SPAWAR seeks small business to install Maritime Radar for CBP in Buffalo NY

C -- Maritime Detection Project Crane and Rigging Services Support - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities
SSC Pacific provides systems engineering, development, integration, test, and life-cycle support for the Customs and Border Patrol Maritime Detection Project. As part of that effort, SSC Pacific is responsible for installing and testing this system in the Buffalo, New York area.

This is a performance based service acquisition to provide engineering services to support the Maritime Detection Project (MDP). The contractor shall install radar and microwave mounts and antennas at three sites in the Buffalo, New York area on three towers (BUN-010, BUN-011, and BUN-013). The contractor shall: Fabricate, integrate, assemble, and install mechanical hardware required in the development, test, and deployment of maritime and littoral area surveillance, and autonomous and non-autonomous systems and subsystems.

Previously/Background:

Great Lakes & Seaway Shipping Online AIS Passage Maps
NWS radar image from Buffalo, NY
CBP wants radar to track vessels on Lake Erie and snowmobilers crossing the ice | Government Security News
Tue, 2011-03-22 10:31 AM

Snowmobilers on frozen Lake Erie

Customs and Border Protection is developing a plan to install maritime radar systems in at least four different locations along the shores of Lake Erie, near Buffalo, NY, to be able to detect and identify vessels moving through the water as well as snowmobiles, jet skis and other personal vehicles that can travel across the ice when Lake Erie freezes.
The goal is to improve the “marine domain awareness” that the U.S. Border Patrol tries to maintain in its Buffalo area of responsibility, which includes the western part of New York State, extending from the international border with Canada in the north to the State of Pennsylvania in the south.

Maritime Radar_Northern Border - RFI_AMDA_MarRad - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities

Three primary threats along the Northern Border are terrorism, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration. The Operational Integration and Analysis Directorate (OIAD), within CBP's Office of Technology Innovation and Acquisition (OTIA), sponsored a number of user workshops to identify and prioritize Northern Border capability gaps. Mission needs were gathered through an iterative process during user workshops with operators from the Office of Field Operations (OFO), the Office of Air and Marine (OAM), the Office of Border Patrol (OBP) and the Office of Intelligence and Operations Coordination (OIOC) that directly support the Buffalo Area of Responsibility (http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/border_security/border_patrol/border_patrol_sectors/). CBP designated experienced users to support the mission needs and requirements generation process. The Northern Border Air and Marine Domain Awareness (AMDA) Project was created as a result of this process. The AMDA Project includes a portfolio of sub-projects. One of the sub-projects is the Maritime Detection Sub-Project. This Maritime Detection Sub-Project will provide an initial operational capability, as well as an opportunity to assess available technologies, refine operational requirements and further develop concepts of operation for Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA).

Ehresmann Engineering Monopole

For the purposes of this RFI, the maritime detection capability should ensure coverage at the locations identified in Table 1, with priority on the eastern part of Lake Erie and the western part of Lake Ontario.  This prioritized area that extends from the United States coastline to the international boundary line is referred to as the AoR throughout the requirements section of this document.  As previously mentioned, the AoI includes areas from the United States coastline to the Canadian coastline.  Three locations will involve deployment of the radar sensor on existing structures.  Since there are no existing structures for the fourth location, the government intends to provide a tower as Government-Furnished Equipment (GFE).  The tower is an 80 ft. monopolemanufactured by Ehresmann Engineering, Inc., and is currently in CBP inventory.  For the purpose of estimating the cost for this RFI, assume that the Government will also provide for shipping and erection of the monopole at the proposed location (Table 1, site 3). 

Table 1: Notional Proposed System Locations

Sites	Location	Existing Infrastructure	Lake	Priority
1	Sturgeon Point (Town of Evans)	Infrastructure exists - Erie County Water Authority (approximately 20 ft building atop a 30 ft bluff)	Erie	High
2	NRG Plant (Dunkirk, NY)	Existing Buillding	Erie	High
3	Ripley Beach area	None (requires deployment of a tower)	Erie	High
4	North East, PA in the vicinity of State Route 5 (East Lake Rd.) and State Route 89 (Freeport Rd.)	Existing building	Erie	High

The Buffalo AoR climate is influenced by both a northern location and proximity to the Great Lakes.  Winters in the Buffalo AoR are generally cold with heavy snow, and often windy, but can vary to include frequent thaws and rain as well.  Winters span from mid-November to mid-March and snow covers the ground more often than not from late December into early March.  The coldest month of the year is January, with an average high temperature of approximately 31 degrees Fahrenheit and an approximate average low of 17 degrees Fahrenheit.  Any system that operates in this AoR must be able to withstand cold temperatures for extended periods of time.  The system must be able to operate not only at the stated average temperatures, but also at the high and low temperatures typically experienced in the AoR.  Additionally, the system should be able to operate, and must be able to survive without damage, the infrequent record-high and record-low temperatures of the AoR. 

When the Great Lakes freeze, as they often do in the winter, surface forms of transportation such as snowmobiles are able to cross the lakes into the U.S. Lake Erie, being the shallowest of the Great Lakes, is the most likely to freeze and frequently does.  Lake Ontario, while less likely to freeze over entirely, still develops an ice sheet covering between 10% and 90% of the lake area depending on the severity of the winter.  Ice sheets typically form along the shoreline and in slack water bays, where the lake is not as deep.  This freezing of the Great Lakes increases the number of SToI types that the system must be able to address. 

MISSION REQUIREMENTS

Objective 1.1 in CBP's 2009-2014 Strategic Plan states that CBP must: "Establish and maintain effective control of air, land, and maritime borders through the use of the appropriate mix of infrastructure, technology and personnel.  A segment of the border between POEs [Ports of Entry] is considered under effective control when CBP can simultaneously and consistently achieve the following: (1) detect illegal entries into the United States; (2) identify and classify these entries to determine the level of threat involved; (3) efficiently and effectively respond to these entries; and (4) bring each event to a satisfactory law enforcement resolution."  

In order to achieve effective control, CBP utilizes infrastructure, technology and personnel in support of its key mission elements, presented below in Table 2.  The mission elements directly supported by the contemplated Maritime Detection And Domain Awareness capability are highlighted in grey.

Table 2: CBP Mission Elements

Mission Element		Definition
Deter	To dissuade illegal cross border activity into and out of the United States by creating and conveying a certainty of immediate interdiction upon entry
Detect	To discover a possible Surface Target of Interest (SToI)*
Identify/Classify	To determine whether a SToI is a human, conveyance, or unknown and the associated level of threat.  For the purposes of maritime detection, identification focuses on key characteristics of the conveyance detected.
Track	To follow the progress/movements of an SToI
Respond	To dispatch or employ law enforcement resources to address an SToI
Resolve	To take final CBP action, whether law enforcement action, administrative, or otherwise.  This includes capture data, process information, etc.

*Note: For the purposes of maritime detection, SToIs include all maritime conveyances ranging from personal conveyances (such as personal jet skis, go fast boats, pontoon boats, snowmobiles and all terrain vehicles) to large container ships.

OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

The initial operational capability (IOC) of the system includes the following:

• •A.)    The system shall provide CBP agents with the ability to detect, track and classify SToIs within the AoI during day and night operations; and 
• •B.)    The system shall provide a common display of SToI data in near real time at OBP Sector IBCC (primary) and OBP Buffalo Station (secondary).