Persistent Surveillance Systems-Tethered (PSS-T) Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) Sensor

Product Director (PD) Aerostats

Title: Persistent Surveillance Systems-Tethered (PSS-T) Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) Sensor

Request for information (RFI)

This Request for Information (RFI) is for planning purposes in FY2020 only and shall not be considered as an Invitation for Bid (IFB), Request for Quotation (RFQ), Request for Proposal (RFP), or as an obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services. All business types may respond to this RFI. Your response to this RFI will be treated as information only. No entitlement to payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by the Government will arise as a result of contractor responses and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. The Government reserves the right to reject input resulting from this request. This request does not constitute a solicitation for proposals or the authority to enter into negotiations to award a contract. The Army in developing its acquisition strategy, Performance Work Statement, Statement of Objectives and/or Performance Based Specification(s), may use the information provided. Parties responding to this RFI are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response.

The Government does not intend to pay for the information submitted in response to this RFI.

PD Aerostats is conducting market research to determine if vendors have experience developing a wide area motion imagery (WAMI) sensor and associated operation and maintenance training. Minimum requirements for a WAMI sensor include the following:

1. Provides a 360 degree, day and night persistent surveillance capability, while continuously recording all raw image data.
2. Operator controlled, size-adjustable extractions of the 360 degree composite image should be extractable via a virtual viewer.
3. Each virtual viewer should be enabled to act as a virtual sensor with its own GUI-like controls for pan, tilt, zoom, switchable between day and infrared (IR) modes, image fusion, auto-track, annotate, record, and playback.
4. Sensors should have provision to allow multiple virtual viewers to enable capture of multiple target areas of interest in real-time and archive retrieval and play back for forensic analysis.
5. The system should have sufficient buffering to allow remote control and video streaming of the extracted views to multiple command operation points.
6. Sensors should be capable of providing 360 degree situational awareness, 20-day archiving capability, ability to slue-to-cue, auto track, and provide automated activity monitor for selected areas of interest.
7. The sensor should be multi-mode, providing the ability to operate at multiple mission altitudes up to 6000 feet (ft.) AGL. The sensor should be able to detect and identify dismounted targets from 4,000 ft. - 12,000 ft. slant range with growth desired to 18,000 ft.
8. Potential offerors should provide training to the Government for sensor operations and maintenance.
9. The sensor should be designed to allow manual remote connection during maintenance to allow remote depot level / Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) system diagnostic and software updates.

Vendor Response Requirements:

All material submitted in response to this RFI must be unclassified. The response is limited to fifteen (15) pages. Responses are due thirty (30) calendar days from date of posting of this RFI. Provide a response in electronic format (Microsoft Office 2007 or higher Suite format) describing the approach to meet the objectives established above and should address the following items.

1. Approach to meeting the requirements listed above.
2. Potential offerors shall describe their repair process and ability to provide above user level maintenance training to Government personnel for in-theater repairs of their WAMI sensor.
3. Potential offerors shall describe the airborne weight, power, and position, navigation, and timing requirements of the sensor. Include all additional items (i.e. cables, connectors) required for the sensor to operate.
4. Potential offerors shall describe proposed data output, data base structure, search parameters, data formats from the sensor, and how that data is processed. Include ground equipment rack space, power, and cooling requirements for the ground control station. Details of software license requirements should also be included. Also, include details of network data infrastructure support requirements to link the airborne and ground subsystems.
5. Potential offerors should detail their expected cyber hardening and system vulnerabilities from software perspective and any optional systems abilities to continue operation in a degraded mode in contested GPS environments.

Information received in response to an RFI shall be safeguarded adequately from unauthorized disclosure.

Response Point of Contact:

Send questions and responses to this RFI via email to:

William Kwan, william.k.kwan.civ@mail.mil.