NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT

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BAA-N00173-5601

Effective 19 Aug 2011

WHITE PAPERS DUE

19 SEPT 2011

***REVISED DUE DATE***

21 OCT 2011

NRL Broad Agency Announcement - Information for the Preparation and Submission of Proposals

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INTRODUCTION

AWARD CONSIDERATIONS

WHITE PAPER AND PROPOSAL PREPARATION*

UNSOLICITED PROPOSALS

REPRESENTATIONS AND CERTIFICATIONS

TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT (COR)

***The following Amendment is provided and replaces the previous version in it's entirety.  Answers to questions have been incorporated in this new version.***

This BAA Topic is directed toward scientific study and experimentation for achievement of a prototype sensor capability that enables tactical nighttime wide field-of-view (FOV) persistent surveillance when deployed on a SHADOW Unmanned Aerial System.  The desired sensor capability is intended to achieve surveillance of a wide area with adequate resolution to enable overall situational awareness of moving objects, including vehicles and personnel.  It is also intended to achieve enhanced resolution in one or more selected sub-areas of the surveiled area for the purpose of classification and identification of targets and target details.  Provided below are a number of parameters that identify desired capabilities for the prototype sensor deployed on a Shadow 200 UAS.

I.  Background
The objective of this BAA Topic is to support a larger ONR program termed Wide Area Surgical and Persistent Surveillance (WASPS) Capabilities For Group 3/4 UAVs (EMW-FY12-03). The overall goal of the ONR Program is to achieve new sensor and sensor information fusion capabilities to improve battlefield awareness for the Marine Corps and its ability to maneuver and project power by addressing current shortfalls including:

• Fielded UAV borne imaging sensors with high resolution, wide field of view, are not nighttime capable
• Tactical units at the lowest echelon (team, squad, boat, patrol) now receive little or no timely moderate resolution imagery, which is useful for situational awareness, because they have very few or no organic ISR assets under their control
• Tactical units now receive no timely high resolution imagery useful for identification and/or remote inspection of dismounts

The overall objective of the ONR Program will be accomplished, in part, using small, low cost, highly capable persistent surveillance sensors mounted in Tier II or Tier III class Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) combined with decision support tools to expose enemy networks and vulnerabilities. The effort described herein seeks development of a tactical, nighttime, wide field-of-view (FOV) persistent surveillance sensor with the following desired capabilities: (1) adequate resolution to enable overall situational awareness of moving objects, including personnel and vehicles; (2) the ability to zoom in and achieve enhanced resolution imagery over selected regions of the image for the purpose of classification and identification of targets and target details; (3) the ability to perform appropriate pointing and stabilization actions, as well as any needed optical functions for narrow field-of-view; and, (4) the ability to perform the first three capabilities within the size, weight, and power (SWaP) parameters for deployment on a Shadow 200 UAS.  A more detailed discussion of the desired capabilities for the sensor will be presented below in the Program Design and Performance Goals section of this BAA. 

It is understood that there are a number of difficult research challenges in the pursuit of the desired sensor capabilities.   These challenges include that: (1) the sensor may require some mechanical systems; (2) the choice of a visible sensor or an IR sensor, or both, for the narrow field-of-view portion may require a number of tradeoffs concerning the system SWaP; and, (3) in addition to the desired sensor system, other processing and communication resources must be included in the final, combined, actionable intelligence payload on the UAS.

This BAA Topic contemplates a 4-year research and development activity directed toward achieving a prototype sensor with the desired capabilities described herein.  It is anticipated that the program will consist of four phases: a base concept refinement phase (6 months) ending in a Preliminary Design Review; a second phase for detailed system design; a third phase for prototype fabrication and physical integration; and, a fourth six-month phase for electrical and software integration and testing.  The phase for electrical and software integration and testing will be conducted jointly with the government at government or civil airport facilities in the greater Washington D.C. area using either a Shadow or a surrogate aircraft depending on availability.  The offeror will work with the government to integrate the sensor with the payload and aircraft.  The offeror will support the government led integration and test effort.  Offerors will be expected to propose delivery of a fully integrated and working prototype sensor that meets the Desired Design and Performance Capabilities discussed below within the available period of performance and proposed cost.

