CLOUD PARTICLE SPECTROMETER

Trade Agreement: NAFTA/AIT/Canada FTAs with Peru/Colombia/Panama
Tendering Procedures: Generally only one firm has been invited to bid
Non-Competitive Procurement Strategy: Exclusive Rights
Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No
Vendor Name and Address: 
Artium Technologies Inc
470 Lakeside Drive
Unit C
Sunnyvale California
United States
94085
Nature of Requirements: 

CLOUD PARTICLE SPECTROMETER

K8D22-170712/A
Dunphy, Ken
Telephone No. - (613) 449-5116 (    )
Fax No. - (613) 545-8067 (    )

1. Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) 

An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.

2. Definition of the requirement

The Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) Cloud Physics and Severe Weather Section is conducting various research programs related to airborne microphysics characterization of precipitation, aircraft icing, remote sensing satellite, and radar validations. The obtained information is used for the improvement of weather predictions and climate simulations, and developing regulatory safety envelopes for the aircraft operations. 

This contract is to acquire a highly specialised aircraft-mounted instrument, to measure high resolution grey scale images of cloud particles that allow identification of their shapes and sizes. The instrument must provide a well-defined sample area, to allow for accurate calculations of size distribution, concentration and other microphysical parameters. A well-defined sample area also avoids the need for sophisticated, labour intensive, and somehow ambiguous diffracted image size retrieval post-processing. The important feature of this instrument is that its measurements arenot susceptible to contamination by the shattered artifacts. The shattering of ice particles during sampling is a serious problem of existing airborne instruments, and it is a source of large errors in measurements. The probe must include the ability tomeasure the speed of the individual particles, when they pass through the sample volume. The velocity option removes the error associated with flow assumptions near the probe’s head. This feature is particularly critical for data quality requirements tosupport the aviation regulatory objectives and scientific research we are conducting.

Besides the delivery of the equipment, the contractor must provide training for up to five ECCC employees who will be involved in the operation of the probe and itsdata processing. The training must be provided at the Downsview ECCC Headquarters within one month after delivery of the probe.

Technical support and repairs of the probe must be provided by the Contractor during the warranty period. The Contractor must provide technical support and repair services during regular ECCC working hours 9am to 5pm.


3. Criteria for assessment of the Statement of Capabilities (Minimum Essential Requirements) 

Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that its equipment meets the following requirements:

Requirements associated with installation on geophysical research aircrafts
• Power requirements < 2000 watts of 115VAC, 50-60Hz or 400 Hz, and < 200 watts of 28 VDC
• The sensor head must sustain and operate in harsh environmental conditions: pressure range 1000mb > P > 100mb; temperature range +30oC > T > -60oC; sustain vertical load factor ±10g.  
• Probe must include deicing heaters, which are capable to withstand icing conditions with supercooled liquid water content up to 0.5g/m3 at T = -10oC and airspeed 100m/s.
• Deicing heaters must be temperature controlled.
• Optics heaters must prevent fogging the optical surfaces during aircraft descent with vertical velocity  up to10m/c
• Deicing and optical heaters must use 115VAC, 50-400 Hz

Requirements associated with accuracy of measurements and probe’s performance
• Imaging principle must be a multi-beam illumination approach that determines focused images by convergent images on the imaging plane.
• Size measurement range must be 5 - 2000 micrometers or wider that encompasses this range.
• Size accuracy of imaged particles must be +/- 5 micrometers or better.
• Overall capability of probe must be to accurately measure particles with 5 micrometers pixel resolution at aircraft airspeeds of 300 ms-1 or higher.
• Frame rate of imaging must be 300Hz or higher with a resolution of at least 480x640 pixels or 200Hz with a resolution of 1280x1024 pixels
• Probe must be able to measure particle speed on particle-by-particle basis up to 300m/s with an accuracy of 15% or better.
• The sample area of the probe should be located no closer than 5cm to the nearest element of the probe’s housing in order to mitigate the effect of particle shattering on the measurements. 
• The sensor head must have open path sampling volume. Tubular types of inlets are not allowed.
• The sensor head must be equipped with anti-shattering tips in order to mitigate contamination of measurements by ice shattering artifacts.

Requirements associated with the data acquisition and post processing
• The probe must be designed for unmanned operation, with AI parameters to optimize particle sampling.
• Probe must include a data acquisition system with a real-timedata display, post-flight processing software, and 2 TB solid state drive. 
• Probe’s data acquisition system must provide a real time visualization of particle images and record the data on a PC compatible carrier.
• Post-flight software must includeimage playback with classification of images, and rudimentary computation of size distributions.
• The probe delivery should include all necessary cabling for probe’s operation, interface cards, and technical manual

4. Applicability of the trade agreement(s) to the procurement 

This procurement is subject to the following trade agreements: 
Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT)
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

5. Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier 

The only known supplier of a High Speed Imaging probe capable of meeting the mandatory technical specifications is Artium Inc.

6. Government Contracts Regulations Exception

The following exception to the Government Contracts Regulations is invoked for this procurement under subsection 6(d) - only one person is capable of performing the work.

7. Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons 

The following exclusion(s) and/or limited tendering reasons are invoked under the:  

 
Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) Article 506:

12.  Where only one supplier is able to meet the requirements of a procurement, an entity may use procurement procedures that are different from those described in paragraphs 1 through 10 in the following circumstance:

b)  where there is an absence of competition for technical reasons and the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no alternative or substitute exists;

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Article 1016: Limited Tendering Procedures:

2. An entity may use limited tendering procedures in the following circumstances and subject to the following conditions, as applicable:

b)   where, for works of art, or for reasons connected with the protection of patents, 
copyrights or other exclusive rights, or proprietary information or where there is an absence of competition for technical reasons, the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists

8. Ownership of Intellectual Property

Ownership of any Foreground Intellectual Property arising out of the proposed contract will vest in the Contractor.

9. Period of the proposed contract or delivery date 

The equipment must be delivered on or before January 31, 2017.

10. Name and address of the pre-identified supplier 

Artium Technologies Inc. 
470 Lakeside Drive, Unit C
Sunnyvale, CA 
94085

11. Suppliers' right to submit a statement of capabilities 

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods, services or construction services described in the ACAN may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement ofcapabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.

12. Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilities 

The closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is onDecember 15, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. EST.

 
13. Inquiries and submission of statements of capabilities 

Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to: 

Name:   Ken Dunphy
Title:   Supply Team Leader
Public Works and Government Services Canada
Acquisitions Branch
Directorate:  Ontario Region
Address:  86 Clarence St. 2nd floor
Telephone:  (613) 449-5116
Facsimile:  (613) 545-8067
E-mail address: Ken.Dunphy@pwgsc.gc.ca
 

Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

You are hereby notified that the government intends to negotiate with one firm only as identified above. Should you have any questions concerning this requirement, contact the contracting officer identified above.

An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) allows departments and agencies to post a notice, for no less than fifteen (15) calendar days, indicating to the supplier community that it intends to award a good, service or construction contract to a pre-identified contractor. If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a Statement of Capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the contracting authority may then proceed with the award.  However, should a Statement of Capabilities be found to meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, then the contracting authority will proceed to a full tendering process.

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services/goods described herein, may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this Notice on or before the closing date of this Notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.

The PWGSC file number, the contracting officer's name and the closing date of the ACAN must appear on the outside of the envelope in block letters or, in the case of a facsimile transmission, on the covering page.

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.