Notice

Competition document: airport vehicle checkpoint screening

Updated 25 July 2018

1. Introduction

This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) themed competition seeks proposals focused on innovative solutions to the challenge of vehicle checkpoint (VCP) screening at airports, in order to prevent explosives, weapons and other threats from accessing the secure airside area and flights.

The total funding available for this competiton is £2.5 million for emerging innovations or rapid impact proposals.

The competition closes at 1pm on 20 September 2018.

2. Background

This competition is part of a wider range of activities being carried out by the Future Aviation Security Solutions (FASS) programme, which is a joint Department for Transport and Home Office initiative. The FASS programme is investing £25.5 million over a 5 year period to promote innovation to improve aviation security.

VCPs play a vital role in the functioning of airports. All vehicles and their contents must be security screened before being authorised to access the secure airside area. VCPs screen a wide variety of vehicles carrying goods on a daily basis, which are essential for airports to operate. For example, VCPs need to screen vehicles containing catering and in-flight supplies, aviation fuel deliveries, air cargo and airport/airline maintenance goods. The screening of vehicles and their loads takes place using a variety of methods, such as explosive trace detection, manual searches and x-ray screening of small items.

VCPs are located directly adjacent to the airside area. as shown in figure 1. Vehicles can only proceed airside after they have successfully completed screening. A VCP is usually composed of both a gatehouse and a vehicle screening area overseen by a team of staff. This competition is focused on the vehicle screening area. VCP facilities are often small and therefore space is at a premium. Proposed solutions should have the ability to work within the existing VCP area, where outside weather elements may affect detection abilities. Further, proposals should also consider the integration of any innovative solution into the current working practices of potential users (for example security officers) and the VCP by explaining the proposed concept of use, possible size implications and training requirements.

Figure 1. Illustration of an Airport Vehicle Checkpoint (VCP)

2.1 Current VCP process

When a vehicle arrives at a VCP, it is first checked to ensure it is an expected delivery and the driver must present valid documentation. Once it is confirmed that the vehicle is expected, the driver is required to disembark and is screened separately within the gatehouse along with small items and the drivers personal effects. This is done using existing screening technologies similar to those found at passenger central search and is not the focus of this competition. However, if your solution can screen without items being removed from vehicles, this would be of significant benefit.

VCP staff then screen the vehicle contents using a variety of detection methods. This presents a variety of challenges for the VCP team including:

• the shape and size of the vehicle
• multiple compartments, storage areas and voids in the vehicle structure which are either dense or hard to access
• variety of materials, including metals, plastic, fibreglass
• greasy and dirty areas
• the variety of goods being carried

We are confident in the ability of current processes to detect threats, however the issues listed above can result in it being a labour intensive and time consuming process, which can impact the smooth functioning of airport operations. For example, prolonged security searches at the VCP of a delivery could, in the worst case scenario, delay a flight departure.

3. Competition scope

New innovative solutions to detect and prevent prohibited articles from entering the secure airside area, such as explosives (including component parts and materials that might be used to make an explosive device), weapons and other threats (including chemical, biological and radiological) are welcomed in this themed competition. The primary focus of this competition is to detect items that might pose a direct threat to an aircraft such as those listed above, and all proposals must address this challenge. Your solution might also have the ability to detect other commodities (such as illicit drugs, alcohol, tobacco etc.) in addition to its primary screening capability, which would strengthen your proposal. Improvements in detection effectiveness and speed would bring benefits to customers, staff and the overall airport experience.

Proposals may address one, or all of the aspects of the challenges laid out below. If you plan to address one challenge, then you should make clear in your proposal how your solution will integrate with other processes and technologies within the vehicle search area. There is unlikely to be a ‘one-size fits all’ solution to the challenge of VCP screening for airports. Your solution may fit within existing VCP footprint, however if your solution needs significantly more space, the benefits should be explained in your proposal. Through this competition we aim to increase the options available to airports and other customers for solutions to the challenges of vehicle checkpoint screening.

