SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Table of Abbreviations

CG U.S. Coast Guard

DHS Department of Homeland Security

U.S.C. United States Code

II. Background and Purpose

The CG is evaluating the operational impact and technical integration of Super Intelligence (SI) situational awareness tools to perform benchmarking, evaluate system interoperability, and propose data handling best practices. The CG currently leverages a variety of sensor inputs and processes across multiple units and operational assets to complete SAR operations. The incorporation of SI tools may allow the CG to automatically detect, classify, and track targets while addressing variables, such as low light, fog, precipitation, and rough sea states. By implementing these tools and analyzing system performance, the Coast Guard will improve critical decision-making during SAR mission execution when the necessity for rapid data aggregation and continuous analysis is critical.

By examining LOOKOUT's situational awareness tools, the CG has an opportunity to streamline, simplify or augment the existing SAR process workflows and generate performance data relevant to future operations. An additional possible goal is to characterize SI system confidence and operational performance, to build a measurable evaluation tool that could reduce the CG's barrier to integrate SI tools.

III. Public Participation and Request for Comments

We request public comments on this notice. Although we do not plan to respond to comments in the Federal Register , we will respond directly to commenters and may modify our proposal in light of comments.

We encourage you to submit comments in response to this notice of inquiry at www.regulations.gov. To do so, go to www.regulations.gov, type USCG-2026-0374 in the search box and click “Search.” Next, look for this document in the Search Results column, and click on it. Then click on the Comment option. In your submission, please include the docket number for this notice of inquiry and provide a reason for each suggestion or recommendation. If your material cannot be submitted using www.regulations.gov, contact the person in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this document for alternate instructions. To view documents mentioned in this notice of inquiry as being available in the docket, find the docket as described in the previous paragraph, and then select “Supporting & Related Material” in the Document Type column. Public comments will also be placed in our online docket and can be viewed by following instructions on the www.regulations.gov Frequently Asked Questions webpage.

We accept anonymous comments. Comments we post to www.regulations.gov will include any personal information you have provided. For more information about privacy and submissions in response to this document, see DHS's eRulemaking System of Records notice (85 FR 14226, March 11, 2020).

IV. Discussion

CRADAs are authorized under 15 U.S.C. 3710a.^[1] A CRADA promotes the transfer of technology to the private sector for commercial use, as well as specified research or development efforts that are consistent with the ( printed page 67325) mission of the Federal parties to the CRADA. The Federal party or parties agree with one or more non-Federal parties to share research resources, but the Federal party does not contribute funding.

CRADAs are not procurement contracts. Care is taken to ensure that CRADAs are not used to circumvent the contracting process. CRADAs have a specific purpose and should not be confused with procurement contracts, grants, and other types of agreements.

Under the proposed CRADA, the U. S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center (R&D Center) will collaborate with one non-Federal participant. Together, the R&D Center and the non-Federal participant will conduct testing, development and evaluation of artificial intelligence enabled situational awareness tools designed to augment existing SAR workflows and generate critical performance data to inform future operational adoption.

We anticipate that the Coast Guard's contributions under the proposed CRADA will include the following:

1. Provide appropriate staff with pertinent expertise to take the lead in accomplishing the agreed tasks.

2. Provide all support resources, including travel for Coast Guard staff that support this CRADA.

3. Provide data feeds as required to support test objectives.

We anticipate that the non-Federal participants' contributions under the proposed CRADA will include the following:

1. Provide appropriate staff with pertinent expertise to support the agreed upon tasks in Statement of Work.

2. Provide all support resources, including travel for staff that support this CRADA.

3. Assist with installation of system equipment and software for evaluation.

4. Provide technical support, as needed.

5. Draft summary report in collaboration with all participants.

The Coast Guard reserves the right to select for CRADA participants all, some, or no proposals submitted for this CRADA. The Coast Guard will provide no funding for reimbursement of proposal development costs. Proposals and any other material submitted in response to this notice will not be returned. Proposals submitted are expected to be unclassified and consist of not more than five single-sided pages (excluding cover page, DD 1494, JF-12). The Coast Guard will select proposals at sole discretion on the basis of:

1. How well they communicate an understanding, of and ability to meet, the proposed CRADA's goal; and

2. How well they address the following criteria:

a. Technical capability to support the non-Federal party contributions described, and

b. Resources available for supporting the non-Federal party contributions described.

Currently, the Coast Guard is considering LOOKOUT for participation in this CRADA. This consideration is based on the fact that LOOKOUT has demonstrated its technical ability and availability of SI tools that are ready to be deployed, evaluated and operated in a CG test environment with CG sensor feeds. However, we do not wish to exclude other viable participants from this or similar CRADAs in the future.

This is a technology assessment effort. The goal of the Coast Guard for this CRADA is to establish a framework to determine SI's effectiveness in automating target detection, which will be used to establish a reliable coverage factor value to enable data-driven Lateral Range Curve (LRC) results for Search and Rescue (SAR) operations. Special consideration will be given to small business firms and consortia, and preference will be given to business units located in the United States. This notice is issued under the authority of 5 U.S.C. 552(a).

91 FR 67324