Appendix1_FINAL.pdf

Appendix 1: Description of SUMIT Simulation Evaluations Requirement

1. Background:

Synergistic Unmanned Manned Intelligent Teaming (SUMIT) is a 6.3 Advanced Technology Development science and technology program in the U. S. Army’s Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center’s (AMRDEC) Aviation Development Directorate (ADD). The overarching objective of the SUMIT program is to evaluate the impact of new and recent autonomy, decision aiding, and human machine interface (HMI) technologies in the execution of Army Aviation missions that utilize manned/unmanned teaming (MUMT). The full sweep of the program is in multiple phases beginning with the development of dedicated Government-owned simulation facilities, followed by independent simulation evaluations of third party products, and optionally, in later years, flight demonstrations. The development of simulation facilities emphasizes an extensible open systems approach with a well-defined external interface. The simulation evaluations phase is focused on integrating and evaluating MUMT-enabling technologies from multiple vendors in a common set of scenarios focused on the role of the future airborne Air Mission Commander (AMC). In the final phase, flight demonstrations may be conducted for capabilities or products, if any, that are found to be suitable candidates for integration into existing Army Aviation assets. The requirement described as part of this Source Sought notice applies to the simulation evaluations phase only. The products of this phase will be used to draw lessons learned and arrive at findings and recommendations to inform future science and technology efforts as well as acquisition planning and requirements definition related to autonomy and teaming capabilities by a potential Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Program of Record.

ADD will issue a call for proposals under its Master Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) (W91196-17-R- 00XX) to solicit autonomy, decision aiding and HMI technologies from interested parties for conducting simulation evaluations at the Government-owned simulation facility currently being developed. This effort will integrate candidate technologies provided by each selected offeror in a common simulation environment using a common set of operational scenarios and conduct a series of user evaluations with a common set of evaluation metrics. The focus of simulation evaluations will be on the role of the Air Mission Commander (AMC) of the future, in command of a team of manned and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Technologies related to pilotage are not a focus of this effort. For the purpose of these evaluations, the AMC is constrained to operate within the cockpit of a manned aircraft and the title is being used broadly to refer to any Aviator with mission command of a MUM team during a specific aviation task, i.e., it could also apply to an Air Weapons Team (AWT) Lead in command of a reconnaissance and attack (R/A) team. The intent is to gather simulation data, user observations and evaluation metrics related to situational awareness, mission effectiveness, workload, and usability in an airborne battlefield environment for each offeror’s autonomy, decision aiding and HMI technologies independently. Offerors’ capabilities will not be compared against each other nor against a desired objective solution. Sections below elaborate further on individual aspects of the planned solicitation.

2. Simulation Evaluations:

Operational scenarios being generated for use in the simulation evaluations are representative of Army Aviation missions using MUMT capabilities. The scenarios are based on concepts of operations and concepts of employment drafted for the medium-sized FVL platform (referred to as “capability set 3”).

Planned simulation evaluations will be conducted in multiple rounds for each vendor. The first round will evaluate vendor products using variations on one or two MUMT scenarios. Measures of mission effectiveness, situational awareness, and workload will be recorded, along with usability data. Data collected will also include video and audio recordings of the evaluation, data logging of all HMI interactions, data collection for vendor’s unique technologies, and may include eye tracking and physiological measures. Test subjects will be Army Aviation pilots in the role of the AMC flying in a vertical lift aircraft. Test subjects will not be required to pilot the simulated aircraft, however, it will be controlled by a second individual and the subject will have to interact with them as well as other manned and unmanned assets under the subject’s command and external command and control authorities. Initial evaluations will use a baseline reconnaissance and attack reference vignette.

Scenarios will vary the number and types of assets controlled (e.g., manned, unmanned, fixed-wing or rotary wing, weaponized, non-weaponized); the level of control authority (e.g., Levels Of Interoperability (LOI) 2 to 4); location and type of threats; dynamic changes such as loss of link, loss of capability, etc.;

and, potentially, features available in vendor products that can be varied as part of the evaluation.

Specific evaluation design for a vendor will be tailored by the Government in consultation with the vendor to suit the offered product. A second round will be used to rerun round one scenarios if required, evaluate vendor product refinements/enhancements (based on results from round one), or evaluate vendor products in additional scenarios (to further demonstrate the capabilities and value of the products). Additional rounds of simulation evaluations using other vignettes created from parts of a complete Air Assault mission may be offered if vendor technologies support simulation evaluations in such operations. These additional simulations with new scenarios or new vendor capabilities will be based on time and resources available.

