DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH (SBIR) PROGRAM SBIR 21.4 Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Army Applied SBIR Opportunity (ASO) Announcement April 1, 2021: ASO issued for pre-release April 14, 2021: Army begins accepting proposals May 20, 2021: Deadline for receipt of proposals no later than 12:00 p.m. ET IMPORTANT Deadline for Receipt : Proposals must be completely submitted no later than 12:00 p.m. ET, May 20, 2021. Proposals submitted after 12:00 p.m. will not be evaluated. The final proposal submission includes successful completion of all firm level forms, all required volumes, and electronic corporate official certification. Classified proposals will not be accepted under the DoD SBIR Program. This BAA and the Defense SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal (DSIP) sites are designed to reduce the time and cost required to prepare a formal proposal. The DSIP is the official portal for DoD SBIR/STTR proposal submission. Proposers are required to submit proposals via DSIP; proposals submitted by any other means will be disregarded. Proposers submitting through this site for the first time will be asked to register. Effective with this announcement, firms are required to register for a login.gov account and link it to their DSIP account. See section 4.14 for more information regarding registration. The Small Business Administration, through its SBIR/STTR Policy Directive, purposely departs from normal Government solicitation formats and requirements and authorizes agencies to simplify the SBIR/STTR award process and minimize the regulatory burden on small business. Therefore, consistent with the SBA SBIR/STTR Policy Directive, the Department of Defense is soliciting proposals as a Broad Agency Announcement. SBIR/STTR Updates and Notices: To be notified of SBIR/STTR opportunities and to receive e-mail updates on the DoD SBIR and STTR Programs, you are invited to subscribe to our Listserv by emailing
[email protected]. Help Desk: If you have questions about the Defense Department's SBIR or STTR Programs, please call the DoD SBIR/STTR Help Desk at 1-703-214-1333, or email to
[email protected]. Topic Q&A : The Topic Q&A for this BAA opens on April 1, 2021 and closes to new questions on May 4, 2021 at 12:00 PM ET. Proposers may submit written questions through Topic Q&A at https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/login or through the SBIR Mailbox at usarmy.pentagon.hqda-asa-alt.mbx.army-applied-sbir-program@mail.mil. In Topic Q&A, the questioner and respondent remain anonymous and all questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing. Once the BAA closes to proposal submission, no communication of any kind with the topic author or through Topic Q&A regarding your submitted proposal is allowed. Questions should be limited to specific information related to improving the understanding of a particular topic’s requirements. Proposing firms may not ask for advice or guidance on solution approach and you may not submit additional material to the topic author. If information provided during an exchange with the topic author is deemed necessary for proposal preparation, that information will be made available to all parties through Topic Q&A. Proposing firms are advised to monitor Topic Q&A during the BAA period for questions and answers. Proposing firms should also frequently monitor DSIP for updates and amendments to the topics. This Army Applied SBIR Opportunity (ASO) is issued under the Army Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for SBIR/STTR 21.4. All proposals in response to the technical area(s) described herein will be submitted in accordance with the instructions provided under 21.4, found here: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/b79ded14dcf54451bcfb11bddf5cd259/view?keywords=%22army%20sbir%22&sort=-relevance&index=opp&is_active=true&page=1. a. Eligibility The eligibility requirements for the SBIR/STTR programs are unique and do not correspond to those of other small business programs. Please refer to Section 3.1, Eligible Applicants, of BAA 21.4 for full eligibility requirements. b. Anticipated Structure/Award Information Please refer to Section 1, Funding Opportunity Description, provided in BAA 21.4 for detailed information regarding SBIR/STTR phase structure and flexibility. For this BAA, Department of the Army will accept Phase I proposals for the cost of up to $259,613 for a 6-month period of performance. Proposers should refer to Section 4, Application and Submission information, of BAA 21.4 for detailed proposal preparation instructions. Proposals that do not comply with the requirements detailed in BAA 21.4 and the research objectives of this ASO are considered non-conforming and therefore are not evaluated nor considered for award. Phase I proposals shall not exceed 5 pages. Phase I commercialization strategy shall not exceed 2 pages. This should be the last section of the Technical Volume and will not count against the 5-page limit. Please refer to Appendix A of BAA 21.4 for detailed instructions on Phase I proposal preparation. c. Evaluation of Proposals Section 5, Evaluation of Proposals, in BAA 21.4 