Sources Sought Notice.pdf

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Sources Sought Notice

Unmanned Systems (UMS) Support Services and Equipment to Conduct Benthic Surveys of Coral Reef Habitats

This Sources Sought Notice is not a Request for Proposal and does not constitute a commitment by the Government. The Government is currently conducting market research in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10, to identify potential sources to fulfill the requirement and gather information on current capabilities of businesses within the market. All information submitted in response to the Sources Sought Notice is voluntary and the Government will not pay for information requested nor will it compensate any respondent for any cost incurred in developing information provided to the Government. Proprietary information submitted should be marked appropriately. All submitted information shall remain with the U.S. Government and will not be returned.

The Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Acquisition and Grants Office (AGO), Eastern Acquisition Division (EAD), and Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) in support of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), has a requirement for unmanned systems support services to conduct benthic surveys of coral reef habitat.

Response Requirements (Limited to 15 pages total) Responses to this Sources Sought Notice shall submit a statement of capabilities, not to exceed 15 pages, encompassing the following information:

(1) Company Profile

a. Company Name;

b. Company Address;

c. Unique Entity Identifier (UEI);

d. North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code applicable and corresponding business size for the NAICS Code(s) indicated;

e. Applicable General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedules (FSS) and

Schedule Item Numbers (SIN) (include all that apply to this requirement)

f. Small Business Administration (SBA) certified small business concern status and/or socio-economic status (if applicable);

g. Primary point of contact information and Secondary point of contact (Name, Title, Phone, and Email).

(2) The Capability Demonstration shall provide a summary of platform capabilities that displays the following:

a. The ability to operate at coral reef and mesophotic reef depths down to 300 meters, with configurations that are suitable for surveying deep sea features down to 1,000 meters;

b. The ability to acquire 4K resolution video at full motion frame rates, and acquire still images at not less than 12 megapixel resolution;

c. Low light camera(s) with integrated onboard lighting that can be configured to preset parameters or that can be configured to dynamically adjust to provide the minimal illumination required based on ambient light and water conditions;

d. The ability to provide positional data and autonomously navigate using doppler velocity log (DVL) technology and underwater Global Positional System (GPS) technology (e.g.

ultra-short baseline acoustic positioning coupled with GPS);

e. The ability to collect quality scientific images and those ancillary data required for scaling Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry;

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f. The ability to autonomously execute mission plans and accommodate for exigencies with collision avoidance and other adaptive navigation strategies, while maintaining camera orientation;

g. The ability to support connector-less charging and data transfer so as to facilitate open-cabin small boat survey work which will likely involve multiple units being deployed multiple times per day with the small boat only returning to home base at the end of the day;

h. The ability to remain in-situ while autonomously conducting repeat surveys of a seafloor site for an extended duration (>30 days), periodically off load payload data, and be re-tasked remotely;

i. The ability to accept and incorporate user-provided machine learning models to enhance in-situ mission execution (i.e. open software architecture and sufficient onboard processing capacity);

j. The ability to be carried and deployed by a single person. (Highly desirable: Ability to be transported as baggage on commercial aircraft to facilitate the rapid deployment of survey teams to remote pacific islands and other locations.)

** In addition to the provided capability statement, vendors must provide appropriate specification sheet(s) for the instrument(s) described, as well as any published research articles that utilized such instrument(s). These additional supporting documents are not included within the capability statement 15 page limit.

Government Point of Contact Company brochures will not be considered in lieu of a capability statement. Interested firms shall submit their statement of capabilities to Austin Salmon, Contract Specialist, at Austin.Salmon@noaa.gov and Jennifer Peters, Contracting Officer, at Jennifer.Peters@noaa.gov by no later than 3:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, April 12, 2023. Any questions or responses regarding this notice must be submitted to Austin Salmon via the above email address provided. Information received in response to this notice will be considered solely to conduct informed decisions regarding the potential procurement strategy of this requirement. No telephone requests will be honored. Firms that are interested in subcontracting opportunities related to portions of this requirement should contact potential firms directly.

mailto:Austin.Salmon@noaa.gov mailto:Jennifer.Peters@noaa.gov