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 A214-026 Threat/Target Sensor Stimulation Technology OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate the capability to synthetically simulate infrared and radar signatures to trigger a threat or target response from the system under test for use in assessing automatic target detection, recognition, and identification in a fully immersive hardware-in-the-loop test environment. DESCRIPTION: Aberdeen Test Center's (ATC) Moving Target Simulator (MTS) is a hardware‐in‐the‐loop simulator used to assess the target acquisition and target tracking performance of combat vehicles and fire control systems. The MTS is a 100-foot radius dome structure whereby the interior of the dome doubles as a projection screen. Items being tested in the MTS are presented with visual and infrared targets on the projection screen which follow various predetermined target paths. System operators then attempt to acquire the target as quickly as possible and track it accurately throughout the target path. Legacy systems have primarily relied on the operator to identify and track targets. However, future systems will employ infrared and radar-based sensor technology to assist with or automatically detect, identify, track, and engage targets. The MTS requires the ability to simulate the infrared and radar signatures of these targets and thus trigger these sensors so that the system under test believes that a threat or target exists so the resultant response can be measured. The goal being that the threat stimulation capability remains independent of the system under test and built into the fully immersive visual test environment at ATC. PHASE I: Determine the technical feasibility of synthetically generating realistic targets that can be used to trigger infrared and radar-based automatic target/threat detection systems in a hardware-in-the-loop test environment. PHASE II: Produce a prototype and demonstrate the capability of generating synthetic targets in ATC's Moving Target Simulator facility. PHASE III: Implement the capability into ATC's Moving Target Simulator and continue to adapt and evolve the technology to keep pace with advances in automatic target detection systems. The ability to synthetically generate targets will provide ATC and the DoD with the technology leap necessary to assess automatic target/threat detection, recognition, and identification of manned and unmanned weapon systems in controlled hardware-in-the-loop test environments. This technology can be leveraged by private industry to test such things as self-driving cars, delivery robots, and any autonomous system that uses infrared and radar sensor technology for navigation and decision making. KEYWORDS: Target detection; Sensors; Infrared signatures; Radar signatures; Automated target recognition; Synthetic data REFERENCES: Beasley, D. Brett, et al. "Dynamic infrared scene projectors based upon the DMD." Emerging Digital Micromirror Device Based Systems and Applications. Vol. 7210. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2009. Xie, Fei, et al. "Design and application of DMD-based infrared dynamic scene projector." Sixth Symposium on Novel Optoelectronic Detection Technology and Applications. Vol. 11455. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2020. Ahmed, Sherif, et al. "Radar target stimulation device and method." U.S. Patent No. 10,527,715. 7 Jan. 2020. Hager, Benjamin, and Jace Allen. Raw Data Injection and Failure Testing of Camera, Radar, and Lidar for Highly Automated Systems. No. 2019-01-1378. SAE Technical Paper, 2019.