provides detailed information on proposal evaluation and the selection process for this ASO. d. Due Date/Time Full proposal packages (Proposal Cover Sheet, Technical Volume, Price/Cost Volume, and Company Commercialization Report inclusive of supporting documentation) must be submitted via the DoD SBIR/STTR Proposal Submission website per the instructions outlined in BAA 21.4 Section 4.3 Electronic Submission no later than 12:00 p.m. ET, May 20, 2021. Army SBIR 21.4 Topic Index A214-016 Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Full Motion Video (FMV) Enhancement OBJECTIVE: Develop a capability to help the MQ-1C Gray Eagle (a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system) Payload Operators improve situational awareness (SA) and increase intelligence gathering efficiency to ultimately reduce workload. The desired capability would provide additional geography features, map overlays, known targets identifications, and user generated markings on the Full Motion Video (FMV) received at the unmanned aircraft system’s Ground Control Station. This capability will be used to facilitate intelligence capture, Pattern-of-Life notifications, or to become part of a user-generated Database that provides information to operators that are surveilling an area. DESCRIPTION: MQ-1C Gray Eagle is an important Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platform for the United States Army. The capture of intelligence products is labor intensive for the MQ-1C Gray Eagle Payload Operator. During the typical ISR mission, the Gray Eagle Payload Operator is often task saturated while also conducting radio communication with ground units. A seamless capability that would allow for quick tagging of Points of Interest, overlay of key geographical features (roads, buildings of interest), and integration of targeting / Field of View algorithms would reduce the amount of workload required of the operator. Other desired capabilities are quick intelligence capture by automatic creation of a quad chart that would detail graphical details, technical details (how many, how much, Pattern-of-Life), and other relevant details. Useful information quickly accessible on the FMV would be an overlay road names, past events of military interest, high granularity coordinates, enemy or friendly locations, and past observation reports. This capability when complete will support added resiliency for Army and Multi-Domain Battle (MDB) mission threads in a contested environment. Once complete, this capability could be scaled for use in other Army systems. PHASE I: Determine the feasibility of adding real-time or near real-time information overlays to the FMV stream that is displayed to the Gray Eagle Payload Operators inside the Ground Control Station. The feasibility study should address the key components and technologies required to implement this capability. The proposed system should be modeled to benchmark the processing performance required to support the application and include an analysis of the latency. PHASE II: In Phase II, a prototype of the system will be developed and demonstrated in a laboratory environment. MQ-1C Gray Eagle has a Golden Full Motion Video set from a flight test from a CONUS test facility. The software application would process this mission representative Full Motion Video feed to demonstrate the capability to add information to the FMV to enhance the Operator’s SA and reduce workload. The demonstration will provide an understanding of relevant data and help develop soldier requirements to provide a relevant capability once integrated into the MQ-1C Gray Eagle. As a potential follow-on, Product Manager Endurance Unmanned Aircraft Systems (MQ-1C Gray Eagle) has a lab environment that would allow for quick integration and assessment of the software application. PHASE III: In Phase III, the Army desires to pursue a fully-qualified capability for integration and testing in the MQ-1C Gray Eagle System. Training Materiel will be required to attach this application to the MQ-1C Gray Eagle software product line. In addition, the Army requires Defense Information System Agency (DISA) Certification to install the software application on military computing systems. It is also envisioned that the FMV enhancement could be paired with the pre-existing Vision Based Navigation (VBN) onboard the UAV to provide a synergistic effect. Product Manager Endurance Unmanned Aircraft Systems (MQ-1C Gray Eagle) has a Vision Based Navigation (VBN) flight test program underway that could potentially facilitate this assessment. In the commercial sector, the FMV enhancement could be useful for the law enforcement and homeland security domains, or in any application where there is a need for increased situational awareness. KEYWORDS: Augmented Reality; Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), Motion Imagery; Full Motion Video; Vision Based Navigation; Geographic Information System Mapping; Ground Control Station; Intelligence; Surveillance; and Reconnaissance (ISR); REFERENCES: DISA (https://www.disa.mil/) STANAG-4586 STANAG-4609 Motion Imagery Standards Board https://gwg.nga.mil/misb/ NATO STANAGs: https://nso.nato.int/nso/nsdd/listpromulg.html