The BAA: http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa07-21mod2.html

• See also Zakin-responses-BAA07-21.rtf: Zakin answer to our questions about the BAA.

* spotter-email.rtf: Steve Potter 11 June email

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Proposal format - Technical Volume

The technical volume is limited to a maximum of 30 pages including a cover sheet, all figures, references, tables, charts, and appendices and consists of the following sections:

The specific BAA instructions for Chembot state that the Technical section of the research proposal must contain the following information:

1. Concept Definition: Clearly describe the proposed materials, actuation, and systems architecture concepts for ChemBots. Describe the underlying physical mechanisms that enable locomotion, shape morphing, and reconstitution, including associated on-board power/computing requirements and resources. Describe the basic strategy for traversal through arbitrary size/shape openings.
2. Supporting Technical Analysis: Provide a detailed analysis of the technical rationale that supports the proposed ChemBots concept, including performance estimates.
3. Research Plan: Provide a detailed research plan that describes the methods for achieving the Phase I milestone specified in this Broad Agency Announcement. Provide several specific, quantitative milestones at intermediate stages of the program to assess progress towards meeting the Phase I milestone.
4. Brief list of relevant references.

The more general DSO guidelines for full proposal format and content provided at http://www.darpa.mil/baa/BAA07-21pt2.html specify that the Technical Volume should contain:

a) Executive Summary (two pages or less);

b) Technical Section that clearly describes the innovation of the work to be accomplished, specific metrics for the effort, the risks to achieving those metrics and approaches for mitigation of those risks. All milestones should be clearly delineated, especially those early (12 to 18 months) milestones that are critical to demonstration of the concept or approach. Supporting rationale for performance enhancements should be included. The perceived need for this research and the potential impact on the DoD should be described, and a Statement of Work (SOW) that summarizes critical tasks to be accomplished should be presented;

• see ChemBotCriticalRequirements for details of key features

c) Time-phased schedule-milestone chart;

d) Summary of relevant prior work;

e) Brief description of applicable facilities and equipment;

f) Short resumes of key individuals. The level of effort and specific roles and qualifications of key individuals should be included. If the team is large (greater than 3 separate entities), a management plan for coordination of the effort should also be included; and

g) Current and pending support (award title, amount, period of performance, and degree of overlap with this proposal).

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Proposals may include, or be led by, foreign firms and/or personnel provided all export control laws and U.S. national security requirements are adhered to in the conduct of the effort and that the work relating to the foreign firm or personnel is unclassified. The onus of understanding and complying with export control rests with the proposer, not the Government.

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Phase I will be a research effort of not more than 24 months; however, shorter duration efforts are strongly encouraged.

OK, so maybe think 18 months for Phase I?

The Phase I milestone is:

1. Demonstrate a ChemBot, approximately the size (but not necessarily the form-factor) of a regulation softball (i.e., 30 cm circumference; 10 cm diameter; 500 cm3 volume), that can:

a) travel a distance of 5 meters at a speed of 0.25 meters/minute;

b) achieve a 10-fold reduction in its largest dimension; and

c) traverse through a 1 cm opening of arbitrary geometry and reconstitute its original size and shape, in 15 seconds.

Phase II is expected to be a research effort of between 18 and 24 months. The Phase II milestones will be determined by the results of the Phase I effort and the specific applications that are proposed.

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Older stuff...

Whitepaper to be submitted: May 3, 2007, NO LATER THAN 4:00PM ET. Eight pages.

• Cover sheet -- Technical Point of Contact's information (name, address, phone, fax, email, lead organization and business type), the title of the proposed work, the estimated cost, and the duration (in months) of the proposed work.
• Executive Summary -- clear statement of the uniqueness of the idea. We are looking for revolutionary ideas that will firmly establish the field of soft robotics
• Approach -- the scientific and technical challenges inherent in this approach, and possible solutions for overcoming potential problems. Provide supporting technical analysis. This statement should end with a description of the proposed ChemBot architecture and an initial estimate of ChemBot performance. This statement will also serve to demonstrate an understanding of the state-of-the-art in the field.
• Briefly outline the research areas relevant to achieving program milestones, initial experiments to be conducted, and how progress towards these milestones will be assessed.
• A cost estimate for resources over the course of the proposed timeline. This cost estimate should include both labor and materials costs.
• A summary of expertise of the key personnel on the project relevant to the program goals. If the team is multi-organizational, a proposed management structure should also be included.
• Brief list of relevant references.

-- MarkCutkosky - 25 May 2007