AUTOMATIC TARGET CUEING

Trade Agreement: Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) Tendering Procedures: The bidder must supply Canadian goods and/or services Attachment: None Competitive Procurement Strategy: Best Overall Proposal Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No Nature of Requirements: Background

Under the mandate of Future Small Arms Research (FSAR) project, DRDC will examine existing and future technologies for small arm capabilities with the objective of identifying technologies which could increase shot placement accuracy and reduce engagement time under various situations. These technologies include weapon, ammunition, positioning systems, optics and electro-optics. A series of studies on these subjects will be performed, some of which may involve literature survey, simulation and modelling, experiments with modules and systems in lab and field, user trials, etc.

For many years, defence scientists and military forces are exploring ATC capability based on imagery in order to assist situational awareness operations such as surveillance, target tracking and detecting, and target classification (man, vehicle, clutter) and recognition (LAV and tank, man and the head of a man, clutter). Under FSAR, ATC was considered as one of the key enablers in future small arm technology. The goal is to assess feasibility and capability of assisted target engagement (ATE) in small arms by combining ATC to electronic ignited ammunition and small arm weapons. It is believed that ATE may help improving shoot placement and shortening engagement time in some situations. A series of studies and experiments will be performed to quantify the ATE capability.

Highly accurate ATC on both human and vehicle targets at standoff range (100m and more) under arbitrary field conditions has been demonstrated and could be achieved with today's technologies such as those in ALERT TDP, FAVS TDP and among many other DRDC projects. Most of these demonstrations, if not all, were performed in infrared spectrum. In a recent study, DRDC examined ATC performance in visible, SWIR and LWIR based on open source algorithms. This study suggests that sufficient ROC performance could be achieved in visible, SWIR and LWIR spectrum with current EO technology out to maximum effective range of small arms at 600m.

This work is to perform further study on ROC (Pd vs Fa) in association with image attributes and algorithm parameters.

Objective

DRDC has identified two open source algorithms: (a) Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) with Support Vector Machine (SVM); and (b) Local Self-Similarity (LSS). The contractor will analyse Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) of human target detection of these two algorithms based on image datasets provided by DRDC. The datasets consist of images in visible, passive shortwave infrared (SWIR), active SWIR, and longwave infrared (LWIR). These images are recorded at different time of day and different target standoff distance.

The contractor will: (1) Perform ground truth on DRDC image datasets and categorize image attributes of provided image datasets into these groups: (i) 8-bit and 16-bit encoding, (ii) spectral band, (iii) time of day, (iv) number of pixels on target, (v) target-background contrast, (vi) image with turbulence effect; (2) Determine ROC performance in association with image data attributes and categorized groups, and also in association with algorithm parameters mainly with window stride, scale, Hough bin size, threshold, training, query images, positive and negative examples; (3) Determine suitable algorithm parameters based on image attributes and categorized groups for ROC performance with high probability of detection (Pd) and low false alarm (Fa); (4) Analyse all operating parameters of the two algorithms against ROC performance and provide "weight score" to these parameters regarding impacts to ROC performance in association with the attributes of image datasets. These "weight scores" will be used to potentially optimize the speed-complexity of the algorithm performance;

The organization for which the services are to be rendered is Defence Research and Development Canada - Valcartier (DRDC - Valcartier).

The period of the Contract is from date of Contract to October 31st, 2016, inclusive.

Bidders must provide a list of names, or other related information as needed, pursuant to section 01 of Standard Instructions 2003

For services requirements, Bidders in receipt of a pension or a lump sum payment must provide the required information as detailed in article 3 of Part 2 of the bid solicitation.

The requirement is limited to Canadian goods and/or services.

The requirement is subject to the provisions of the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT). Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.