MechDyne VR Lab Upgrade

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Office of Financial Resources (OFR), Office of Acquisition Services (OAS), National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) in accordance with FAR 6.103-1, intends to award a contract, on an other-than-full-and-open-competition basis as a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) commercial contract to MechDyne Corporation for the purchase of a VR upgrade. MechDyne will provide the following:

1) New rendering PC

2) Streamdeck Controller

3) Cabling Lot, Adaptors, Terminations, and Consumables

4) Mechdyne Design and Integration, including:

a) AV design

b) Mechanical design

c) Applications engineering

d) Project management

e) Installation

This procurement supports safety research in the virtual reality laboratory by upgrading existing hardware to improve performance and enhance subject immersion in virtual work environments. The virtual reality laboratory in NIOSH/DSR has been a valuable tool for over twenty years to immerse workers in environments that would be too dangerous to study in the field. The laboratory has produced many publications and recommendations over the years from work at height to working with collaborative robots. The laboratory is actively studying working in close proximity to demolition robots. Upgrading the graphics generator will improve frame rates and the ability to add more functionality to environments with no degradation to real time interaction.

The maintenance and upgrades to the custom virtual reality system designed andinstalled by Mechdyne can only be performed by Mechdyne. Mechdyne is the only vendor, manufacturer, and developer of the Surround Screen virtual reality system installed in the research labs in the Protective Technology Branch therefore they are the only ones that can provide updates and support as software/hardware maintenance as a product to this specific set of system. These items are proprietary to Mechdyne Corporation, as they are specifically engineered,...