Enabling Cyber-Linked Physical Sensing Exploitation (ECLPSE)

ECLPSE will be a Two Step, Open BAA to support research and analysis on cyber-physical sensing and Electronic Warfare (EW)-kinetic effects to enable understanding how cyber-connected devices interact with the physical environment found in manufacturing automation, utilities, transportation, agricultural, medical, and other common applications. This effort will also support research and analysis regarding the prevention and exploitation of information leakages similar to electromagnetic security (EMSEC) vulnerabilities in the cyber/EW-physical domain.

Research objectives involve systems analysis of behaviors, interactions, and vulnerabilities; lead to R&D, evaluation, test, and training for new and disruptive technologies; and provide insights and awareness for strategic, operational, and tactical decisions and vectors for continued development and analysis. The purpose is to generate knowledge and battlespace understanding of sensing effects across multiple domains (air, space, cyber, and ground) to include internet of things (IoT) and distributed sensing with traditional and ad hoc configurations. There is a definite and urgent need for the development, testing, and evaluation of operational cyber-physical, EW-kinetic, and related non-kinetic sensing capabilities in support of national military objectives. The effort is estimated to be 15% basic, 70% applied and 15% advanced research. The projected Technology Readiness Level (TRL) for the various research efforts range from TRL 1 to TRL 4. In addition, while not included in the BAA Technical Objectives in SOO Section III, there is a potential that this effort, which includes any contracts issued resulting from this BAA, may also include technical objectives for incidental Operations and Maintenance (O&M) work and funding and incidental Procurement work and funding.

Additional research objectives are to understand sensing effects across multiple domains; perform modeling, simulation and analysis; experiments, testing and evaluation; Small Unmanned Systems Exploitation (SUSEX); cyber research and development; electronic warfare research and development; machine learning; autonomy; hard and soft information fusion; multi-level fusion; and novel exploitation products.