3. The Air Mission Commander:

The AMC in command of their team of manned and unmanned aircraft systems is the subject of interest.

The AMC will be seated in the left seat of a side-by-side cockpit of a simulated vertical lift air vehicle. The vehicle will be flown by a human pilot in the right seat. The AMC has responsibilities that include the planning and re-planning of the MUMT mission; the oversight and management of individual team members, manned or unmanned; acquisition, control and release of various unmanned assets;

coordination and communication with all assets participating in the mission including ground control stations and the Tactical Operations Center (TOC); overall mission execution; overall mission monitoring and situational awareness; and reporting to and receiving directives from higher command. Assets participating in the mission may include assets not organic to the AMC’s MUM team for which the AMC has to request, acquire and relinquish control. The MUM team assets organic to their team may include:

manned or unmanned fixed-wing or rotary wing air vehicles equipped with electro-optic imaging sensors, laser designators, and weapons such as missiles, rockets or guns. The intent is that the AMC utilize advanced cockpit interfaces in multiple modalities, assisted by advanced autonomy and decision aiding capabilities to effectively accomplish his responsibilities.

4. Simulation Environment:

Evaluations will be hosted in the Future Open Rotorcraft Cockpit Environment (FORCE) simulator: a Government-owned and operated cockpit environment simulator designed to be an S&T testbed. The FORCE simulator is a stationary, medium-fidelity cockpit simulation environment with Air Mission Commander (AMC) and Pilot positioned side-by-side. The simulator is designed to allow for integration of advanced or emerging HMI technologies and increased fidelity of simulation scenarios. The simulator will be equipped and tested in a “baseline” HMI configuration that can be replaced in part or whole as needed by individual vendor HMI technologies. The baseline will include touchscreen displays, cursor controller, hand controller, etc for use by the AMC. The AMC position will not have piloting controls. The pilot will fly the ownship which uses a flight model similar to today’s H-60 rotorcraft in the baseline simulator configuration. Later simulation rounds may use extensions of the flight model updated to accommodate the characteristics anticipated for a notional FVL aircraft. Simulation for terrain, friendly and hostile assets, sensors, communications and other simulation variables will be provided. The FORCE simulator provides for quantitative data collection and recording capabilities including audio, video, eye-tracking, and basic physiological measurements (e.g., heart rate variability). The Government will have an integrated unit ready for use by mid-calendar year 2017 with a second unit ready in the third quarter of 2017.

Vendors will work with the Government to integrate their technology products into the FORCE simulation for the evaluations. Vendors may choose to use HMI hardware or software components or simulation models for unmanned assets or payloads in the existing baseline configuration or propose cockpit HMI hardware (e.g., displays to include 3D displays and head mounted displays, inceptors, controllers) and HMI software (e.g., situational awareness presentation, biometrics data collection) unique to, necessary for, or better aligned with their overall approach. Vendors may also include simulation components such as sensor models or uncommon flight models (e.g.: organically launched lethal UAS models, high speed rotorcraft models) in their proposals.

In order to minimize the effort necessary to integrate a variety of hardware and software in this research environment, the simulator will maximize the use of established open systems standards and widely used commercial data and networking hardware interfaces. The SUMIT FORCE simulator is designed to host software conformant to the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE™) Technical Standard version 2.1. in order to ease integration of potential technology solutions into Future Vertical Lift (FVL) or other Army Aviation systems. The FORCE simulator is developed following a Modular Open System Approach (MOSA) that aligns to open, published standards including FACE™ and NATO Standardization Agreement (STANAG) 4586 and emerging standards like Joint Common Architecture (JCA). While the Government will not impose a FACE™ conformance requirement on vendor technologies, the vendor may need to create an adaptor (“shim”) to interface with the FACE™ aligned operating environment of the FORCE simulator. Vendors integrating FACE™ conformant software products can expect a reduced integration effort.

The Government will provide necessary documentation and models describing the interfaces for integration of vendor components into FORCE. A FORCE System Integrators Guide will be furnished with the Call for proposals. The FACE™ aligned operating system will run in CentOS. General FACE™ resources available to vendors to aid in the development of an adaptor or other FACE™ aligned components include the FACE™ Public Shared Data Model, FACE™ Transport Services Segment (TSS) and Input/Output Services (IOS) Libraries, and Vanderbilt Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) FACE Software Development Toolkit (SDK) and Integrator’s Toolkit.

