are qualified to meet the supplies/services as listed in section 11B. Note that the specific requirements in section C are subject to change prior to the release of any solicitation.

B. Performance Work Statement (PWS)

To obtain scientific research, development, experimentation, testing, analysis and linguistics-based data generation support in achieving cutting edge research, novel technological solutions for Army NLP, information processing and knowledge management challenges and to fully support the wide variety of projects and programs that make up ARL Multilingual Computing and Analysis mission. This PWS provides an overview of the work to be performed in a five (5) year Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. The objective of this PWS is to receive support in the following general areas listed below:

C.2.1 Linguistic data development, processing and refinement to enable NLP and NLP-based technology R&D

C.2.2 Computational linguistics/computer science research support

C.2.3 Hardware/software test and evaluation

C.2.4 Computer system/application programming, computer system administration, software design, development, integration, testing, and evaluation The requirements for support services in the described areas of interest touch many areas of overlapping interests and needs as further described in section C.3 Technical Requirements. An individual Task Order (TO) may require services in only one (1) of these general areas or a combination of the requirements listed in C.3. The Contractor shall furnish all of the necessary personnel, materials, services, and facilities incident to the performance of the work as stated in each individual TO that may be issued under this IDIQ contract.

C.3 TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Specific requirements will be identified in each individual TO PWS, based on the specific topics in C.3.1 through C.3.5.3.

C.3.1 Linguistic data development, processing and refinement to enable NLP and NLP-based technology R&D

The Contractor shall collect, prepare and provide basic, industry-standard processing of world languages linguistic data to include speech recordings, text, and printed document images, related transcriptions and translations, all of which are required for use in ARL’s computational linguistics research – specifically, in developing, customizing, or evaluating NLP related domains of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Optical Character Recognition (OCR), handwriting recognition and MT components and systems. The data shall be multilingual and specific TOs may include English to one (1) or more foreign languages and vice versa; these languages might be, for example, Arabic, Dari, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Latvian, Lithuanian, Korean, Kurdish, Pashto, Polish, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog and Ukrainian.

C.3.1.1 Translate Technical Materials

The Contractor shall provide translation services of world languages to and from English for technical publications/materials in micro-development cycles, sharing their translations with the Government and then adjusting them, as required, to ensure Information Technology (IT) software R&D errors caused by special text characters and symbols and any other aspects of text normalization that are peculiar to subject software are addressed and corrected. Specific language(s) and medium(s) to be employed for translation interactions shall be in conformance with the requirements listed in each individual TO PWS. The Government will provide the material to be translated to the Contractor as Government Furnished Information (GFI) and will also identify the final delivery format, medium(s)/media(s) in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.1.2 Prepare Document Images

The Contractor shall prepare document images (scanned or photographed) of printed materials in foreign language(s) by (a) generating images; (b) annotating each image to represent classes of graphical regions (e.g. logos, signature blocks, photos); and (c) producing ground truth for characters in each image as laid out (typing the characters depicted in the image into electronic text form). Specific language material(s), image generation mechanics, and annotation schemas will be in conformance with the requirements listed in each individual TO PWS. The Government will provide material to the Contractor as GFI and will also identify the final delivery format, medium(s)/media(s) in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.1.3 Translate Non-Technical Materials The Contractor shall provide translations of foreign language electronic text (files of text originating in electronic form or the ground truth representations of document images) into English electronic text as well as translations of English text into foreign language(s) text files. Specific source file material(s) shall be in accordance with each individual TO PWS. The Government will provide source material to the Contractor as GFI and will also identify the final delivery format, medium(s)/media(s) in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.1.4 Align Translated Materials

The Contractor shall provide sentence-by-sentence alignments of foreign language text with English text from pre-existing translations, as specified in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.1.5 Quality Assurance

