OpportunityTitle: FY14 Communications and Networking Discovery and Invention
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: All responsible sources from academia and industry may submit proposals under this BAA. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Institutions (MIs) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation.    Federally Funded Research &amp; Development Centers (FFRDCs), including Department of Energy National Laboratories, are not eligible to receive awards under this BAA. However, teaming arrangements between FFRDCs and eligible principal bidders are allowed so long as they are permitted under the sponsoring agreement between the Government and the specific FFRDC.    Navy laboratories and warfare centers as well as other Department of Defense and civilian agency laboratories are also not eligible to receive awards under this BAA and should not directly submit either white papers or full proposals in response to this BAA. If any such organization is interested in one or more of the programs described herein, the organization should contact an appropriate ONR POC to discuss its area of interest. The various scientific divisions of ONR are identified at http://www.onr.navy.mil/. As with FFRDCs, these types of federal organizations may team with other responsible sources from academia and industry that are submitting proposals under this BAA.    University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC) are eligible to submit proposals under this BAA unless precluded from doing so by their Department of Defense UARC contracts.    Teams are also encouraged and may submit proposals in any and all areas. However, Offerors must be willing to cooperate and exchange software, data and other information in an integrated program with other contractors, as well as with system integrators, selected by ONR.    Some topics cover export controlled technologies. Research in these areas is limited to &quot;U.S. persons&quot; as defined in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) - 22 CFR &#167; 1201.1 et seq.
Description: Communications technology that can provide seamless, robust connectivity is at the foundation of the Sea Power 21 Vision &quot;... to have the right information, at the right place, at the right time ...&quot; The performance of Command and Control (C2) systems and decision making at all levels of command depends critically on reliable, interoperable, survivable, secure, and timely communications and networking. The current evolution of naval warfighting from a platform-centric to a network-centric paradigm depends on successfully meeting the implied need for significantly enhanced communications and networking capabilities of C2, sensor and weapon systems. These systems are deployed on a variety of platforms and users, both manned and unmanned, operating under challenging battlefield conditions (lack of infrastructure, mobility, spectrum, interference, multipath, atmospherics, size/weight/power constraint, etc.) in different environments (space, terrestrial and undersea). The goal of the Communications and Networking Program within the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Code 312 is to overcome these challenges by developing measurable advances in technology that can directly enable and enhance end-to-end connectivity and quality-of-service for mission-critical information exchange among such widely dispersed naval, joint, and coalition forces. The vision is to provide high throughput, robust communications and networking to ensure all warfighters -- from the operational command to the tactical edge -- have access to the data, information, and resources necessary to make timely, accurate decisions while performing their assigned missions or tasks. Objective and Areas of Interest: Proposals for potential FY14 Exploratory Development/Applied Research (Budget category 6.2) projects are sought under the following focus areas: 1. Low-profile conformal multi-band (e.g., X/Ku/Ka) multi-beam digital phased array antennas with reduced beam squint and low side lobes and scan loss; 2. Transformative concepts/designs (arrays, waveform, signal processing etc.) to enhance performance and aperture size/power efficiency in high bandwidth troposcatter communications; 3. Passive wavelength filter technologies for the 450-550 nm blue-green underwater communications receiver (band-pass widths as applicable to a variety of laser/LED sources), with wide field-of-view (&gt; +-20 degrees), low insertion loss and high isolation; 4. Innovative concepts and approaches for spectrum co-existence (underlay/overlay, spatio-temporal/spectral management and deconfliction) of military waveforms with commercial wireless communications; 5. Dynamic network (traffic) scheduling, throughput and robustness enhancement codes/algorithms/protocols under nonstationary channel conditions; and 6. Machine learning algorithm/protocol and techniques for autonomous network management ONR is also receptive to highly innovative ideas in other general communications and networking areas that are not within the designated focus areas above, but nonetheless are important to the Navy/Marine Corps, as determined under the synopsis section above. **************************************************************************************************The FULL ANNOUNCEMENT is available on the Grants.gov website by scrolling to the top of the synopsis page and clicking on the &quot;FULL ANNOUNCEMENT&quot; box surrounded by the dotted line at the top of the page.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: grants.gov questions
GrantorContactText: Timothy Tripp &lt;br/&gt;Contract Specialist &lt;br/&gt;Phone 703-696-2099
CloseDateExplanation: See BAA for white paper due dates