This is a Notice of Proposed Contract Action under the FAR Part 12 Acquisition of Commercial Items and FAR Part 13 Simplified Acquisition Procedures. This notice is for information only; a solicitation will not be issued. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTATION. No contract will be awarded on the basis of offers received in response to this notice. The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 334515 with a small business size standard of 750 employees.
AFRL/RITE requires a purchase of two (2) Microwave Radiometer (P/N: LWP+U72-82-G5) with customer specified options to support ongoing research and development activity to support in-house V/W band propagation research efforts and the AFRL W and V band Space Communications Experiment (WSCE). The customer specified options consist of the following specs:

Item Item Number Description

1 59000246 RPG-LWP-U72+82-G5 Four-channel direct detection microwave radiometer with channels at 23.8 GHz, 31.4 GHz, 72.5 GHz, and 82.5 GHz (bandwidth 230, 230, 2000, 2000 MHz)

2 40007110 Azimuth Positioner (for RPG-Std-MWR) including power supply for drive unit

3 40007106 IRR single-channel Single channel IRR with -150 °C sensitivity limit (for RPG Std. MWR)

4 41000008 IRR elevation-scanner Optional IRR elevation scanning motor drive (at time of order, for RPG-Std-MWR)

5 41000002 Host PC Laptop for remote control of the microwave radiometer via Ethernet/LAN interface with software loaded and tested

QTY 2 is required for all items 1-5 above.

Long description:

Multi-channel Microwave Radiometer Specifications

Model: LWP-U72-82-Plus

Description: A multi-channel microwave radiometer with channels at 72.5 GHz and 82.5 GHz, plus a minimum of two K-band channels at nominally 23.8 and 31.4 GHz. The lower frequency channels should be chosen to provide integrated water vapor and liquid water path amounts. All microwave frequency channels shall share a common receive antenna. The radiometer system shall also an infrared radiometer (nominally at 9.5 to 11.5 microns) whose pointing and data collection is synchronized with the microwave channels. The radiometer should be a stand-alone system for automated use under nearly all environmental conditions, including fog and rain. The radiometer shall have a hydrophobic radome and blower/ heater system to blow away water and snow and prevent the formation of dew on the radome. The instrument shall have operating software that allows local and remote operation, storage and manipulation of data. The instrument shall have internal retrieval algorithms that calculate the integrated liquid water vapor and liquid water path amounts, and provide the retrieval data and raw data output (Levels 0,1,2). The instrument shall have full programmable steerability, including an azimuth positioner that allows 0 to 360 degree rotation as well as internal elevation scanning, with custom definable scans, including "sun-swtiching". The instrument shall have external meteorological detectors and GPS clock.

Radiometer Calibration:

The radiometer shall have absolute calibration modes that include a sky tipping calibration mode and an external mode that uses an external cold (liquid nitrogen) target and an internal ambient load. The liquid nitrogen target and mounting mechanism shall be included.

The radiometer shall have internal auto-calibration systems that include noise sources that provide noise switching, gain calibration that provide system noise temperature calibration.

Other Multi-channel Radiometer Specifications:

Center Frequencies: 72.5 GHz +/- 0.1 GHz, 82.5 GHz +/- 0.1 GHz.

Bandwidth: 72.5 and 82.5 GHz: < 2GHz bandwidth (-3dB FWHM); 23.8 and 31.4 GHz: < 300 MHz

Beam Width (FWHP) 72.5 and 82.5 GHz: less than 1.6 degrees. 23 and 31 GHz: less than 4 Degrees.

Sidelobe level: 72.5 and 82.5 GHz: less than -40 dBc. K-band: less than -30 dBc

Radiometric Resolution: < 0.2K rms at 1 sec integration time.

Brightness temperature accuracy: < 0.5 K

Radiometric range: 0-800 K

System stability: < 1.0 K.

Receiver and antenna thermal stabilization: < 0.03 K

Sampling rate/ temporal resolution: equal to integration time (plus time to change elevation/azimuth) System shall measure all channels simultaneously.

LWP accuracy: +/- 29 g/m2

IWV accuracy: +/- 0.2 Kg/m2

Automatic rain detections system with rain flag and rain rate.

Elevation scan: 0 to 180° , scan steps less than or equal to 0.15 degrees, resolution less than 0.15 degrees.

Azimuth scan: 0 to 360°, scan steps less than or equal to 0.1 degrees, resolution less than 0.1 degrees.

Pointing Speed: > 40 degrees per second.

Azimuth alignment by software (sun-tracking plus GPS): provides measure of the azimuth pointing error to the resolution of the azimuth positioner.

Sun-Switching mode: Mode that switches pointing to the center of the Sun and a user defined offset pointing from the Sun. Control software that dynamically tracks the sun and automatically calculates "spot-on" pointing to the sun center, within the resolution of the azimuth and elevation scans.

External meteorological sensors: barometric pressure, humidity, temperature, rainfall-rate, which are time-stamped and recorded.

Data interface: Ethernet (TCP/IP)

Operating temperature range: -40C to +45C

The Government intends to negotiate a sole source contract with:

ATS Services Ltd
35 Auriga Drive, Unit 213
Ottawa, ON Canada K2E 8B7

The Government has determined that no other source can meet this requirement based on the basis of the performance characteristics listed above. The Government has not found any other source that offers the needed capabilities in a standard product, except for ATS Services Ltd. ATS Services Ltd is the exclusive North American sales representative for the RPG-LWP multi-channel direct detection microwave radiometers that is needed for this requirement sole manufacture of RPG Radiometer Physics, a Rohde & Schwarz company. In addition AFRL currently has six (6) RPG radiometers in their possession and the components required for this order must be compatible with the existing equipment. Failure to procure these radiometers would severely impact and jeopardize the success of ongoing research and development activity. Therefore any other product is provided the Air Force would experience a substantial duplication of cost not expected to be recovered through competition.

This is a notice of proposed contract action and not a request for competitive proposals; however, all responsible sources may submit a capability statement or proposal, which shall be considered by the agency. All inquiries should be sent by email to [email protected]. Responses must be submitted by the date/time listed on the notice. Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the Government in future procurements.

Responses received will be evaluated; however a determination by the Government not to compete the proposed procurement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The Government anticipates an award date on or before 31 March 2017.

A Sole Source Justification will be attached to the subsequent Notice of Award.

Bid Protests Not Available