The Department is committed to recapitalizing the existing fleet of approximately 1400 Radiation Portal Monitors (RPM) operated by CBP at the Nation’s Seaport and Land Border Ports of Entry.  This RFI is a part of continued engagement with industry on the RPM development program known as RAPTER. On August 26, 2020 the CWMD Acquisition Division held a Virtual Industry Engagement Event to update industry on the current state of the developmental acquisition program. This event was a follow-on engagement with industry to the Radiation Portal Monitor (RPM) Open System Architecture (ROSA) Industry Day held on August 1-3, 2018.  The lessons learned from the ROSA development have informed the evolution of ROSA into the RAPTER Program. Vendors are encouraged to complete a feedback form that accompanies this RFI.

The RAPTER program has several high-level program goals that will dictate the technical solution

1. • Minimize impact on CBP with a low nuisance and false alarm rate while simultaneously maximizing the detection of radiological and nuclear threats
   • Recapitalize RPM fleet and associated ancillary equipment (e.g., gate arms, traffic lights, and cameras) rapidly and affordably
   • Recapitalize the RPM fleet with a system that:
     • Contains an active state-of-health and built in test capability
     • Is compatible with remote operations
     • Achieves a high level of reliability (i.e., a mean time to failure (MTBF) of 2400 hours with a two-year warranty)
     • Has the flexibility/adaptability to implement state of the art cybersecurity functionality
     • Can be integrated with current & planned CBP infrastructure (i.e., the NII RPM Operation Center (NROC)
   • Endeavor to operate with a nearby Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) imaging system

The purpose of this Request for Information is to:

1. Gather industry feedback on their projections for the cost and schedule goals set forth in the RAPTER phased development approach.
2. Gather industry feedback on the draft functional requirements for the RAPTER RPM system, to include the ancillary gear that comprises an entire lane.
3. Gather industry feedback on the Interface Specification (ISpec) for the RAPTER RPM system

The mission of the DHS’s office of CWMD is to enable operational partners to prevent WMD use against the Homeland and promote readiness for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and health security threats. The RPM is one of the technologies used to achieve this mission.  RPMs are used extensively at U.S. sea and land Ports of Entry (POE) by U.S. CBP to scan cargo and conveyances and prevent the smuggling of radiological/nuclear threats or threat materials into the U.S., while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and commerce.

Over the past decade, DHS has deployed commercial-off-the-shelf RPM systems, with an original estimated operational life of 10 to 13 years.  RAPTER is a CWMD developmental acquisition program with the goal of procuring ~1400 RPMs built with a modular, open system architecture.  While the RPM Replacement Program was created to increase the inventory with Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTs) RPMs, the RAPTER Program is the strategic program to recapitalize the entire RPM fleet.

The Government has (1) developed an architecture to modularize the RPM; (2) developed a draft Government-controlled interface specification, (3) fabricated a full-scale, open-system architecture RPM functional proof-of-concept to validate the approach, and (4) developed a few government furnished equipment (GFE) packages that will be considered for release to an awarded vendor. This RFI contains notable information regarding the requirements and schedule.

1. Summary of the modular design to include:
   1. The associated draft functional requirements
   2. An updated version of the draft ISpec
   3. Diagram of the system architecture and modules

Vendors are encouraged to respond via the feedback form accompanying this RFI; this will help DHS/CWMD gauge industry response to the proposed approach.

Please e-mail the completed form to Nolan Duchateau at [email protected], Mike Hogan at  [email protected] and David Ferris at [email protected] no later than January 25, 2021. The DHS CWMD office will use the results of this feedback to help shape the Request for Proposal. Attach additional pages if needed.