Project Description
Area of Interest (AoI) Statement: Autonomous Transport Vehicle - System
Problem
The Department of Defense (DoD) has an existing fleet of military vehicles for its logistics operations. Today, however, these vehicles require human operators. In deployed situations, this creates unnecessary risk to service members' lives and introduces limits to operational tactics. Human operators also have work-to-rest cycles, resulting in additional time constraints. In a fast-moving conflict, the ability to continuously move supplies from one hub to another will have significant impacts on the abilities to sustain operations while maintaining the safety of troops.
Desired Solution Attributes
The DoD seeks commercial solutions to convert existing military vehicles into uncrewed vehicles. These systems should be designed to deploy onto the Army’s Palletized Load System (PLS), with the ability to be adapted to other vehicles within the family of Tactical Wheeled Vehicles and other vehicles within the DoD’s fleet.
The government is seeking vendors that can take existing military vehicles—including subsystems, such as trailers—and enhance them for safe, reliable, robust uncrewed operations through hardware and software integration. Solutions for both hardware and software components will be considered. This may include but is not limited to: networking and communications systems, autonomy critical hardware (sensors, compute, etc.), graphical user interfaces for vehicle command and control, teleoperation enhancements, and autonomous navigation software.
Solutions must have the ability to operate in environments inherent to military operations. Desired mission sets include, but are not limited to, convoy operations, waypoint navigation, and teleoperations. Solutions should be built to open architecture standards and be capable of integrating new hardware, software, and features as they become available.
The government will provide the vehicles required for prototyping as government furnished equipment (GFE). The government will also provide a suite of GFE and government furnished information (GFI), which vendors are not required to use, but can leverage for their solutions. This suite of government furnished solutions includes (but is not necessarily limited to): autonomous navigation software, interfaces, protocols, safety compute systems, modeling and simulation suites, and graphical user interfaces for vehicle command and control. Further information about GFE and GFI will be made available for vendors selected by the Government after phase one in accordance with the CSO process.
Vendors should be able to convert up to six vehicles within 12 months of contract award, and the possibility for up to 50 or more vehicles integrated by 30 months of contract award.
The government understands that companies will likely not be able to meet all of the specifications in this solicitation, but encourage companies with demonstrable capability applicable to one or more of these specifications to apply. Preference will be given to vendors, or teams of vendors, that show a capability for generating an end-to-end solution. Vendors who propose solutions using a teaming and/or prime subcontractor arrangement, which combine multiple solutions into one, are highly encouraged to submit such solutions individually, as well as together.
Eligibility Requirements
Eligibility Requirements
This solicitation will be awarded in accordance with the Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) process detailed within HQ0845-20-S-C001 (DIU CSO), posted to Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) on 23 March 2020.
Follow-on Production:
Companies are advised that any prototype Other Transaction (OT) agreement awarded in response to this Area of Interest may result in the award of a follow-on production contract or transaction without the use of further competitive procedures. The follow-on production contract or transaction will be available for use by one or more organizations in the Department of Defense and, as a result, the magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the prototype OT. As such, any prototype OT will include the following statement relative to the potential for follow-on production: "In accordance with 10 U.S.C. 4022(f), and upon a determination that the prototype project for this transaction has been successfully completed, this competitively awarded prototype OTA may result in the award of a follow-on production contract or transaction without the use of competitive procedures.”
Awarding Process
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Potential Follow-On Production Contract for Prototype Other Transaction Agreements
Companies are advised that any Prototype Other Transaction (OT) agreement awarded in response to this solicitation may result in the direct award of a follow-on production contract or agreement without the use of further competitive procedures. Follow-on production activities will result from successful prototype completion.
The follow-on production contract or agreement will be available for use by one or more organizations within the Department of Defense. As a result, the magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the Prototype OT agreement. All Prototype OT agreements will include the following statement relative to the potential for follow-on production: “In accordance with 10 U.S.C. § 4022(f), and upon a determination that the prototype project for this transaction has successfully been completed, this competitively awarded Prototype OT agreement may result in the award of a follow-on production contract or transaction without the use of competitive procedures.”
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We Work With You
If we think there’s a good match between your solution and our DoD partners, we’ll invite you to provide us with a full proposal — this is the beginning of negotiating all the terms and conditions of a proposed prototype contract.
After a successful prototype, the relationship can continue and even grow, as your company and any interested DoD entity can easily enter into follow-on contracts.
Our Process
We solicit commercial solutions that address current needs of our DoD partners.
You send us a short brief about your solution.
We’ll get back to you within 30 days if we’re interested in learning more through a pitch. If we're not interested, we'll strive to let you know ASAP.