II.  Desired Design and Performance Capabilities
This BAA Topic seeks research and development for an MWIR nighttime persistent surveillance sensor payload for center-line installation on a Shadow 200 UAS, flying at a nominal altitude of 12 kft above ground level (AGL).  In the target persistent surveillance scenario, the sensor repeatedly images a wide field of view (WFOV) (~4 km diameter) ground area to produce imagery with a GRD of at least 0.7 m and an effective rate of 2 Hz or higher.  If the approach uses super-resolution with a staring 8k x 8k array, then the ground sampled distance (GSD) goal is 0.5 m at 8 Hz or higher rate and the sensor should have the capability to permit super-resolution processing. The sensor must be capable of providing up to ten user selected video streams (640 x 480 pixels) with a GRD of at least 0.7 m at 8 Hz or higher and located within the WFOV.  The sensor must provide at least one narrow field-of-view (NFOV) 640 x 480 pixel video stream of a substantially better spatial resolution (Goal:  0.12 m GSD) to support remote inspection of dismounts within the WFOV.  In view of the tight 0.12 m GSD goal, concepts based on shorter wavelength sensing will be considered for the 0.12 m stream(s), including  the use of active illumination at night.  

Achievement of the desired capabilities using a multi-axis gimbal hosting large wide field of view optics and a large format MWIR camera is relatively straightforward.  However, the size, weight and power (SWaP) constraints characteristic of a small Shadow 200 UAV are expected to require innovations in any viable developmental approach for this program.
  
The program described by this BAA will develop and produce a lightweight capability that functions similarly to a two axis stabilized pointing system that will host the components described above on the Shadow centerline. Stability of the line-of-sight (LOS) is a stressing requirement for a small UAV payload.  Roll stabilization / pointing may require a mechanical approach consistent with +/- 15 degrees of travel in both axes to correct for aircraft roll, pitch, and yaw.  Shadow 200 platform roll/pitch/yaw and vibrational environment data is evolving and will be further developed during the program. The initial acceleration and vibration data for the Shadow are as follows:

In the standard persistent surveillance scenario, a series of acquire image commands will come in from an onboard sensor management system (SMS) at an appropriate rate.  During the exposure, the LOS jitter goal is less than 0.05 mrad rms.  For the purposes of this document, jitter is defined as random angular excursions at high frequencies (100 Hz and higher).  In addition to the jitter goal, there is a low frequency drift goal of less than 5 mrad/sec.  These goals are predicated on a nominal 3 msec image exposure time.  These jitter and drift goals, together with a residual image distortion goal, impose a derived goal on the precision and accuracy of the “on-bench” IMU.  If a scanning or step/stare approach is considered, a more stringent derived goal is expected to be imposed on the data rate from the IMU so that the above image quality goals can be met.  In any case, the minimum IMU data rate goal is 100 Hz. The residual image distortion goal is to be compatible with processing multiple frames of imagery and is desired to less than one-fifth of a pixel.  In addition to the LOS stabilization goals, when imaging ground (not open water) target areas, the pointing system should be capable of repeatedly pointing the center of the field of view to the same point on the ground with precision (not accuracy) of  1.5 m over time intervals of order 100 sec. 
Specific SWaP goals for the sensor payload are:   40 pounds weight, and 200 watts peak power.  The size/volume goal is to be compatible with centerline mounting on the Shadow UAV. There is more flexibility with the power goal than with the others. These goals are intended to be consistent with a ~ 10 pound sensor management system (SMS) of 90 cubic inches co-located in the UAV centerline payload space onboard the UAV platform.  Existing platform GPS and navigational systems are exclusive of this SWaP budget, however, their output data streams may be available to the proposed payload.  If proposed, any high quality inertial measurement system (IMS) on the optical bench must be accommodated within the SWAP budget. 

A significant part of this program will be the integration and testing of the camera and optics with the pointing and stabilization component.  The goals for the integrated equipment are as stated below:

• Two axis stabilization with +/- 15 degrees of travel in both axes
• Jitter < 0.05 mrad rms
• Drift <  5 mrad /sec
• Center point held to precision of 1.5 m (100 sec time frame)
• Compatible with centerline mounting on Shadow.
• Supports super-resolution or alternate sampling  approaches  to achieve GRD = 0.7 m
• Compatible with georegistration processing to achieve rms residual image distortion less than 0.07 m

The total weight goal for the integrated payload, except for the SMS and associated processing components, is 40 lbs.  Modular design and clear definition of interfaces are also design goals for this program.  Certain image processing steps necessary in achieving the image quality, GRD and geo-registration goals may ultimately be executed in the SMS and/or ground station.  These include bad pixel compensation, non-uniformity compensation, relative calibration, image formation/formatting, super resolution, data compression, tagging with metrology data, and georegistration.  The later operation, to be hosted in the ground station, is critical to achieving the residual image distortion goal.  Georegistration performance will be limited by the quality of the metrology data and the details of the image formation scheme.  While the SMS and ground station are not covered under this BAA, some of the top level goals (including GRD and residual distortion) depend on operations that will ultimately be hosted there.  Consequently, the development work sought under this BAA must include a processing approach and developmental hardware for implementation of the processing steps mentioned in this paragraph.  In the course of the work, raw data from the sensor proper will be processed with the developmental hardware to produce corrected, calibrated, georegistered images.  These processed images will be evaluated against the goals described above.  NRL may elect to rehost some or all of the image processing steps in an SMS payload.  The software, hardware and data rights associated with this work must make such rehosting possible. 
The interface between the sensor payload and the SMS co-payload is expected to be based on commands using a standard format , such as XML, and a standard for data format over optical fiber.  Data will flow to the SMS in uncompressed form (two bytes per datum) at the rate of 8 full frames per second or higher.  The development of the SMS will occur in parallel with the work of this BAA, but is not covered under this BAA.  Coordination will be accomplished through technical interchange meetings. Consequently, it will be necessary to design and build a sensor software simulation under this BAA so that smooth sensor / SMS integration can be efficiently accomplished.

It is anticipated that the government will undertake the airborne test of the prototype hardware that is developed, fabricated and delivered in this effort.  A limited amount of support from the organization performing the work of this BAA will be required as part of this project to interface the sensor with the government supplied aircraft, control, data acquisition and dissemination systems.
The fleet of Shadow UAV platforms may not be dedicated exclusively to the persistent surveillance mission.  A secondary goal is that the sensor payload will be capable of being removed and replaced with standard a POP-300 ball in less than 1 hour.
Desired Sensor Capabilities:
WFOV video: 0.7mGRD from 12k’ AGL and 2 Hz, 4 km diameter area
Ten Windows (640 x 480 pixel) of video within WFOF: 0.7 mGRD and 8 Hz
At least one Narrow FOV video (640 x 480 pixel): GSD  0.12 m at 8 Hz
Pointing repeatability 1.5 m
NEDT < 70 mK
<1 hr swap time of gimbal hardware and replacement with Pop-300 ball

In order to support achieving GRD = 0.7 m via super resolution, the optics MTF goal is: MTF>0.4 at 4 cy/mrad and MTF >0.1 at 8 cy/mrad.  This is a derived goal based on use of multiple frames in super resolution processing.  If an offeror proposes an optical design achieving GRD=0.7 m at a native frame rate of 8 Hz without super resolution, that offeror’s MTF goal is that needed to achieve the stated GRD.  The low frequency line-of-sight drift and the optics are desired to support residual image distortion less than one fifth of a pixel.

III. Award

It is anticipated that only a single award will be made. 

White papers and proposals shall provide a summary of planned costs necessary to achieve the desired sensor capabilities based upon a four year period of performance.  The total amount of funding available is approximately $9.67M .

Amended 10-07-11

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This effort is intended to provide the research and development for a prototype sensor capability that enables tactical nighttime wide field-of-view (FOV) persistent surveillance using a SHADOW UAS.  This sensor is intended to surveil a wide area with adequate resolution to enable overall situational awareness of moving objects, including vehicles and personnel.  It is also intended to provide enhanced resolution in one or more selected sub-areas of the surveiled area for the purpose of classification and identification of targets and target details.  Provided below are a number of parameters that that are intended to aid in developing such a sensor capability for a Shadow 200 UAS.

6.1 Background
This effort is part of a larger ONR program termed Wide Area Surgical and Persistent Surveillance (WASPS) Capabilities For Group 3/4 UAVs (EMW-FY12-03). The overall goal of the WASPS Capabilities For Group 3/4 UAVs is to enable new sensor and sensor information fusion capabilities to improve battlefield awareness for the Marine Corps, improve the capability to assure access and hold at risk, and enable power projection in environments that are not currently accessible. It will accomplish that in part using small, low cost, highly capable persistent surveillance sensors mounted in Tier II or Tier III class Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) combined with decision support tools to expose enemy networks and vulnerabilities. The effort described here will focus on the development of a day/night wide area persistent surveillance sensor payload system to support the overall program
This product will develop a tactical nighttime wide field-of-view (FOV) persistent surveillance sensor including an added capability to generate enhanced resolution imagery over a reduced sub-area.   It will provide a sensor capability for surveying a wide area with adequate resolution to enable overall situational awareness of moving objects, including personnel. It will also provide achieve enhanced resolution in multiple selected regions of the image for the purpose of classification and identification of targets and target details. The above capabilities are desired within the size, weight, and power (SWaP) required for a Shadow 200 UAS.  Hence, there are a number of key goals for the wide area persistent surveillance capability being sought by this BAA. One is the ability of the sensor system to survey a wide area with adequate resolution to enable overall situational awareness of moving objects, including personnel.  Another is the ability to achieve enhanced resolution in a selected region or regions of the image for the purpose of classification and identification of targets and target details. A third is the ability to perform appropriate pointing and stabilization actions, as well as any needed optical zoom functions.   A fourth is being able to perform the first three functions within the size, weight, and power (SWaP) required for a Shadow 200. A more detailed discussion of the required capabilities will be presented in the Program Design and Performance Goals section of this BAA. 

It is understood that certain mechanical systems may be necessary in the final sensor system design. It is also understood that the choice of a visible sensor or an IR sensor, or both for the narrow field-of-view portion, will depend on a number of tradeoffs concerning the system SWaP. Assuming that the SWaP requirements are met, the prime goals of the sensor system will be to achieve large area persistent surveillance with the ability to zoom into at least one region of the image. Note that the sensor system is not the only component of the payload. Other processing and communication resources will be necessary in the final, combined, actionable intelligence payload.

The Tactical Nighttime Wide Area Surveillance Program is planned as a 4-year research and development activity culminating in  a prototype sensor capability that enables tactical nighttime wide field-of-view (FOV) persistent surveillance using a SHADOW UAS. . The program should be planned accordingly and proposals shall address the following areas as a minimum:
• Technical: A summary of the technical approach that demonstrates the potential to fulfill the requirements described herein.
• Experience: A summary of experience and qualifications including technical and management competencies.
• Costs: A summary of planned expenditures.

It is anticipated that the program will consist of a number of phases. The first will be an initial concept refinement phase (6 months) ending in a Preliminary Design Review, followed by a phase comprising detailed system design, a phase for fabrication and physical integration and a phase for electrical and software integration and testing efforts.  A single award will be made for all phases.  The phase for integration and testing will be conducted jointly with the government.  Proposed solutions should include technical innovation and be consistent with delivering a working prototype sensor system within the allotted timeframe and the associated budget, with identifiable and manageable technical and schedule risk.
This program will address current shortfalls summarized by the following:

• Fielded high resolution, wide field of view, UAV borne imaging sensors are not nighttime capable
• Tactical units at the lowest echelon (team, squad, boat, patrol) now receive little or no timely moderate resolution imagery, which is useful for situational awareness, because they have very few or no organic ISR assets under their control
• Tactical units now receive no timely high resolution imagery useful for identification and/or remote inspection of dismounts

This program will provide technology development for a nighttime WFOV and NFOV imaging capability for evolving Naval/Marine Corps persistent ISR programs.

6.2 Program Design and Performance Goals

This BAA seeks research and development of an approach for a MWIR nighttime persistent surveillance sensor payload for center-line installation on a Shadow 200 UAS, flying at a nominal altitude of 12 kft above ground level (AGL).  In the target persistent surveillance scenario, the sensor repeatedly images a wide field of view (WFOV) (~4 km diameter) ground area at 8 Hz or higher full frame rate.  The ground sampled distance (GSD) goal is 0.5 m.  The sensor should have the capability to permit super-resolution processing to achieve 0.7 m GRD at effective rates of 2 Hz or higher.  As an additional goal, the sensor should be capable of providing up to ten Narrow Field of View (NFOV) 640 x 480 pixel ground patch image streams at 8 Hz or higher.  The imagery from at least one of these patch streams should be of a substantially better spatial resolution (Goal:  0.12 m GSD) to support remote inspection of dismounts.  In view of the tight 0.12 m GSD goal, concepts based on shorter wavelength sensing will be considered for the 0.12 m stream(s). 
Achievement of these goals using a multi-axis gimbal hosting large wide field of view optics and a large format MWIR camera is relatively straightforward.  However, the size, weight and power (SWaP) constraints characteristic of a small Shadow 200 UAV are expected to require innovations in any viable developmental approach for this program.  

The optical trains for both the WFOV and NFOV streams may be developed under this BAA effort. However,  submitted proposals may utilize GFE optical systems being developed under the companion ONR Ultra Wide FOV program. This companion program will also provide a method to capture the NFOV imagery, either by the use of a separate camera or by using  part of the large imaging module.   A second companion program is developing a 64 Mpixel MWIR imaging module compatible with the Ulta Wide FOV optical train, and is expected to demonstrate an imaging module technology in a time frame compatible with this BAA program.  However the imaging module will not be supplied as GFE for this BAA. The program described by this BAA will develop and produce a lightweight capability that functions similarly to a two axis stabilized pointing system that will host the components described above on the Shadow centerline. Stability of the line-of-sight (LOS) is a stressing requirement for a small UAV payload.  Roll stabilization / pointing will require a mechanical approach consistent with +/- 15 degrees of travel in both axes.  Shadow 200 platform roll/pitch/yaw and vibrational environment data will be provided to qualified bidders as GFI.  In the standard persistent surveillance scenario, a series of acquire image commands will come in from an onboard sensor management system (SMS) at 2 per second.  During the exposure, the LOS jitter goal is less than 0.05 mrad rms.  For the purposes of this document, jitter is defined as random angular excursions at high frequencies (100 Hz and higher).  In addition to the jitter goal, there is a low frequency drift goal of less than 5 mrad/sec.  These goals are predicated on a nominal 3 msec image exposure time.  These jitter and drift goals, together with a residual image distortion goal, impose a derived goal on the precision and accuracy of the “on-bench” IMU.  If a scanning or step/stare approach is considered, a more stringent derived goal is expected to be imposed on the data rate from the IMU so that the above image quality goals can be met.  In any case, the minimum IMU data rate goal is 100 Hz. The residual image distortion goal is to be compatible with a georegistration process resulting in less than 0.07m rms of residual image distortion.  In addition to the LOS stabilization goals, when imaging ground (not open water) target areas, the pointing system should be capable of repeatedly pointing the center of the field of view to the same point on the ground with precision (not accuracy) of  1.5 m over time intervals of order 100 sec. 

Specific SWaP goals for the sensor payload are:   40 pounds weight, and 200 watts peak power.  The size/volume goal is to be compatible with centerline mounting on the Shadow UAV. There is more flexibility with the power goal than with the others.  These goals are intended to be consistent with a ~ 10 pound sensor management system (SMS) co-located in the UAV centerline payload space onboard the UAV platform.  Existing platform GPS and navigational systems are exclusive of this SWaP budget, however, their output data streams may be available to the proposed payload.  If proposed, any high quality inertial measurement system (IMS) on the optical bench must be accommodated within the SWAP budget. 

The weight budget comprises two parts.  The first part, estimated at 20 pounds, is the weight of the optics being developed by the companion program mentioned above. The second part, estimated at 20 pounds, is the weight of the elements to be developed under this program.
Specifically, this program will also include the development and delivery of an approach that functions similarly  to a two axis pointing and stabilization system, an imaging system capable of imaging the FOV’s with the resolutions and sample rates described above, the mechanical parts needed for final integration, and participation in government led aircraft integration and testing.  A significant integration effort will be the integration and testing of the camera and optics with the two axis stabilization system developed.  The goals for the integrated equipment are as stated below:

• Two axis stabilization with +/- 15 degrees of travel in both axes
• Jitter < 0.05 mrad rms
• Drift <  5 mrad /sec
• Center point held to precision of 1.5 m (100 sec time frame)
• Compatible with centerline mounting on Shadow.
• Supports super-resolution or alternate sampling  approaches  to achieve GRD = 0.7 m
• Compatible with georegistration processing to achieve rms residual image distortion less than 0.07 m

The weight goal for the parts developed under this program (If all the optical components developed by the first companion program are used), including the large format MWIR camera, is 20 lbs.  The total weight goal for the integrated payload, except for the SMS and associated processing components, is 40 lbs.  Modular design and clear definition of interfaces are also design goals for this program.  Certain image processing steps necessary in achieving the image quality, GRD and geo-registration goals may ultimately be executed in the SMS and/or ground station.  These include bad pixel compensation, non-uniformity compensation, relative calibration, image formation/formatting, super resolution, data compression, tagging with metrology data, and georegistration.  The later operation, to be hosted in the ground station, is critical to achieving the residual image distortion goal.  Georegistration performance will be limited by the quality of the metrology data and the details of the image formation scheme.  While the SMS and ground station are not covered under this BAA, some of the top level goals (including GRD and residual distortion) depend on operations that will ultimately be hosted there.  Consequently, the development work sought under this BAA must include a processing approach and developmental hardware for implementation of the processing steps mentioned in this paragraph.  In the course of the work, raw data from the sensor proper will be processed with the developmental hardware to produce corrected, calibrated, georegistered images.  These processed images will be evaluated against the goals described above.  NRL may elect to rehost some or all of the image processing steps in an SMS payload.  The software, hardware and data rights associated with this work must make such rehosting possible. 

The interface between the sensor payload and the SMS co-payload is expected to be based on a standard format for commands, such as XML, and a standard for data format over optical fiber.  Data will flow to the SMS in uncompressed form (two bytes per datum) at the rate of 8 full frames per second or higher.  The development of the SMS will occur in parallel with the work of this BAA, but is not covered under this BAA.  Coordination will be accomplished through technical interchange meetings. Consequently, it will be necessary to design and build a sensor software simulation under this BAA so that smooth sensor / SMS integration can be efficiently accomplished.
It is anticipated that the government will undertake the airborne test of the prototype hardware that is developed, fabricated and delivered in this effort.  A limited amount of support from the organization performing the work of this BAA will be required as part of this project to interface the sensor with the government supplied aircraft, control, data acquisition and dissemination systems.

The fleet of Shadow UAV platforms may not be dedicated exclusively to the persistent surveillance mission.  This dictates a goal that the sensor payload will be capable of being swapped with standard POP-300 ball in less than 1 hour.