Contracting
Office Address
Other
Defense Agencies, Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, Contracts
Management Office, 3701 North Fairfax
Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203-1714,
UNITED STATES
Description
BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) 07-08 DARPA Polymer Ice WHITE PAPERS DUE 03/06/2007
FULL PROPOSALS DUE 04/24/2007, TECHNICAL POC: Dr. Mitchell Zakin, DARPA/DSO,
Phone: (703) 248-1509, Email: baa07-08-@darpa.mil;
URL: www.darpa.mil/dso.
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES AND DESCRIPTION: The unrestricted mobility of enemy forces
in the crowded urban battle space, including individual combatants and vehicles,
severely reduces the effectiveness of military and peacekeeping operations. This,
coupled with difficulties in the identification of adversaries amongst the local
populace, creates a dangerous, uncertain, high-risk environment that risks coalition
and civilian casualties. As such, there is an immediate need for methods to deny
enemy transit while simultaneously maintaining our own. An effective solution
is found from the basic tenet: to get from Point A to Point B, one must have
sufficient traction with the ground.
In response to this challenge, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) is seeking innovative proposals to develop Polymer
Ice, a polymer-based artificial ice material that achieves effective mobility
control by the precise and reversible reduction of ground traction. The Polymer
Ice program aims to replicate the properties of black ice, a thin, translucent,
slippery coating of ice on roadway surfaces that forms spontaneously in cold
temperatures, but for use in a broad range of hot, arid environments such as
found in Iraq and Afghanistan. A non-toxic reversal agent, carefully matched
to the chemical characteristics of Polymer Ice, will be developed to rapidly
restore traction when applied to a Polymer Ice-coated surface. Most importantly,
incorporation of the reversal agent into combat boots and tires, to achieve instantaneous
traction restoration on contact, will provide true asymmetric mobility capabilities
to our war fighters. This is akin to having the ability to run effortlessly on
wet ice, while adversary mobility is simultaneously severely restricted.
It is envisioned that a Mobility Control System would consist of Polymer Ice
(or raw materials used to produce Polymer Ice in real-time), a spray-on reversal
agent, boots/tires with built-in reversal agent, a dispersal means, and a means
for clean-up of the reversed material. Such a system will provide unprecedented
situational control and sustained operational tempo, including the ability to
shape the terrain by constraining adversaries to specific areas, control ingress/egress
to buildings, degrade the ability of our adversaries to shoot and chase us, and
gain time for our war fighters to act rather than react.
PROPOSAL EVALUATION: Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished through
a technical review of each proposal using the following criteria, in descending
order of importance:
1. SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL MERIT
2. VALUE TO DEFENSE
3. CAPABILITY OF THE PERSONNEL AND FACILITIES TO PERFORM THE PROPOSED EFFORT
4. COST REALISM AND REASONABLENESS
ADDITIONAL GUIDANCE: Proposers choosing to respond to this BAA must
read the associated PIP available at www.fedbizopps.gov and
www.grants.gov,
which provides specific information about this BAA, including instructions on
how to respond.
Anthony E. Cicala, Contracting Officer, Phone: (571) 218-4639, Fax: (703) 248-1927,
Email: anthony.cicala@darpa.mil
