DON26BX05-NP004 TITLE: NAVWAR Open Topic for Unified Assured Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Operational Awareness and Decision Support
OUSW (R&E) CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI)
COMPONENT TECHNOLOGY PRIORITY AREA(S): Human-Machine Interfaces;Integrated Network Systems-of-Systems;Integrated Sensing and Cyber
PROJECTED CMMC LEVEL REQUIREMENT: Level 2 (Self)
OBJECTIVE: Develop and/or adapt innovative software-enabled capabilities that improve operator understanding of Assured Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (APNT) status, confidence, threats, and recovery options across diverse positioning, navigation, timing, and situational awareness systems and providers.
DESCRIPTION: The United States Navy relies on accurate positioning, navigation, and timing information to support maritime operations, distributed forces, mission planning, and operational decision-making. As the Navy continues to field a growing number of APNT capabilities and related situational awareness systems, operators are increasingly required to interact with multiple interfaces and data sources to understand system health, confidence levels, operational risks, and available response options. This fragmented environment increases cognitive workload, complicates training, and slows decision-making.
The Navys GPS-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Service (GPNTS) program continues to enhance APNT resilience through the development and integration of a diverse set of technologies and systems. Examples of these data-types include the opensource All-Source Positioning and Navigation (ASPN) and PNT operating system (pntOS). The Navy seeks innovative approaches capable of ingesting, integrating, processing, and presenting information through GPNTS, to include alternate PNT sources, and related situational awareness systems through a unified operational experience. Of particular interest are solutions that provide operators with rapid understanding of APNT system status, confidence levels, threats, degradations, operational impacts, and recommended courses of action. A common operating picture, "single pane of glass," decision-support environment, or similar approach may be employed to achieve these objectives. The solutions are to transform fragmented operational data into actionable decision advantage and improve the ability of operators to rapidly sense, understand, and act in contested environments.
This topic does not seek development of new Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) or APNT sensing technologies, navigation algorithms, timing sources, or hardware systems. Instead, the Department seeks expertise in software architecture, data integration, information management, user experience (UX), human-machine interface (HMI) design, analytics, visualization, and decision-support technologies that improve operator effectiveness. Industry best practices in modern software architecture standards, such as containerization for on-prem isolated runtimes will enable the rapid and secure deployment of this capability while minimizing cybersecurity risks from cross-application dependencies.
Commercial industries such as autonomous transportation, cloud operations, telecommunications, logistics, and industrial automation face similar challenges in integrating information from multiple distributed systems to support rapid operational decision-making. Mature commercial technologies that have demonstrated success in aggregating, correlating, visualizing, and presenting actionable insights from disparate data sources may also be suggested. These may include industrial monitoring systems, transportation management systems, enterprise operations centers, autonomous system operations, telecommunications network management, logistics management platforms, and other environments requiring real-time awareness across disaggregated systems. Solutions do not need to be purpose-built for APNT applications if they can be adapted to address the operational objectives of this topic.
Primary technology areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
Data integration and orchestration platforms
Human-machine interface (HMI) design
User experience (UX) design
Common operating picture technologies
Operational data visualization
Decision-support systems
Workflow automation
Human-centered design methodologies
Data analytics and correlation platforms
AI-enabled operator assistance
Containerized software architectures
Mission management software
Digital engineering environments
Solutions outside these areas that address the stated objective may also be submitted.
PHASE I: The DON is planning to issue multiple Phase I awards for this topic but reserves the right to issue no awards.
Establish feasibility of the conceptual technology or approach through relevant operational use cases, anticipated integration approach, expected improvements to operator effectiveness, and the path toward implementation within Navy operational environments.
Document the results of Phase I in a Final Report. Prepare a Phase II plan.
Phase I Base Deliverables
Kick-Off Briefing
Progress Report
Final Report
Initial Phase II Proposal
PHASE II: All Phase I awardees may submit an Initial Phase II proposal for evaluation and selection.
Develop a working prototype that demonstrates measurable improvements in operator situational awareness, information accessibility, decision-making effectiveness, workflow efficiency, confidence assessment, or overall operator effectiveness. Mature, integrate, demonstrate, and validate the proposed capability within a representative operational environment.
(Note: Prototype demonstrations may include integration with representative GPNTS, APNT, situational awareness, or related operational data sources.)
Prepare a final report that includes a transition strategy, deployment considerations, sustainment approach, and commercialization plan.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Support transition of the developed capability to Fleet operators and associated Programs of Record.
Commercial organizations increasingly require the ability to integrate, organize, visualize, and act upon information from numerous distributed systems. Technologies developed under this topic may have broad applicability in autonomous transportation systems, commercial shipping and logistics, aviation operations, industrial automation, telecommunications network operations, smart infrastructure management, cloud and data center operations, critical infrastructure monitoring, public safety, and enterprise operations centers.
REFERENCES:
1. U.S. Government Accountability Office. "Defense Navigation Capabilities: DOD is Developing Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Technologies to Complement GPS." GAO-21-320SP; Washington, DC, 2021. https://www.gao.gov/assets/720/714196.pdf
2. Department of the Navy. "Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT); OPNAVINST 9420.1." Office of the Chief of Naval Operations: Washington, DC, 2019. https://www.secnav.navy.mil/doni/Directives/09000%20General%20Ship%20Design%20and%20Support/09-400%20Command%20and%20Surveillance%20Systems%20Support/9420.1C.pdf
3. Integrated Solutions for Systems (IS4S) Team. "ASPN and ntOS: An Open-Source Ecosystem for Building Navigation Systems." Proceedings of the International Technical Meeting of the Institute of Navigation: ION GNSS+, Denver, CO, pp 1121-1132, 2023. https://www.ion.org/publications/abstract.cfm?articleID=17172
4. U.S, Department of Defense. "Summary of the Joint All-Domain Command and Control Strategy." U.S. Department of Defense, Mar. 2022, media.defense.gov/2022/Mar/17/2002958406/-1/-1/1/SUMMARY-OF-THE-JOINT-ALL-DOMAIN-COMMAND-AND-CONTROL-STRATEGY.pdf.
KEYWORDS: Assured Positioning, Navigation, and Timing; APNT; GPS-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Service (GPNTS); Alternate PNT; Common Operating Picture; Human-Machine Interface (HMI); User Experience (UX); Data Integration; Data Visualization; Decision Support; Operational Workflows; Information Architecture; Data Analytics; Situational Awareness; Mission Management; Software Architecture
TPOC 1 : Brittany Lynn
brittany.e.lynn.civ@us.navy.milTPOC 2 : Kari Moran
kari.m.moran.civ@us.navy.mil
** TOPIC NOTICE ** |
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