BNUMBER:  B-274331
DATE:  December 3, 1996
TITLE:  Bostan Research, Inc.

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Matter of:Bostan Research, Inc.

File:     B-274331

Date:December 3, 1996

Paralee White, Esq., Cohen and White, for the protester.
Jewel L. Miller, Esq., Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, for 
the agency.
Marie Penny Ahearn, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Agency's decision not to fund protester's proposal under Small 
Business Innovation Research Program procurement was proper where 
evaluation was consistent with terms of solicitation and there is no 
showing of agency fraud or bad faith, or of violations of regulations.  

DECISION

Bostan Research, Inc. protests the rejection of its proposal by the 
Department of Defense (DOD), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 
(DARPA), under DOD Fiscal Year 1996 Small Business Innovation Research 
(SBIR) Program solicitation No. SB962-080.  Bostan alleges that DARPA 
improperly evaluated its proposal.

We deny the protest.

The solicitation sought phase I proposals on the topic, "Micro 
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) System Design and Operation."  Offerors 
were to submit proposals for exploratory development of a very small 
UAV system, with a maximum dimension of 15 centimeters (6 inches) or 
less, for unique military applications.  The solicitation provided 
that offerors were to assess the UAV's operational utility and further 
stated that "[f]light vehicle concepts and designs should address 
critical performance attributes such as range, speed, hover, agility, 
and covertness, but the operation approach must address all relevant 
implementation issues."  

The solicitation contained four evaluation criteria:  (1) soundness 
and technical merit of the proposed approach and its incremental 
progress toward topic solution, (2) potential for commercial 
(government or private sector) application and the benefits expected 
to accrue from commercialization; (3) adequacy of the proposed effort 
for fulfillment of the research topic's requirements; and (4) 
qualification of the principal/key investigators, staff and 
consultants, in terms of both their ability to perform the research 
and their ability to commercialize the results.  Additionally, the 
solicitation provided that "[s]ystem concepts will be evaluated on the 
basis of technical feasibility, ease of implementation, operational 
utility, and affordability."

The agency received 19 proposals.  Based on the evaluation, the 
protester's proposal was ranked eleventh, with 13 of a possible 20 
points.  The agency made award (and selected for funding) the two 
highest-scored proposals.

Bostan takes issue with the technical evaluation, maintaining that the 
agency failed to consider the technical merit of certain features of 
the firm's proposed UAV, and incorrectly concluded that the firm's 
proposed ducted fan UAV technology contained performance and stability 
claims for which no data, analyses, or references were offered.  The 
protester believes the evaluators are familiar only with fixed wing 
UAV technology, and failed to understand its new technology, i.e., 
ducted fan vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), with transition to 
forward flight.    

Where an agency is conducting an SBIR procurement, it has the 
discretion to determine which proposals it will fund.  In light of 
their discretion, our review of an SBIR procurement is limited to 
determining whether the agency violated any applicable regulations or 
solicitation provisions, or acted in bad faith.  Systems Research Co., 
B-260280.2, Aug. 8, 1995, 95-2 CPD  para.  62.  We find that the evaluation 
was consistent with the terms of the solicitation, and there is no 
evidence of bad faith.  

The considerations which led DARPA to downgrade Bostan's 
proposal--primarily unsubstantiated performance and stability 
claims--were all consistent with and encompassed by the stated 
criteria, and the award decision was based on the relative ranking of 
the proposals under these criteria.  Further, it is clear that the 
agency considered the content of Bostan's proposal; for example, 
contrary to the protester's contention, the record indicates that the 
evaluators did in fact consider that Bostan's "proposed vehicle would 
operate in a VTOL mode, with transition to forward flight" and that 
the "vehicle concept [was] based on . . . gyroscopic stabilization."  
Consequently, we have no basis to conclude that the evaluation was 
inconsistent with the solicitation.  As Bostan also has presented no 
evidence that the agency intended to harm the protester, Quantum 
Magnetics, Inc., B-257968, Nov. 30, 1994, 94-2 CPD  para.  215, there is no 
basis for finding bad faith in the evaluation process.

Bostan's protest really focuses on its disagreement with the 
evaluation conclusions.  However, in light of the discretion afforded 
agencies under the SBIR program, Systems Research Co., supra, the 
evaluation judgments that go into award decisions generally are not 
subject to legal objection.  In any case, the agency's evaluation 
conclusions appear unobjectionable.  For example, under the first and 
third evaluation criteria, the agency concluded that the proposal made 
unsubstantiated agility claims and that the size and weight of the 
proposed vehicle raised questions about its agility.  The protester 
maintains that these findings are "in open disregard to the known 
maneuverability principles," which were "straight out of an 
aerodynamic[s] design book," and were reflected in its proposal in the 
following sentence:  "[t]he aircraft maneuverability is expressed in 
climbing performance, acceleration capacity and turning speed."  The 
agency considered this statement--reasonably, we think--inadequate 
support for the firm's agility claims, and there is no other 
supporting data in Bostan's proposal concerning agility, such as 
referenced experiments or literature (the aerodynamics design book the 
protester cites is not referenced).  While Bostan contends that it was 
able to list only some of its data due to the solicitation's 25-page 
limit for proposals, the solicitation clearly stated that "[t]echnical 
reviewers will base their conclusions only on information contained in 
the proposal," and "[r]elevant supporting data such as journal 
articles, literature . . . etc., should be contained or referenced in 
the proposal."  The solicitation also listed agility as a critical 
performance attribute which offerors should address.  It is an 
offeror's responsibility to submit an adequately written proposal in 
order to establish that what it proposes will meet the government's 
needs.  See Herndon Science and Software, Inc., B-245505, Jan. 9, 
1992, 92-1 CPD  para.  46.  It was Bostan's responsibility to structure its 
proposal so as to satisfy the page limitation and the requirement for 
supporting information.

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States