The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Eastern Region Acquisitions Division-Kansas City office intends to negotiate, on a sole source basis, under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), with Teledyne RD Instruments for two Lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (LADCP) for the Atlantic Operational and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, FL.

AOML requires the following LADCP's:

One (1) LADCP, Product Code WHM300-LADCP, 6000m depth-rated, WH 300 kHz Monitor Lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (LADCP), with 256MB Memory, WM 15.

One (1) LADCP, Product Code WHM150-LADCP, 6000m depth-rated WH 150 kHz Monitor, 6000m PS, WM 15.

A Sources Sought Notice was posted on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website on July 18, 2014 and closed on July 31, 2014. No responses were received.

Justification for Sole Source
This procurement is for the purchase of two current profilers to be used on hydrographic cruises. On its hydrographic cruises, AOML uses two LADCP's mounted on a rosette frame. These LADCPs, used in a dual configuration mode, measure vertical profiles of the horizontal velocity components from near the ocean surface to near the bottom. The observations provide absolute velocity estimates including the geostrophic component of the flow. The LADCP units are broadband, self-contained 300 kHz and 150 KHz LADCP instruments manufactured by Teledyne RD Instruments. The data from this configuration is output via a star cable up a sea-cable to a computer. This instrument will routinely be pressure cycled to 6000 meters depths and must be designed to work under these conditions without adversely affecting data collection. Teledyne RD Instruments is the only known provider of LADCP equipment that can be integrated into a dual LADCP configuration utilized by AOML during full-ocean depth profiling (two units together in tandem, collecting a common data set).

Additionally, AOML has designed and built 4 frames (at a cost of ~ $16,000 a frame) with dimensions specifically for use with the Teledyne RD Instruments LADCPs so that the beam pattern of the LADCP are not obstructed by other sensors mounted on the frame.

Also, the broadband signal processing technology which Teledyne RD Instruments holds the patent on, enables the LADCP instruments to perform significantly better than other instruments that do not use broadband signal processing. The LADCP must have 4-beams, convex with a beam angle of 20 degrees. The Teledyne RD Instruments ADCP uses four acoustic transducers (other manufacturers typically use 3). The fourth transducer provides a means for quality control of the collected data. This is especially important in current profiling applications. Any instrument purchased must be able to run Teledyne RD Instruments 52xx firmware and output data in a format that is compatible with custom processing software used and maintained at AOML (identical to the Teledyne RD Instruments format).

Switching to another manufacturer would not be practical and very costly because it would take approximately 1 year for new software to be written and tested and new frames would have to be built.

As mentioned above Teledyne RD Instruments has a patent for the broadband signal processing technology. These instruments are used by multiple divisions of NOAA and are proven to help NOAA meet its goals.