GDNP UARC

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University of Alaska Fairbanks

BAA for Advancement of Technologies for Use by Special Operations Forces

SOF are designed to operate across the continuum of campaigning, crisis, and conflict. SOF
operations will occur across all domains to include space and cyber to be in the forefront of the
United States efforts confronting an emerging reality where our opponent possesses potential for
overmatching capabilities. The new “normal” for SOF will be to operate in communication
contested environments, under threat of targeting by high-end military capabilities, including
Weapons of Mass Destruction, and where ubiquitous surveillance is routine, and information is
weaponized. The FOE is a world of “Convergence”: the point where the gap between non-state
and state actor capabilities diminishes and the threat to force and mission success increases
significantly. Core SOF missions such as Unconventional/Irregular Warfare, Military Information
Support Operations, Direct Action, Counterterrorism, Security Force Assistance, Counter
Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and more are expected to remain key to SOF
operations; however, the operational environment in which these missions will be executed is
changing in accordance with global themes and trends. SOF missions will not significantly change,
but how they are executed in the future and environment in which they are conducted is, and will
continue, to change significantly. SOF will be empowered by technologies that enable Tactics,
Techniques and Procedures to retain access and placement, as well as enable partner forces.

To permit SOF success in such a complex and dynamic environment, S&T seeks to gain Information
Advantage to hyper enable SOF Operators across all mission sets. The Hyper Enabled Operator
(HEO) is SOF empowered by technologies and information systems that accelerate tactical decision
making by increasing situational awareness, reducing cognitive workload, and simplifying missionappropriate information sharing. No single technology will independently make Operators hyper
enabled. Instead, Operators will become hyper enabled through the integration of information
and technologies. More specifically, the HEO will have technologies that permit the persistent,
near-real-time collection of data; the rapid, automated distillation of that data into mission
relevant information; the dissemination of that information to the personnel who require or can
best use it; the presentation of that information in easily understandable formats and user-friendly
modalities; the ability to use that information to select, direct, and implement tailorable, nonlethal and lethal effects to best meet mission objectives; all the while maintaining freedom of
movement and tactical invisibility. Thus, S&T seeks white papers in the areas of Next Generation
Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Networking and Data Management, Human
Interface, Next Generation Effects, and Next Generation Mobility and Signature Management to
build the HEO (see diagram below for a depiction of the HEO concept.

USSOCOM is interested in receiving white papers from all responsible sources (reference FAR 9.1)
from industry, academia, individuals, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers,
National Laboratories, and Government laboratories capable of pursuing, developing, and evolving
disruptive capabilities that must be made available to the SOF Operator within the next five to
seven years in order to achieve mission success in the FOE

BAA