Title: Enhanced Situational Awareness Needs Statement
The Department of Defense (DoD) must maintain constant vigilance, ensuring that the U.S. military is always aware and ready to respond at a moment's notice. The future of conflict threatens to make the battlespace even more complicated to monitor. Conflict may occur not only around the globe, but within or across the land, sea, air, space, and cyber domains. Simultaneously our adversaries implement increasingly sophisticated ways to mask their movements, as they aim to reduce the time and opportunity in which the U.S. and its allies can disrupt their plans.
Modern warfare is also introducing an exponentially growing number of autonomous systems. If an adversary unleashes thousands of drones, solutions are needed to ensure that the sheer number of targets does not overwhelm human operators trying to track, triage, and react to the most imminent threats. Simultaneously we must seek to empower our own uncrewed systems (UxS) to navigate around obstacles in complex physical environments and maintain course in areas with degraded or denied connectivity.
Emerging artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) solutions may aid the human operator in maintaining situational awareness across an increasingly complex battlespace. Technology will play a key role in enabling an operational force to observe an unfolding situation, orient, decide, and effectively act to ensure the success of their mission.
The Innovation & Modernization (I&M) Office, within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD (R&E)) will conduct a Solutions Meeting in close coordination with USARPAC, the U.S. Army service component for United States Indo-Pacific Command, and other service and DoD stakeholders. This innovation engagement will focus on identifying and influencing the development of leap-ahead solutions for ensuring the U.S. and our Allies can react faster than our adversaries and further sharpen our competitive advantage.
Enhanced Situational Awareness' Solutions Meeting
October 29-30, 2024 in San Diego, California
Solutions Meetings provide a forum for selected technology developers to make brief technical presentations and engage with DoD and U.S. interagency representatives about their potential solutions. The submission process, detailed below, only requires basic developer information and 100 words or less about a proposed solution to be considered for participation. Results of the Solutions Meeting inform Government decision-makers and promote a collaborative ecosystem that accelerates the development and transition of promising innovative technologies.
A. Technology Need Descriptions
The Enhanced Situational Awareness' Solutions Meeting seeks to identify emerging technologies that heighten awareness of areas and objects of interest; enabling the DoD to quickly react to new information and accomplish mission activities more effectively. Technology need areas include:
Automatic or Aided Object Recognition: AI/ML and/or Computer Vision (CV) algorithms may improve the ability to rapidly detect, characterize, identify, locate, and track objects of interest. Technologies may involve one or more of the following capabilities:
- Enable object recognition from images and/or video (streaming and archived). Supporting other sensor modalities, such as electro-optic infrared (EO/IR), will also be considered.
- Monitor and identify ground-based objects of interest. Monitoring other domains (air, maritime, or space) or the capability to monitor multiple domains will also be considered.
- Identify and track objects of interest in adverse weather, during day and night, and/or throughout congested areas with lots of environmental clutter (e.g., in urban areas or under vegetation).
- Recognize obscured or altered objects that may otherwise hinder detection and identification.
- Efficient onboard processing, requiring sensors to only alert when key objects are identified.
Pattern and Scene Change Detection: Recognizing known' objects of interest is critical, but the DoD also needs to monitor broader areas of interest. Awareness of a physical area, and how objects and actors typically behave in that environment, reveals valuable insights. Technologies may involve one or more of the following capabilities:
- Pattern of life analysis, alerting on changes such as increased or reduced traffic in an area.
- Geo-fencing that alerts and tracks when objects enter or exit a designated area.
- Generated insights based on changes between current and historical data.
- Scene change detection that supports battle damage assessments.
- Autonomous navigation capabilities that can identify and avoid obstacles or dangerous terrain.
Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (PED): Recognizing a key object or change within the constant stream of incoming data allows operators to react faster, but tools are still needed to ensure action is taken at the speed of relevance. PED solutions are meant to make data usable, available, and insightful. Technologies may involve one or more of the following capabilities:
- Automated data entry, messaging, reporting and alerting solutions that function across applications.
- Automated feedback and evaluation capability.
- Single Pane of Glass' displays based on advanced algorithms that understand analytical workflows.
- Visual aids for rapidly orienting operators, such as feature extraction or visual cues.
- Archival tools for making data more discoverable and accessible.
B. What is a Solutions Meeting
Solutions Meetings provide a forum for connecting technology developers with the DoD to accelerate the discovery, development, and transition of innovative solutions for military challenges. Invited developers each provide an unclassified 25-minute technical brief (including Q&A) on their solution to attending U.S. Government stakeholders and invited industry peers. Briefs may not include proprietary information. Each Solutions Meeting also schedules opportunities for breakout discussions for further promoting collaboration between attendees.
The Enhanced Situational Awareness Solutions Meeting will be held October 29-30, 2024, in San Diego, California. In-person attendance is expected for all developers and Government attendees.
Technology developers selected to brief are responsible for their own travel and all other expenses associated with participation in the Solutions Meeting. The DoD does not guarantee funding or follow-up work to selected and/or participating technology developers but may provide developers additional follow-on opportunities based on applicability and other factors.
C. Submission Instructions
All applications must be submitted via email before 5:00 PM EDT, 03 September 2024 to osd.pentagon.ousd-atl.mbx.rrto-innovation@mail.mil.
The following information is required in the application.
- Email subject line: Enhanced Situational Awareness Solutions Meeting
All application information below must be contained in the body of the email. No attachments are allowed.
- Company name
- Website address
- Point of Contact (POC), email, and phone number, and alternate POC (if desired)
- A 100-word or less description of the technology that the company plans to discuss if selected to present at the Solutions Meeting. This description must focus on the technology and the envisioned use - NOT a description of the company.
- Select ONE of the above technology areas (Automatic or Aided Object Recognition; Pattern and Scene Change Detection; or Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination) that BEST fits your technology solution.
DO NOT SUBMIT CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
DO NOT SUBMIT ACQUISITION PROPOSALS. The Government does not award contracts based solely on this announcement. Submission of an application does not guarantee an invitation to participate in the Unleashing Data at Speed and Scale' Solutions Meeting or any other DoD events.
All applications must be received on or before 5:00 PM EDT, 03 September 2024. Submission of an application does not guarantee an invitation to the Solutions Meeting.
D. Protection of Information
- Protection of Information: All briefs are held at the unclassified level. Participating technology developers are reminded that proprietary information is not to be included during technical briefs. It is the responsibility of the participants to not divulge any proprietary information during briefs or other discussions during the Solutions Meeting. The U.S. Government, including OUSD R&E, have no rights to any intellectual property briefed or provided by technology developers as part of their participation in the Solutions Meeting.
- Publications and Endorsements: Participants shall agree to confer and consult with I&M prior to the publication of any press release directly or indirectly related to the Solutions Meeting. The Innovation & Modernization office (I&M) will confer and consult with any participants prior to the publication of any press release that directly includes a written or visual reference to the name of their organization, employees, or technology. Participants will not use the name, logo, or images of any U.S. Government organization, employee, or contractor without prior approval from the relevant organization.
E. Additional Information
University affiliated research centers (UARCs), federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), and/or contractor consultant/advisors to the Government may review and provide support during evaluation of applications. When appropriate, non-Government advisors may be used to objectively review a particular functional area and provide comments and recommendations to the Government. All advisors shall comply with procurement integrity laws and shall sign non-disclosure and rules of conduct/conflict of interest statements. The Government shall take into consideration requirements for avoiding conflicts of interest and ensure advisors comply with safeguarding proprietary data. Submission in response to this Special Notice constitutes approval to release the submittal to Government support contractors.