3.1 Competition themes

This themed competition seeks to identify innovative solutions for screening vehicles at VCPs. These could include new screening technologies or adaptation of existing technology to work in a VCP environment, including addressing three of the areas which represent the most time-consuming and laborious screening processes:

• Vehicle engine compartments: both conventional bonnet and ‘tilt cab’
• Bulky loads such as: construction materials; large liquids (including fuel containers) or sealed packages
• Screening other hard to search parts of the vehicle, such as the driver’s cab or load space

In addition to new screening techniques, we are also interested in existing technologies being adapted to work within the VCP setting. All solutions must be capable of being used within the physical and operational constraints of VCPs, which often have limited space.

3.2 Technology challenges

We welcome innovative proposals for the competition themes at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 2-4 (emerging innovations) and 5-6 (rapid impact) which should aim to maximise one or more of the following challenges:

• Detection reliability and confidence, particularly in complex or cluttered vehicles or loads. New technologies need to be able to: * detect a broad range of materials
  * reliable with low false alarm rates and the ability to quickly detect threats or anomalies
• Improved screening speed by removal of some of the time consuming manual screening, potentially by developing technologies to screen bulky and complex loads. The solution may assist the operator in making their screening decision
• Improved customer experience by reducing the intrusiveness and inconvenience of security screening at VCPs, for example, omitting the need to open engine bonnets and/or separately screen small items in the VCP gatehouse
• Cost benefits gained by the solution being easy to use, with minimal operator training to allow efficient screening. This should encompass the whole cost of life for the technology, such as consumables, maintenance and calibration
• Optimal use of space by the solution integrating within existing VCPs and fit within the limited floor space available. The footprint of the solution needs to include any safety areas required for personnel. Any increase in size would need to be offset with cost savings

Vehicle engine compartments: both conventional bonnet and ‘tilt cab’

Vehicle engines have sealed compartments which take significant time to screen. The primary screening solution involves a visual check of the underside of vehicle engine compartments. Personnel working at VCPs are trained and experienced in detecting anomalies in engine compartments. Your solution could seek to improve this time-consuming process by rapidly screening engine compartments.

Tilt cabs are found on large lorries, where access to the underside of the engine requires the front of the lorry to be tilted forwards. Operating this tilting function presents health and safety implications for screening staff. Your solution may provide a means to screen tilt cabs without the need for them to be moved. Vehicle engine compartments are hot, dirty, greasy and have a constrained amount of space. Your solution needs to be able to work in these environments.

Bulky loads such as: construction materials; large liquids (including fuel containers) or large numbers of sealed packages

Airports require many different deliveries for their normal functioning. All of the deliveries need to arrive via the VCP and may need to be screened. This is resource intensive – both in terms of time and personnel.

A significant proportion of deliveries arriving at VCPs have been pre-screened and sealed at off-site facilities. VCP personnel validate deliveries by checking the consignment’s security documentation to ensure it is expected. Pre-screening and validation of the consignments are outside the scope of the competition. However, other vehicles, such as fuel vehicles, are not pre-screened and need to have their entire contents screened. A variety of loads are taken through the VCP, such as tools of trade, maintenance, fuel, water and de-icers. Your solution could tackle how a large number of sealed packages might be screened without being removed from the vehicle. Alternatively, you may have a proposal for an innovative technology that could screen large volumes of liquids quickly.

In addition to the routine deliveries, there are less frequent arrivals at VCPs, such as construction materials containing sand, aggregate or concrete. These are thoroughly screened as above, which again is a very resource intensive process. Your solution may be able to screen dense and/or mixed loads without needing to remove the contents from the vehicle.

Screening other hard to search parts of the vehicle, such as the driver’s cab or load space

We welcome proposals which have potential to detect threats present in:

• drivers cab
• load space
• underside of the vehicle
• body work
• wheel arches.

Vehicles are screened manually by VCP staff which is an extremely laborious process. Should a vehicle appear to have been tampered with, VCP staff will remove covers and investigate further. Your solution could facilitate the ability to detect areas of vehicles that have anomalies that need further inspection.

3.3 Clarification of what we want

Through this DASA themed competition we are looking for ambitious and innovative proposals to help prevent the widest possible range of weapons and explosive devices or components from accessing the secure airside area.

