N151-080 TITLE: Counter Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance and Targeting (C-ISRT), Assessment for Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW) and Integrated Fires (IF)

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Battlespace

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: DCGS-N Inc 2 Integrated Fires, PEO C4I PMW-120, ACAT I

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 5.4.c.(8) of the solicitation. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws.

OBJECTIVE: Develop algorithms and methods to measure the effectiveness of Counter Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance and Targeting (C-ISRT), Cyber and Electronic Warfare effects in near real time in support of Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW) and Integrated Fires (IF). The use of game theory or other modeling methods are also needed to quantify the contribution of various C-ISRT and information related capabilities, e.g., Military Deception/Operational Deception (MILDEC/OPDEC), Computer Network Attack (CNA), Computer Network Exploitation (CNE), and active/passive Electronic Attack (EA), to the mission plan and warfighting outcome. The model should enable comparative analysis between various C-ISRT and information related capabilities during mission planning and execution and enable rapid plan modification based on the measured effectiveness.

DESCRIPTION: The U.S. Navy Information Dominance Roadmap 2013-2028 Executive Summary states:

"Integrated Fires will require new capabilities to fully employ integrated information in warfare by expanding the use of advanced electronic warfare and offensive cyber effects to complement existing and planned air, surface and subsurface kinetic weapons within the battlespace. Future information effects will be designed to impact and change adversary behavior, or when necessary, to control, manipulate, deny, degrade or destroy his warfighting capabilities."

Navy IF capabilities are primarily being pursued to: 1) coordinate and synchronize the use of both kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to achieve desired lethal and non-lethal effects; 2) support all missions and target sets; 3) be applicable in and across all domains (sea, air, land, space and cyberspace); and, 4) be effective across all warfare environments, to include Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) scenarios.
Future Naval operations will take place in an environment filled with a broad array of friendly, neutral and hostile networked surveillance and targeting systems. The systems will include space-based, air, maritime and land-based sensors that cover the entire electromagnetic spectrum. To be effective in this complex battlespace, the Navy, at all echelons, will be required to leverage technology to minimize possibility of detection and targeting, and create a collaborative EMW environment to coordinate maritime and airborne non-kinetic capabilities, and to be synchronized with traditional fires. To adequately integrate these fires across the entire engagement timeline, metrics are required to make trade-offs between Cyber/EW systems and air and ship weapons systems. The purpose of this research is to develop a methodology to measure and quantify the effectiveness of various C-ISRT, OPDEC/MILDEC, EW and CNA/CNE effects in near real time based on game theoretical models to quantify the value of C-ISRT and information effects within the context of relevant mission threads to rapidly inform planning and engagement decisions to be made by the warfighter. Proposals should reflect an understanding of the notional Naval Tactical Cloud (NTC) environment. At a high level, that would consist of a utility computing component, a Big Data analytic component (e.g., Hadoop Distributed Files System, Accumulo, MapReduce, and Storm), Semantic Web technologies, and a Data Storage component (e.g., Content Zone). Amazon Web Services and Commercial Cloud Services (C2S) are cloud environments that are equivalent to the NTC. Proposers should ensure that any proposed work under this SBIR is not based on unique or proprietary platforms or systems.

PHASE I: Phase I will result in a design concept for gathering relevant data, including from open sources and ingested sensor data, and demonstrating the feasibility of assessing the effectiveness of various C-ISRT, OPDEC/MILDEC, EW and CNA/CNE effects. The design concept will include a basic model, analytics and metrics to quantify the value of the effects. This work will be at the UNCLASS level.
Required Phase I deliverables will include:
- Design concept
- Block diagram of proposed solution
- Proposed model, analytics, metrics and measurement methodologies identified
- Phase II work plan that describes tasks, schedule and risks
- Phase I Final Report

PHASE II: Based on Phase I efforts and any direction from the program office, Phase II will develop, demonstrate and validate a prototype solution that is hosted in the NTC or equivalent environment. Required Phase II deliverables will include:
- Design architecture, algorithms and data analytics
- Test and validation plan
- Software executables, source code, and software development documentation
- Demonstration of solution effectiveness and relevance in a laboratory environment
- Phase II Final report
This work will be classified at the SECRET//NOFORN level.

PHASE III: Phase III will consist of transitioning the solution to DCGS-N Increment 2, or other appropriate program of record as determined by the program office. Additional development, testing and validation may be required. Source code and software development documentation will be provided in a format compatible with current Navy repositories. This work may be classified at the TS//SCI level. If the selected contractor does not have the required clearances and certification for TS//SCI classified work, the PMW-120 program office will work with the contractor to facilitate clearances of required personnel and facilities. Integration and testing of developed software may need to be performed at a government facility or lab.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: The methodologies developed in this SBIR topic may have applicability to gaming and other applications within a cloud architecture. The private sector is quickly moving towards the usage of cloud architectures for numerous commercial applications.

REFERENCES:
1. Joint Publication 3-13.4 (26 January 2012) Military Deception. https://jfsc.ndu.edu/schools_programs/jc2ios/io/student_readings/1C3-JP_3-13-4_MILDEC.pdf

2. Amerland, D., (2013) Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence, Que Publishing.

3. Dean, J., Ghemawat, S. (2008) MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters, Communications of the ACM (CACM), January 2008/Vol 51, No 1.

4. Schramm, H., Alderson, D., Carlyle, M., and Dimitrov, N. (2012) A Game Theoretic Model of Strategic Conflict in Cyberspace, Naval Postgraduate School.

KEYWORDS: Integrated Fires; Game Theory; Cyber; Electronic Warfare; Cloud Architectures; Modeling

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

DoD Notice:   Between December 12, 2014 and January 14, 2015 you may talk directly with the Topic Authors (TPOC) to ask technical questions about the topics. For reasons of competitive fairness, direct communication between proposers and topic authors is not allowed starting January 15, 2015 , when DoD begins accepting proposals for this solicitation.

However, proposers may still submit written questions about solicitation topics through the DoD's SBIR/STTR Interactive Topic Information System (SITIS), in which the questioner and respondent remain anonymous and all questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing until the solicitation closes. All proposers are advised to monitor SITIS (15.1 Q&A) during the solicitation period for questions and answers, and other significant information, relevant to the SBIR 15.1 topic under which they are proposing.

If you have general questions about DoD SBIR program, please contact the DoD SBIR Help Desk at (866) 724-7457 or webmail link.