Public procurement notice: Contract Award Notice
Published: 2020-12-04
Buyer: Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
Country: DE
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Competitive procedure with negotiation
CPV classification: 72000000 | 72210000: Software programming services | 72211000: Systems and user software programming services | 72212000: Platform-specific software programming services | 72212461
Estimated value: 214000 EUR
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: DESY: Software Development Support of the Array Control and Date Acquisition System (ACADA) deliverables of DESY for CTA
DESY is one of the world's leading accelerator centres. Researchers use the large-scale facilities at DESY to explore the microcosm in all its variety. Zeuthen is (besides Hamburg) the second location of DESY, located in the south-eastern outskirts of Berlin. Since 2011, the DESY Zeuthen campus has been profiled as a globally visible center for astroparticle physics. DESY Zeuthen is involved in several international research projects in astroparticle physics.
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the planned next generation observatory for ground-based very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy [RD1]. In order to provide full sky coverage, CTA will consist of two large arrays with 118 Cherenkov telescopes in total, to be deployed in the Southern (Paranal, Chile) and Northern (La Palma, Spain) Hemispheres. The southern array will be sensitive to entire energy range of CTA. The northern array will focus on low- and mid-energy ranges. In addition to a large number of scientific instruments, CTA will comprise three types of telescopes covering different energy ranges: Small Sized Telescopes (SST) to cover the highest energy gamma-rays, Medium Sized Telescopes (MST) to cover the core energy range of CTA and Large Sized Telescopes (LST) sensitive to low-energy gamma-rays.
The Array Control and Data Acquisition (ACADA) system will provide the functionality required to monitor and control all telescopes and auxiliary instruments in CTA; to perform observations and calibration procedure; to handle, filter and store data from all the telescope and auxiliary instruments; and to produce status and quality reports.
The total duration of the contract is 4 years from the date it is notified to the successful tenderer. The total estimated man-hours for the entire scope of work is 11 000 hours.
The selected company will allocate individuals within 4 weeks to match the required manpower and skills described in the Technical Specifications.
The selected company will support the DESY team in the implementation and testing of the different software components, which are described in the technical specifications detailed. It will include the following parts:
The Resource Manager and Central Control (RM&CC) that is responsible for the execution of the scheduling blocks (SBs) provided by the short-term scheduler. The RM&CC interprets the SBs and sends the corresponding commands to the telescopes and other controllable array elements, while supervising the ongoing operations, coordinating the allocation of telescopes to sub-arrays, and overseeing the Array Data Handler. The RM&CC supervises all other systems of ACADA, and any external system under its supervision such as the Telescope Control Systems. The sub-components of the RM&CC are the Resource Manager, the Central Control and the System Supervision Support Libraries.
The Human Machine Interface (HMI) sub-system that offers a comprehensive view of the status of the observations to the Operators and Support Astronomer located in the control room of the CTA installation, providing means to interact with the array elements.
The Transients Handler (TH) sub-system responsible for managing internal and external transient science alert candidates by filtering, processing and ranking them, submitting Scheduling Blocks to the Short-Term Scheduler and requesting immediate reaction if needed.
Stress and distributed tests of the RM&CC, HMI and TH sub-systems. These tests will require to mock-up up to 100 telescopes and to put the system under stress conditions using the DESY test cluster environment. In addition to the stress tests, additional tests of the resilience of the system are required in order to evaluate the capabilities of the ACADA system as a whole, as well as its most critical components such as the Resource Manager (e.g. supervision tree). A report with the test metrics will be provided.
Pursuant to § 14 IV No 9 VgV (Procurement Ordinance — Vergabeverordnung), the right is reserved to award the repetition of similar services corresponding to the basic project in a negotiated procedure without a competitive tender under the same conditions as the basic contract.
Referring to point II.2.10): Variant tenders (variation/ alternative tenders) are the subject of the negotiated procedure. The right to exclude variant tenders is reserved. For further details, please refer to the procurement documents.
Regarding II.1.7) and V.2.4): The estimated contract value is above the relevant threshold of EUR 214 000.
1) The applicant became aware of the alleged violation of provisions governing the awarding of public contracts before submitting the appeal and did not object to the contracting entity within 10 calendar days; the deadline stipulated in Sec. 134 Para. 2 remains unaffected;


Winner: Cosylab, d. d.
Award value: 214000
Number of bids: 2