We are interested in projects that consider a systems approach, including the potential to integrate with other existing technologies. However, we do not expect you to be able to provide a whole solution at phase 1. Your proposed technology could offer part of, or an important step towards, a solution to the challenge. Where possible you should use open systems architecture to maximise the potential for integration with current or other new systems. We will also consider proposals for research into novel applications of existing technologies.

3.4 Clarification of what we do not want

For this competition we are not interested in proposals for:

• consultancy
• paper-based studies or literature reviews
• solutions that do not offer significant benefit to security
• projects that only offer a written report
• projects that cannot demonstrate feasibility within the phase 1 timescale
• incremental improvements in existing high TRL technologies
• demonstrations of off-the-shelf products requiring no experimental development

Work is being conducted in a number of related areas under other Government programmes/competitions, the following are therefore out of scope for this competition:

• mitigation of cyber-attacks
• projects which only focus on preventing the import or export of banned or controlled substances
• projects which would only mitigate large scale attacks against airport infrastructure
• projects that only address safety requirements rather than security, for example safety of carrying lithium batteries
• proposals for technology similar to that found at passenger central search for screening people and their bags

4. Competition Process

We are seeking solutions across a range of TRLs, offering bidders the choice of either emerging innovations or rapid impact funding streams.

The total funding avaliable for the initial phase of 6 months is £1 million. The total funding available for all phases will be £2.5 million.

The split of funding will be based on the quality and distribution of the proposals under the competition. It is anticipated that between 8 to 12 proposals will be funded in the initial phase of the competition across the emarging innovations and rapid impact themes.

You must declare on submission of your proposal if you are targeting emerging innovations or rapid impact funding and the current TRL of your innovation and the expected TRL at the end of the 6 months.

Proposals can not be split across emerging innovations and rapid impact funding. You can submit more than one proposal to the competition but each proposal must be separate in its own right.

4.1 Emerging innovations

This is a 2-phase competition. Phase 1 will be for proof of concept research (for example TRL 2-4), where we will fund 6 month research projects.

At the end of this 6 month period it is anticipated that an additional £1.5 million of funding will be available to bid for in order to fund further development of your solution if considered suitable. This second stage of funding is expected to be for a further 12 months.

4.2 Rapid impact innovations

This is a single phase of funding for 6 months of experimental development, culminating in either a laboratory test and/or an operational trial. Outputs are expected to be higher than TRL 6.

Your proposal must set out how you plan to test or trial your equipment at the end of the development work.

For laboratory based testing, you must:

• clearly identify the capability that they wish to test
• how the test will prove this capability
• where this test will be conducted
• what benefit would be gained from a successful test
• identify the anticipated costings (which must be included in your proposal)

For bids culminating in a operational trial, you must include:

• details of the end user who is assisting with the trial, including a letter of support from them
• contingency plan if this trial site becomes unavailable
• the cost of conducting the trial, including any specialist consultancy or staff

You should not assume that any Government Furnished Assets will be available for this competition. Any trial may still require formal and/or ethical approval and you should factor this in as a project risk with appropriate mitigations.

Proposals should also include a break-point prior to the test/trial should the earlier development work not have reached the desired TRL level, and/or formal/ethical approval has not been granted.

In your bids you should clearly set out the benefit of the test/trial to the technology developer, to the end user with whom you’re running the trial, and to Government. A key criteria of Government funded trials will be that the information gathered from these trials will be shared with other end-users in the community to maximize the benefit from the trial.

The funding made available under rapid impact is specifically for the development work necessary to prepare your solution for the test/trial, and for the test/trial itself. Your proposed solution may be currently deployed in other markets with potential to transfer technology and processes to the aviation security sector. You’ll need to provide evidence of experimental development being undertaken to be considered for this competition.

4.3 Out of competition scope

Proposals for demonstrations of existing technologies which require no further experimental development to meet the needs of this competition won’t be funded. You may wish to approach the Joint Security and Resilience Centre who may be able to connect you with interested airports or other end users.