5. Technology Products of Interest:

The primary purpose of the planned acquisition effort is to invite offerors to propose their most advanced and innovative technical approaches that use autonomy, decision aiding and human-interface technologies for integration and evaluation in the FORCE simulator. Recent years have seen substantial investments and research and development in advancing the state-of-the-art in autonomy, perception, contextual situational awareness and knowledge, the underlying decision aiding elements and associated human-automation or human-computer interface technologies. It is anticipated that the necessary component technologies in all these areas when brought together in an architecture suited to this domain-specific requirement will help us better understand approaches to achieving an objective solution. While the Government expects that some amount of new design and development activity will be proposed, offerors will be encouraged to leverage existing component technologies and products in their technical approach.

Autonomy as used here refers to the ability of a single UAS or a team of collaborating UAS to interpret and execute mission commands received from the AMC, or an intelligent software agent working under command of the AMC, without human intervention. At this level of autonomy, the assets would be capable of independent flight and navigation, and also be capable of, to a lesser degree, independent communications and payload management. The autonomy could vary and the amount of human supervision increased or decreased depending on the mission context. Decision aiding refers to the ability of a software agent to aid the AMC in making a decision, or choosing a course of action from among alternatives. The same software agent that functions as a decision aid to the AMC, when working with other autonomous agents could enable higher autonomy in a UAS where it is allowed to make more operational decisions for itself. In addition to displays, controllers, input/output software, etc., human-machine interface technologies include both the hardware and software elements, including intelligent agents that prepare the information for exchange between the AMC and the technologies and assets involved in the mission. The technology areas of interest are loosely labeled as autonomy, decision aiding and HMI technologies and may overlap. Of primary interest to the Government within SUMIT is the impact of the functionality they deliver when working together in an integrated “system”.

A list of functional capabilities of interest to the Government is below. The Government intends to seek proposals that present technology solutions to address some or all of these capabilities.

a. A mission operations management capability that performs overall mission planning for the MUM team to include teaming and collaboration management, oversight of real-time mission execution, and dynamic re-planning for the team in reaction to events, AMC input or commands, or changes in the operational environment. It generates mission plans for the team to meet AMC provided objectives and constraints. In generating mission plans it allocates tasks or mission segments to assets or sub-teams of assets based on their performance characteristics. It provides the AMC the ability to modify mission plans and also recommends modifications based on real-time changes. It provides the AMC the ability to overrule, re-direct, re-assign any MUM team asset or sub-team, or take over control of any vehicle(s) or payload at a level preferred by the AMC or based on the level of autonomy the AMC chooses for a task or segment of the mission. It continuously monitors and oversees subordinate software agents and subsystems. It includes the ability to maintain continuous situational awareness (SA) of the mission, assess impact of changes in SA data on mission plan, and under AMC supervision, recommend and execute re-plan in reaction to changes in SA data if needed. It keeps the AMC continuously informed, seeks out decisions from the AMC and works in a manner closely responsive to the AMC’s needs and priorities. It includes the ability to generate plans that dynamically balance mission objectives against mission constraints derived from AMC’s inputs for team survivability and acceptable risk levels, tactics, techniques and procedures, rules of engagement, or orders and objectives from higher command. Interested parties are encouraged to suggest innovative functional architectures and assess the feasibility of incorporating existing libraries of autonomy algorithms and emerging machine learning techniques in novel ways.

b. Mission task management capabilities specific to Army mission types such as Reconnaissance (Recon), Engagement, or Combat Support, that work to decompose AMC’s high level commands into task schedules for individual team members, account for payload constraints in generating and adjusting taskings in real-time, and inform or alert the AMC as needed for decision making or SA updates. Recon task management includes the ability to develop recon task schedules based on air vehicle and payload characteristics, manage assets to make sure time and coverage objectives are met, continuously monitor and adjust task execution parameters in real-time based on objectives and SA updates, feed status updates to AMC and SA database and/or mission operations management agents and re-plan based on receipt of revised mission plans.

