Unmanned Air Systems and Flight services
Solicitation Number: 18-22083
ACAN Definition: Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN): An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.
Requirement: The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) is engaged in a 5-year, $10M, industry-offset research project in the area of autonomous flight sciences. Entitled the Canadian Vertical Lift Autonomy Demonstration (CVLAD) program, this Aerospace Research Center project currently fulfills Civil Unmanned Aircraft (CivUAS) program mandates. This initiative is a Technology Demonstration Program (TDP) intended to develop, implement, and evaluate a prototype technology payload onboard full-scale aircraft. CVLAD outcomes are aimed at increased capabilities in areas such as aircraft availability, mission automation, pilot assistance and workload reduction, optionally piloted or reduced crew operations, degraded environment operations, and teaming. To achieve industrialization, NRC has entered into collaboration with the Boeing Company (Phantom Works) and Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) to demonstrate capabilities for enhancing Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) military helicopter operations.
To develop key scientific foundations for this research, the NRC aims to enter into a contract with Near Earth Autonomy (NEA) Incorporated (Pittsburgh, PA) to access technology and specialist support through sole source procurement. The substantiation of this procurement is associated with benefits to be afforded by this relationship for enhancing NRC’s project effectiveness.
Minimum Essential Requirements:
Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that its product/equipment/system (as appropriate) meets the following requirements:
NRC’s minimum essential requirements for its autonomous flight systems procurement include:
Organization and services procurement without export restriction (i.e. able to be exported to NRC).
System (integrated hardware/software) solution value of less than $250K CDN.
System (integrated hardware/software) solution delivery before end March 2019.
Customized solution for NRC full-scale fly-by-wire research helicopter implementation given a 1.5-by-1-by-1 (L x W x H) foot external aircraft integrated system form factor, an internal aircraft integration limited to operator and pilot display technology, and a 50-pound system integrated weight limit.
System (integrated hardware/software) solution enabling NRC research flight testing and data research for;
Regime of Flight: Hover to 30-knot flight regime (incorporating autonomous landing zone evaluation/interfacing, obstacle detection/avoidance, and 200-meter range area mapping)
Data Analyses: Access to the system’s time synchronized mission plan, sensor (perception, navigation), computation (path, mapping), and display (pilot, engineer) functional data stream.
System (integrated hardware/software) and processes compatible with concurrent research on-going with NRC’s collaborators.
System development and implementation background expertise (i.e.; 20 years of academic autonomy sciences research experience; 15 years of autonomy sciences analytical, simulated and ground/flight vehicle-integrated experience) applicable for integrating autonomous systems on multiple helicopter types.
This procurement is subject to the following trade agreement(s):
World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP)
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier:
Research Effectiveness:
NRC aims to optimize its ability to collaborate with Boeing on technology development. In 2017, Boeing funded NEA to provide industrial support for actualizing milestones of its autonomous flight systems business case. As such, by utilizing the same technology and service providers, NRC can better ensure successful collaborative research through data, technology, and methods compatibilities. NRC further aims to apply NEA as a partner in long term research and development. This sole source procurement enables NRC to assess and plan NEA’s involvement for the purposes of strategic planning. NRC’s project success will be critical for military- and civil- based agency, industry, and certification progress in fielding Canadian intellectual property in autonomous flight systems and specialist knowledge.
Technology Effectiveness:
NRC aims to maximize its knowledge generation. The uniqueness of NEA technology and service provision stems from integration, administration, technology, and knowledge factors as follows;
Administrative Basis: NEA is the only agile (less than 3 month delivery) and cost effective (less than $250K CDN) developer and manufacturer of non-ITAR and non-export restricted flight autonomy system payloads for full-scale applications. Technologies developed by civilian joint US Agency and industry (e.g.; DARPA, Lockheed Martin Sikorsky) and military organizations (e.g.; US Army) are not accessible to Canada.
Full-Scale Integration: NEA is the only developer and manufacturer of accessible flight autonomy system payloads that have been demonstrated in full-scale (piloted) helicopter scenarios. Demonstrations include AACUS on Boeing MH-6 and Bell UH-1H, as well as research and development on Bell 206 helicopters. NEA also has a developmental chain utilizing surrogate unmanned aircraft (drones) providing NRC with options for future research requirements.
Technology Basis: NEA has developed unique intellectual property enabling it to provide reliable and rugged aircraft-integrated autonomy flight system payloads that may be customized to NRC flight research requirements.
Specialist Staff: NEA’s capabilities for development of autonomous flight systems have generated unique specialist skills and knowledge in applied autonomous flight sciences necessary for meeting NRC’s service support requirements.
Academic Linkage NEA’s capabilities for development of autonomous flight systems were derived from academic research outcomes of the Carnegie Melon University (CMU) robotics program. This world leading autonomous science academic research program ensures NRC has access to both NEA-commercial and CMU-academic knowledge required to drive its current research and future industrialization requirements.
Government Contracts Regulations Exception(s): – (6d)"only one person is capable of performing the work").
Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons. The following exclusion(s) and/or limited tendering reasons are invoked under the (section of the trade agreement(s) specified):
World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP) – Article(s) 1016(b)
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – Article(s) 1016(b)
1016.2 (b) - where, for works of art, or for reasons connected with the protection of patents, copyrights or other exclusive rights, or proprietary information or where there is an absence of competition for technical reasons, the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists.
Ownership of Intellectual Property: Ownership of any Foreground Intellectual Property arising out of the proposed contract will vest in the Contractor.
Period of the proposed contract or delivery date: The agreement will be issued in mid-December 2018 concluding in March of 2019 subject to negotiation. The NRC reserves the right to issue additional follow on contracts to the same supplier for additional support for up to two years after the agreement concludes in March 2019. All deliverables in this contract are expected to finalized by March 2019.
Contract value: The estimated value of the contract, excluding optional periods and or follow on services is $ $250,000 for time and materials.
Name and address of the pre-identified supplier:Near Earth Autonomy Incorporated
150 North Lexington Street; Pittsburgh, PA 15208 USA
Suppliers' right to submit a statement of capabilities:Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods, services or construction services described in the ACAN may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.
Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilitiesthe closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is (e.g. December 28, 2018 at 2:00 p.m. EST).
Inquiries and submission of statements of capabilities:
Procurement Officer: Johnathon Gillis – 613-993-5506 Email: J••••••••@••••••••.••.ca
