Engineering and Technical Services to Perform RQ-7 Shadow and U. S. Group 3 Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Technology Integration, Analysis, Test, Evaluation and Flight Demonstration

The Army Futures Command (AFC) Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Aviation and Missile Center (AvMC) Software, Simulation, Systems Engineering & Engineering (S3I) Directorate has a requirement for the procurement of engineering and technical services to support technical evaluations, by the Government, of the Textron Systems Corporation (TSC) family of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs), principally the U.S. Army RQ-7 Shadow and associated Ground Support Equipment (GSE), including the Universal Ground Control Station (UGCS), Universal Ground Data Terminal (UGDT) and the One-System Remote Video Terminal (OSRVT).

This requirement addresses:

 Engineering and technical services required to support Joint System Integration Laboratory (JSIL) research, development and engineering tasks conducted by the contractor on its fleet of UASs, ground control stations and related interfaces, components, processes, capabilities and architectures for which the contractor maintains configuration control. Examples of TSC include, but are not limited to Shadow and Aerosonde UAS product line, UGCS, UGDT, OSRVT and other product lines of unmanned devices. The purpose of this effort is to provide contractor engineering and technical services, including UAS flight crew and maintenance personnel involving:

- Technology integration and test;

- Demonstration of capability;

- Operational employment of new UAS technologies and tactics with immediate Warfighting and Homeland Defense implications;

- Improvement and enhancement of existing UAS fleet systems;

- Operation and Sustainment of government or contractor UAS fleet operations; and

- Cross spectrum contractor UAS fleet technical support for technical integration of international technologies and capabilities into United States and foreign military UAS systems.

- Interoperability and advanced integration of the government UAS fleet with a broad range of combat applications, processes, capabilities and additional manned and unmanned systems.

- Experimentation with new applications, processes, capabilities, components, and systems.

- Improvement, enhancement and sustainment of UAS training systems

- Post Production Software Support Sustainment

This effort will provide technical, engineering, scientific, and logistical expertise to support the JSIL in the areas of research, development, integration, experimentation, test and evaluation, maintenance, sustainment and operation of UAS systems and subsystems. Engineering and technical services will range from concept exploration through specification formulation, development, test, integration, training, fielding and sustainment operations.

The Government intends to issue a sole source contract to acquire the engineering and technical services to meet the Government’s requirements for technical evaluations of the TSC family of UASs, to TSC, 124 Industry Lane, Hunt Valley, MD, 21030-3342, CAGE Code 97384, pursuant to the statutory authority of 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(1) & (b)(B)(ii), as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii) — “For DoD, NASA, and the Coast Guard, services may be deemed to be available only from the original source in the case of follow-on contracts for the continued provision of highly specialized services when it is likely that award to any other source would result in — (B) Unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency’s requirements.”

The unique requirements for advanced military software/hardware development for existing UASs preclude utilization of commercial services; therefore, FAR Part 12 will not be utilized.

All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency to Ralph Lindner, Contract Specialist, at ralph.d.lindner2.civ@army.mil, and courtesy copy (cc) Jaquilla White, Contracting Officer, at jaquilla.e.white.civ@army.mil, not later than 4:00 p.m., Central Time, on November 18, 2022.

Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination by the Government not to compete this acquisition on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Government.