W911NF-23-S-0001 SPECIAL NOTICE - Distributed Analytics in Tactical Networks

Background
The aim of this Special Notice under the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) (W911NF-23-S-0001) as amended, under Grants.gov Opportunity W911NF-23-S-0001-SPECIALNOTICE-Distributed Analytics in Tactical Networks, is to solicit proposals related to the ARL BAA Topic, “Networking Structure, Dynamics, and Protocols”. The future battlefield will be increasingly complex (dynamics, scale, heterogeneity, peer adversaries) and resource constrained (bandwidth, storage, memory, computing power). This complex network must support multiple conflicting demands and must support distributed analytics at the edge. The Army is interested in collaborating with an awardee on research efforts to further develop adaptive, goal-driven, semantically-aware, distributed analytics for situational understanding at the tactical edge.

Grant Details
Distributed in-network reasoning with adaptive analytics at the edge. Novel frameworks and algorithms that enable analytics at the edge under limited resource availability (machine learning services, compute, memory, storage, and comms) through intelligent information management techniques.
Agile AI at the Edge. Analytics at the edge must adapt not only to varying requirements (such as accuracy and latency) but also to resource availability (ML services, compute, memory, storage, and comms) and to the adversarial environment.
Cross-layer multimodal networking and communications. Future tactical networks will comprise a multitude of diverse communication technologies and interfaces spanning the electromagnetic spectrum.
Network Monitoring for sensing temporal & spatial network dominance / identification of windows of opportunity (WoO): WoO will be dynamic and possibly short-lived, requiring fast accurate inferencing.

Eligibility Requirements
Proposal must be submitted in accordance with the preparation and submissions instructions under BAA W911NF-23-S-0001. In order to be considered for award associated with this Special Notice, proposals must be received by 20 March 2024.

Period of Performance
Proposal evaluation is expected to be complete, and any award selections are expected to be made by 1 July 2024, with award execution by 30 September 2024.

Grant Value
The Government reserves the right to make multiple awards or no award as a result of this Special Notice. Awards will be in the form of Cooperative Agreements. The Army expects, but is not limited to fund 3-4 awards. The expected award range is from $500,000 to $700,000 per award per year for 2 years.