Engagement task management includes the ability to work closely with the AMC to dynamically plan, assign to suitably selected team member(s), coordinate target hand-off between assets where applicable, and assist the AMC to execute engagement action. Capabilities of interest include the ability to assist the AMC with firing solutions or support quick reaction response to hostile fire. They include task management capabilities that use autonomous agents or decision making aids that utilize Automated or Aided Target Recognition (ATR / AiTR) (emulated for simulation evaluation), weapons engagement planning, target handoff to organic assets within team or remote assets, or landing zone or cargo drop off point selection to support the AMC in choosing a course of action.

c. Essential functionalities that are common across mission types such as route management, survivability planning, command and control (C2) task management, situational awareness (SA) management, information exchange and communications management, and UAS resource management. Route management includes the ability to create, monitor and coordinate route plans for all the assets in the team based on vehicle characteristics, assignments, mission objectives and constraints, and operational environment. It may include a library of route planning algorithms, each suited to a different operational condition, that provides pre-planned routes as well as real-time flight path planning that reacts to payload configuration and geometry constraints, threat and obstacle avoidance, and accounts for terrain, weather, communications requirements, and survivability constraints. Survivability related capabilities include active management of survivability risks in route planning for all mission types and team members, coordination of team positioning to maximize overall team survivability, minimizing detection of team assets and development of mitigation plans for probable threat behaviors.

UAS resource management includes all the functionalities required to acquire, maintain oversight of, and communicate with an UAS asset, manage and support control handover for LOI 2-5, support coordination of task handoff between assets, and provide continuous status updates for team SA. Management of SA data for purposes of the simulation evaluation, includes storage and registration of terrain and entity data in a common SA database, receiving and transmitting entity data updates, tracking entity position data, maintaining no fly zone or other restricted airspace data, if any, and refreshing SA data based on events, operational conditions and mission status. Capabilities for management of C2 tasks, communications resources and information exchanges all involve managing the flow of information in real-time from the right source to the right recipient when needed and therefore, must use a team-based approach. Capabilities in these essential functionalities include the ability to assist the AMC in managing operations, and ensure that full SA is maintained at all times by use of autonomous agents. Interested parties are invited to suggest innovative automation algorithms and decision aids in organizing, processing, prioritizing and disseminating information and predicting information needs to deliver the right information at the right time to recipients within the team.

d. Human Machine Interface functionalities that provide for management of data input from AMC as well as output to AMC and manage selection of content and presentation modalities. They include the ability to select mission and context sensitive content for presentation to the AMC.

They provide an interface for the AMC to maintain real-time SA, monitor and communicate with all entities necessary to mission execution, including team personnel, team assets, and remote assets involved in the mission. They enable the AMC to efficiently modify and tailor mission plans in real time, manage data applicability (e.g., staleness, priority), re-direct any entity, re-assign any MUM team asset or sub-team, or take over control of any vehicle(s) or payload based on the level of autonomy AMC chooses for a task or segment of the mission. The HMI enables AMC interaction with all the mission operations and task management capabilities and subordinate capabilities listed in this section in the paragraphs above. Capabilities include user state monitoring and management that inform the selection of content and modalities of interacting with the AMC that allow for presentation updates removing stale data, and adjust modalities (visual, aural, etc.) in response to user states of stress, inattention, tunneling, cognitive impairment, etc. Again the end state desired is that the right information is presented at the right time in the right way to the AMC. Interested parties are encouraged to suggest innovative approaches, emerging user interfaces, voice recognition, voice synthesis and natural language processing.

e. Additional capabilities that vendors consider relevant to this topic in general, that add distinctive value if considered in this simulation evaluation effort are highly encouraged. These capabilities could include new, as yet untested autonomy, human interface or decision aiding software products or biometrics concepts for consideration in simulation evaluations.

The Government is interested in identifying existing technology products that can provide the functional capabilities listed above. In addition, the Government is interested in identifying those functional capabilities that do not exist currently and need new technology development effort. Interested parties are encouraged to present innovative concepts that utilize existing or emerging commercial technologies they consider of benefit to this research and describe their implementation approach to using them in a military application.

6. Acquisition Approach:

The Government plans to make multiple awards .

ADD plans to use a two-step process for this Call with white papers requested from interested parties, followed by a request for submission of full proposals from selected offerors based on the outcome of white paper evaluations. ADD may decide to eliminate the white paper evaluation step and use only a single step call for proposals depending on the responses to the otice.

Anticipated Types of Contracts:

The Government will consider a variety of contract types to include traditional cost-plus fixed fee (CPFF) contracts, as well as cooperative agreements like Technology Investment Agreements (TIA) that allow cost share.

Anticipated Period of Performance:

The desired period of performance is 36 months, although some variations may be reasonable on individual contracts or agreements in order to facilitate execution of the technical effort.

Award Dates:

Awards are anticipated during MAY 2017 through JULY 2017. Extended negotiations and complex contractual arrangements may result in delayed awards.

Government Furnished Data, Equipment, Property, Facilities: