The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineering Research and Development Center - Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (ERDC-CRREL) intends to make a sole source award to Kevin O'Neill upon the basis of the authority provided in 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1) as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services will Satisfy Agency Requirements. ERDC-CRREL intends to procure the following task in support of ongoing research in the field of enhanced detection and discrimination of unexploded ordinance: 1. Upward Projection for Emerging Instruments: The Contractor shall devise real time methods of processing EMI data acquired over unexploded ordnance. This effort extends ERDC's capabilities to detect Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) and perform environmental remediation for humanitarian and logistical purposes; advances the state of the art in mathematical modeling and data processing for the efficient discrimination of UXO; and contributes to the design and development of the next generation of sensing instruments in the electromagnetic induction (EMI) regime. Statistical learning machines such as neural nets (NN) and support vector machines (SVM) are trained to sort signals into desired categories. The methods are applied to raw data, processed data, or parameters extracted from the data. Once the methods have been trained on example cases, they process new data for unknown cases extremely quickly. These would be investigated for possible real time application, using data from sensors available to CRREL. The deliverable is a written report. This effort represents Task 3 of Kevin O'Neill's BAA contract W913E5-11-C-0017 entitled, "Real Time Processing via GOA, NN, and SVM et al". The efforts that Dr. Kevin O'Neill has already executed under contract W913E5-11-C-0017 were based on his own technical approach, which was prepared, submitted, and approved as a solution to the general government research areas of interest issued under the BAA solicitation. As such, the government cannot realistically compete the specific technical scope of individual tasks. Although the government has a general interest in certain research areas, there are intrinsic methods to the approach and execution that are specific to the incumbent contractor. Thus, it would be impractical for the government to expect anyone other than the incumbent to be able to leverage the methods and techniques of the predecessor tasks and the specific expertise acquired, as a result of working on the ERDC Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) research program, to achieve results for the immediate task that are consistent with and a logical progression of the earlier efforts. Although others may be capable of extending capabilities to detect UXO and perform environmental remediation for humanitarian and logistical purposes, advance the state of the art in mathematical modeling and data processing for the efficient discrimination of UXO, and contribute to the design and development of the next generation of sensing instruments in the electromagnetic induction (EMI) regime; those efforts would not be executed in a manner that is consistent with the existing research of the ERDC UXO program because they would not be based on the methodology and techniques, and the nuances therein, of the ongoing research conducted by Dr. Kevin O'Neill. This Notice of Intent is not a request for competitive proposals; however, interested parties may identify their interests and capability to respond to this requirement. Any interested party that believes they can fulfill this requirement should submit a capability statement for review. Please provide responses to this notice no later than 15 April 2016 at 12:00 PM CST. All responses should be sent by e-mail to
[email protected] and
[email protected]. NOTE: Telephone responses will not be accepted. A determination by the Government not to compete these requirements based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.