The Contractor shall provide Quality Assurance (QA) support by reviewing and correcting pre-existing ground truth of foreign language document images, pre-existing translations of foreign language materials into English text data, and pre-existing sentence-by-sentence alignments of foreign language English translations, respectively, as required by the each individual TO PWS. The Government will provide source material, applicable procedures and the software for providing review and corrections as GFI and will also identify the final delivery format, medium(s)/media(s) in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.1.6 Record Keeping

The Contractor shall maintain an electronic archive for all the electronic files of linguistic data processed in accordance with sections C.3.1.1 through C.3.1.5 and shall be organized in such a manner to indicate both the original ARL-furnished data and the data resulting from the processes applied in C.3.1.1 through C.3.1.5. The Contractor shall provide status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.2 Computational Linguistics/Computer Science Research Support

C.3.2.1 The Contractor shall support basic and applied research and technology development efforts in areas dealing with NLP to support the investigation of novel solutions to fundamental challenges. The Contractor shall develop comprehensive computer models to capture machine learning methods for language processing focused on unsupervised and semi-supervised stochastic, probabilistic and statistical algorithms. Parameter assessment, parameter development, and parameter integration into computer models shall be required to increase and refine fidelity of NLP computing in military environments. Basic and applied research and technology development efforts include but are not limited to:

C.3.2.1.1 The Contractor shall ensure research is provided in technological areas dealing with NLP stochastic, probabilistic and statistical methods in each individual TO PWS. Efforts include but are not limited to:

i. Automatic Summarization

ii. Co-reference Resolution

iii. Discourse Analysis

iv. Machine Translation

v. Named Entity Recognition

vi. Natural Language Understanding

vii. Optical Character Recognition (OCR)/Handwriting Recognition

viii. Sentiment Analysis

ix. Speech Processing and Recognition

x. Information Retrieval

xi. Information Extraction

C.3.2.1.2 Investigation of novel NLP technologies (capabilities) based on increased computing capacity.

C.3.2.1.3 Development of new computer models and techniques to maximize computing capacity in distributed or standalone technology environments.

C.3.2.1.4 Investigation of task and/or data parallel processing in technology driven service architectures.

C.3.2.1.5 Performance of provisioning model stress-testing through simulation and/or emulation studies.

C.3.2.1.6 Documentation of findings through written reports and documentation for locally developed prototype software.

C.3.2.2 The Contractor shall execute R&D of NLP and related technology in conformance with the requirements listed in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.3 Hardware/Software Test & Evaluation The Contractor shall perform test and evaluation of Government Furnished Equipment/Information (GFE/GFI) Hardware/Software for NLP based capabilities specified in Section C.3.2 and with emphasis in the technology fields of OCR/Handwriting Recognition and MT as specified below:

C.3.3.1 The Contractor shall conduct testing and submit an Accuracy Evaluation Report as specified in each individual TO on the results of accuracy evaluations of commercial, Government-owned, and experimental English/foreign language OCR/Handwriting Recognition components and systems using standard accuracy evaluation metrics, specifically Character and Word Error Rate for OCR/Handwriting Recognition and automated comparison scores BiLingual Evaluation Understudy (BLEU) and Translation Edit Rate (TER) for MT. The Government will provide relevant components and/or systems, applicable procedures and the software for generating the applicable metrics as GFE/GFI, as applicable, and will also identify the required report delivery format, medium(s)/media(s) in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.3.2 The Contractor shall conduct testing and submit a report on Software Robustness as specified in each individual TO on the results of software robustness tests of commercial, Government-owned, and foreign language to English MT components and systems by (a) varying the amount and file formats of input data and recording the occurrence of software crashes and output failures and (b) varying the settings of input and processing parameters available in the user interface (e.g., text normalization, treatment of out-of-vocabulary words, treatment of named entities, exercise of topic-specific lexicons) and recording and comparing differences in system output for each setting. The Government will provide the Contractor the applicable components and systems to be tested in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide the results of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.4 Research Development and Engineering Network (RDENET) Scientific System administration (SA) and Information Assurance (IA) Support C.3.4.1 The Contractor shall perform scientific System Administration (SA) and Information Assurance (IA) activities to support Scientists and Engineers (S&Es) within the RDENET.

C.3.4.2 The Contractor shall execute SA and IA configuration and maintenance activities, to include:

i. Initial setup and configuration of RDT&E systems, adhering to all applicable IA requirements, controls, guidelines, and accreditation specifications as specified by the ARL-IAM office, RDENET Change Configuration Board (CBB), or other applicable offices.

ii. Managing RDENET systems and maintaining continued compliance with all applicable requirements.

iii. Developing centralized management and IT support systems, servers, and services to enhance efficiencies in maintaining RDENET systems’ conformance to applicable requirements.

iv. Creating, updating, maintaining, and submission of required IA documentation.

v. Sharing of information with the S&Es to engineer the integration of R&D with IT systems and solutions.

C.3.4.3 The Contractors shall follow current security measures put in place by ARL Information Assurance Management (IAM) personnel and IA teams to maximize the security posture of the RDENET while ensuring the integrity, continuity, and capabilities required by the S&Es in order to perform their mission.

C.3.5 Application & Software Design, Development, Integration, Testing, & Evaluation

C.3.5.1 The Contractor shall perform analysis, design, development, documentation, and testing of multiple software and hardware systems, tools, components and libraries. The Contractor shall also perform algorithm analysis, design and implementation to provide novel computational capabilities required for achieving NLP research objectives. Capabilities shall include, but are not limited to algorithm implementations, software implementations of prototype framework and workflows, data visualization, and virtualized environments.

C.3.5.2 The Contractor shall perform development, integration, tests, and evaluation of commercial and Government-owned applications and software in order to process foreign language data related to NLP, including automated data collection processes. The Contractor shall perform this effort in conformance with the requirements identified in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide the status of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C.3.5.3 The Contractor shall develop and integrate Government-owned applications and software to execute S&E research efforts in control of autonomous robotic platforms, experimental data collection and analysis, software-based tools for NLP and NLP- based control of autonomous platforms and for human-robot interaction. The Contracting Officer Representative (COR) will provide the Government-owned applications and software as GFE/GFI and any specific specifications for the autonomous robotic platforms as GFI in each individual TO. The Contractor shall provide software design plans to COR for review and acceptance in accordance with the assigned delivery dates identified in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall also ensure the software design plan includes a methodology for testing and evaluating the software developed to ensure it is fully functional and meets all requirements identified in each individual TO PWS. The COR will review the software design plan and provide feedback and/or approval. Upon COR approval, the Contractor shall execute the software design plan. The Contractor shall provide the resultant software source, object, and executable code to the COR and shall provide the results of this effort (to include the test data, test cases and test and evaluation results) in accordance with the deliverables identified in each individual TO PWS. The Contractor shall provide the results of this effort within the monthly status report in accordance with C.9.

C. Responses:

All interested parties should notify this office in writing, mail, or e-mail within the posted date. Responses shall include:

(I) To what extent each of the specifications can be met.

(II) Include your type of business (i.e. commercial, academia), whether your organization is classified as a large or small business based on the $25,500,000.00 standard that accompanies NAICS code 541330. If a small business, you must also list any small disadvantaged status you hold [HUBZone, 8(a), Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), Women Owned Small Business (WOSB), Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB), etc.].

(III) Past experience/ performance through the description of completed projects.

(12) Responses to this sources sought are due no later than 12:00 PM mountain standard time, TEN (10) business days after posting. Submissions should be emailed to the Deneise Jackson, deneise.c.jackson.civ@army.mil. Mailed submissions can be sent to the address in block 6, ATTN: Deneise Jackson.

Questions concerning this sources sought may be directed to Deneise Jackson at deneise.c.jackson.civ@army.mil. Please be advised that .zip and .exe files cannot be accepted.

(13) Place of Contract Performance: 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, Maryland 20783- 1138

(14) Estimated Delivery Timeframe or Period of Performance: Five (5) year ordering period for subsequent task orders.

Last updated 2/13/2017