RECON. AUTO DES OBJECTIFS

Trade Agreement: Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT)
Tendering Procedures: The bidder must supply Canadian goods
and/or services
Attachment: None
Competitive Procurement Strategy: Best Overall Proposal
Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No
Nature of Requirements:
Background

Under the mandate of Future Small Arms Research (FSAR) project,
DRDC will examine existing and future technologies for small arm
capabilities with the objective of identifying technologies
which could increase shot placement accuracy and reduce
engagement time under various situations. These technologies
include weapon, ammunition, positioning systems, optics and
electro-optics. A series of studies on these subjects will be
performed, some of which may involve literature survey,
simulation and modelling, experiments with modules and systems
in lab and field, user trials, etc.

For many years, defence scientists and military forces are
exploring ATC capability based on imagery in order to assist
situational awareness operations such as surveillance, target
tracking and detecting, and target classification (man, vehicle,
clutter) and recognition (LAV and tank, man and the head of a
man, clutter). Under FSAR, ATC was considered as one of the key
enablers in future small arm technology. The goal is to assess
feasibility and capability of assisted target engagement (ATE)
in small arms by combining ATC to electronic ignited ammunition
and small arm weapons. It is believed that ATE may help
improving shoot placement and shortening engagement time in some
situations. A series of studies and experiments will be
performed to quantify the ATE capability.

Highly accurate ATC on both human and vehicle targets at
standoff range (100m and more) under arbitrary field conditions
has been demonstrated and could be achieved with today's
technologies such as those in ALERT TDP, FAVS TDP and among many
other DRDC projects. Most of these demonstrations, if not all,
were performed in infrared spectrum. In a recent study, DRDC
examined ATC performance in visible, SWIR and LWIR based on open
source algorithms. This study suggests that sufficient ROC
performance could be achieved in visible, SWIR and LWIR spectrum
with current EO technology out to maximum effective range of
small arms at 600m.

This work is to perform further study on ROC (Pd vs Fa) in
association with image attributes and algorithm parameters.

Objective

DRDC has identified two open source algorithms: (a) Histogram of
Oriented Gradients (HOG) with Support Vector Machine (SVM); and
(b) Local Self-Similarity (LSS). The contractor will analyse
Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) of human target
detection of these two algorithms based on image datasets
provided by DRDC. The datasets consist of images in visible,
passive shortwave infrared (SWIR), active SWIR, and longwave
infrared (LWIR). These images are recorded at different time of
day and different target standoff distance.

The contractor will:
(1) Perform ground truth on DRDC image datasets and categorize
image attributes of provided image datasets into these groups:
(i) 8-bit and 16-bit encoding, (ii) spectral band, (iii) time of
day, (iv) number of pixels on target, (v) target-background
contrast, (vi) image with turbulence effect;
(2) Determine ROC performance in association with image data
attributes and categorized groups, and also in association with
algorithm parameters mainly with window stride, scale, Hough bin
size, threshold, training, query images, positive and negative
examples;
(3) Determine suitable algorithm parameters based on image
attributes and categorized groups for ROC performance with high
probability of detection (Pd) and low false alarm (Fa);
(4) Analyse all operating parameters of the two algorithms
against ROC performance and provide "weight score" to these
parameters regarding impacts to ROC performance in association
with the attributes of image datasets. These "weight scores"
will be used to potentially optimize the speed-complexity of the
algorithm performance;

The organization for which the services are to be rendered is
Defence Research and Development Canada - Valcartier (DRDC -
Valcartier).

The period of the Contract is from date of Contract to October
31st, 2016, inclusive.

Bidders must provide a list of names, or other related
information as needed, pursuant to section 01 of Standard
Instructions 2003

For services requirements, Bidders in receipt of a pension or a
lump sum payment must provide the required information as
detailed in article 3 of Part 2 of the bid solicitation.

The requirement is limited to Canadian goods and/or services.

The requirement is subject to the provisions of the Agreement on
Internal Trade (AIT).
Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any
procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.