Touch Screen Tactile Enhancements
Closed Solicitation Posted
- Solicitation number
- FMP-NNL-0037
- Agency
-
Department of Energy
- Responses due
- Set-aside
- No set-aside
Opportunity facts
- NAICS code
- 541715 Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology)
- Place of performance
- United States
- Points of contact
Notice details come from SAM.gov. Updated .
About this opportunity
The Department of Energy, through the Naval Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) operated by Fluor Marine Propulsion LLC, is seeking technical proposals for touch screen tactile enhancement technologies to improve training simulators for Navy sailors. The solicitation aims to develop innovative solutions that provide tactile feedback for touch screen-based control room panel training, addressing current limitations with physical simulator panels that are expensive to maintain and become obsolete. Interested contractors must submit a comprehensive proposal including a one-page Quad Chart and a five-page narrative detailing their proposed technology, which should focus on improving tactile feedback through technologies like OnGlass Controls, Electroadhesion, Linear haptic actuators, Piezo elements, and Touchplates. Proposals must be submitted to ATIP@unnpp.gov by April 25, 2025, with a pre-proposal conference planned to discuss project details and answer questions. The ideal solution will be reconfigurable, reliable, and able to represent different panel variations with minimal configuration time.
The solicitation does not specify a specific set-aside designation and is open to competitive bidding under the Research and Development in Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences NAICS category (541715). The place of performance is within the United States, with FMP reserving the right to share proposals with key partners such as shipyards. While specific award values are not explicitly stated, the contract appears focused on applied research and development in touch screen simulation technology for naval training purposes. The project timeline and potential contract duration are not precisely defined, but the proposal requires detailed execution planning and estimated costs. Contractors will need to demonstrate technical capabilities in developing advanced tactile feedback technologies that can significantly improve touch screen-based training simulators while reducing lifecycle costs compared to traditional physical panel systems.
Notice text
2 versions
Update #2 · Latest ·
Touch Screen Tactile Enhancements
The training of Navy sailors on the conduct of routine and abnormal evolutions is an important element of maintaining operational fleet readiness. Traditional simulator training, especially for seated panel operators inside of a control room, has utilized physical panels that simulate the real hardware panels with respect to appearance, panel response, sound, and tactile feedback. The exterior of the panels resembles the reference plant and includes a mixture of 2 or more position switches, push buttons, and rheostats for input and various digital and analog output devices. The interior of the panels is not prototypic and instead primarily contains programmable logic controllers that connect the panel’s hardware interfaces with remotely networked simulation computers. Though much less expensive than the actual reference plant panels, physical panels used for training are still costly, require maintenance, and encounter issues due to availability and obsolescence of parts. These costs have increased significantly over the past several years.
More recently, large touch screens that mimic a physical panel’s appearance, provide prototypic plant indications including sounds, and enable component manipulations via touch screen gestures have been introduced for training. Touch screen-based panels are much less expensive to build and maintain than their physical counterparts. One set of touch screen panels can even be used to interface with different reference platforms. The primary disadvantage of touch screen-based panels compared with physical panels is the lack of tactile feedback and muscle memory that can be acquired with physical hardware component manipulations. Additional challenges arise when the user needs to manipulate components on one surface of a panel while viewing the results of their manipulations on another face of the panel, leading to drift in finger/hand placement.
Examples of technologies that could improve the tactile feedback of touch screen-based panel trainers include:
• OnGlass Controls
• Electroadhesion
• Linear haptic actuators
• Piezo elements
• Touchplates
Technical proposals are being sought on technologies that would result in improved tactile feedback over that obtained from touch screen-based component manipulations alone, while still benefitting from the reduced upfront and lifecycle costs compared with physical panels. An ideal technology would be reconfigurable to allow a given touch screen panel to represent different panel variations, function reliably, and require minimal time and effort to switch between different configurations.
The proposed solution must allow an overlay made up of physical components like switches or pushbuttons to be placed on top of the touch screen such that when the physical components are manipulated, a recognizable gesture could be passed to and interpreted by the touch screen. The solution should allow different overlays to be attached to a touch screen to represent different types of panel configurations
FMP is seeking a technical proposal to support the above problem statement. Technical proposals can be submited to the point of contact identified on this opportunity by the specified date.
Update #1 ·
Touch Screen Tactile Enhancements
The training of Navy sailors on the conduct of routine and abnormal evolutions is an important element of maintaining operational fleet readiness. Traditional simulator training, especially for seated panel operators inside of a control room, has utilized physical panels that simulate the real hardware panels with respect to appearance, panel response, sound, and tactile feedback. The exterior of the panels resembles the reference plant and includes a mixture of 2 or more position switches, push buttons, and rheostats for input and various digital and analog output devices. The interior of the panels is not prototypic and instead primarily contains programmable logic controllers that connect the panel’s hardware interfaces with remotely networked simulation computers. Though much less expensive than the actual reference plant panels, physical panels used for training are still costly, require maintenance, and encounter issues due to availability and obsolescence of parts. These costs have increased significantly over the past several years.
More recently, large touch screens that mimic a physical panel’s appearance, provide prototypic plant indications including sounds, and enable component manipulations via touch screen gestures have been introduced for training. Touch screen-based panels are much less expensive to build and maintain than their physical counterparts. One set of touch screen panels can even be used to interface with different reference platforms. The primary disadvantage of touch screen-based panels compared with physical panels is the lack of tactile feedback and muscle memory that can be acquired with physical hardware component manipulations. Additional challenges arise when the user needs to manipulate components on one surface of a panel while viewing the results of their manipulations on another face of the panel, leading to drift in finger/hand placement.
Examples of technologies that could improve the tactile feedback of touch screen-based panel trainers include:
• OnGlass Controls
• Electroadhesion
• Linear haptic actuators
• Piezo elements
• Touchplates
Technical proposals are being sought on technologies that would result in improved tactile feedback over that obtained from touch screen-based component manipulations alone, while still benefitting from the reduced upfront and lifecycle costs compared with physical panels. An ideal technology would be reconfigurable to allow a given touch screen panel to represent different panel variations, function reliably, and require minimal time and effort to switch between different configurations.
FMP is seeking a technical proposal to support the above problem statement. Technical proposals can be submited to the point of contact identified on this oppurtunity by the specfifed date.
Files
| File | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| Request for Proposals - FMP-NNL-0037.docx | DOCX document |
Notice history
| Notice | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| This notice | Solicitation | |
| Touch Screen Tactile Enhancements | Pre-Solicitation |
Similar open opportunities
| Opportunity | Agency | Set-aside | Responses due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display, touchscreen | Naval Supply Systems Command | No set-aside | |
| NAWCTSD R&D Broad Agency Announcement | Naval Air Systems Command | No set-aside |
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