5. Exploitation

Airports are the primary end users of this technology. As well as airport VCPs, which are owned and operated by airports, there are potential markets for such vehicle screening technologies across border security, the security of critical national infrastructure and other civilian and military sites. Interested parties (such as airports, airlines, Border Force, etc.) will be invited to collaboration events and demonstrations and will make their own investment decisions independently of this Accelerator competition. Suppliers should be clear that the FASS programme itself will not purchase any solutions as a result of the competition.

End users from these domains, as well as airports themselves, will be involved in the assessment of proposals, under the relevant Non-Disclosure Agreements where necessary. Furthermore, we work closely with other Governments on aviation security and they too are likely to be involved in the assessment of proposals where relevant Memoranda of Understanding exist to protect the sharing of intellectual property.

It is important to the FASS team and DASA that all proposals can be exploited by an appropriate end user. How long this takes will be dependent on the nature of the technology and the starting point of the research. For this competition it is envisaged that proposals will start between TRL 2 and 6. Any subsequent phases will start at later TRLs.

All DASA proposals should show a development in TRL and aim to mature the technology at an appropriate rate over the lifetime of the contract. It is important to ensure early identification and appropriate engagement with these potential users during the competition and subsequent phases.

The deliverables in your proposal should be designed to provide an evidence-based assessment of the improved operational capability that will be developed and the how the approach shows the operational impact the solution would have.

5.1 Approach to exploitation

Your proposal should clearly articulate your approach to exploitation. You may wish to review and include detail against the following points to help the assessors understand how your exploitation plans will support the proposed solution progress beyond this phase of funding and towards the marketplace for procurement.

• Who is the operational user for your solution? Are they also the buyer of your solution?
• What benefits (cost, time, improved capability etc.) will your solution provide to the operational user once delivered?
• Are there any interdependent technologies which require integration to enable exploitation? If so what have you done to develop an understanding of how best to facilitate this integration?
• What collaborative relationships do you have in place to support exploitation (industrial partners, operational users etc.)?
• Do you require data/venues/operational input during the lifetime of your proposal, and have you factored this into your costs?
• What will you do to demonstrate/pilot the project and who will provide the demonstration facilities?
• Are there legal, commercial or regulatory considerations to your proposal/
• Are there other markets where your solution could apply (i.e. multiple use with the civilian market in addition to defence and/or security)?
• What further work beyond the contract do you think will be required to reach an operationally deployable commercial product?
• How does the exploitation approach support positioning the solution to align with the buyers procurement process - does the solution fit with an established programme?
• How does it address any concerns regarding scaling up the offering (manufacturing, cyber security, integration with existing technologies, environmental operating conditions etc.)?
• Does it seek to address any barriers to scaling up – commercial, regulatory, legislative?

6. How to apply

Proposals will need to be submitted to via the submission service.

Further guidance on submitting a proposal can be found here.

If your application includes any co-investment/Private Venture (PV) funding to support full (or near to market) solution development, please include details of this in your proposal.

You must fill in the online forms, with an appropriate level of technical information and financial detail to allow assessment of the proposal. Please use the guidance provided. Forms that are not completed or lack detail will be rejected and not passed on for formal review. Additionally, a pre-sift will be conducted to ensure the project proposal is in the scope of the competition.

6.1 Events

We will be running a series of virtual events:

• 1 August 2018 at 10.30 am Webex providing further details of the Problem and a chance to ask questions in an open forum. If you would like to participate, please register here
• 7 and 8 August 2018 we will be offering a series of 20 minute teleconference one-to-one sessions, giving you the opportunity to ask specific questions to the Department for Transport and DASA. If you would like to participate, please register here for the 7 August 2018 sessions or register here for the 8 August sessions

Proposals for funding must be submitted by 1pm on 20 September 2018 using the DASA Submission Service

6.2 What your proposal must include

You submission should include the following:

• a brief abstract will be requested once the proposal is funded. This will be used by DASA, Department for Transport, Home office and other government departments as appropriate describing your project and intended outcomes and benefits. This will be used for inclusion at DASA events in relation to this competition and placed on the DASA website, along with your company information and generic contact details
• identification of any ethical/legal risks within your proposal and how these will be managed, including break points in the project if approvals are not received. Please see annex 1 for further details
• costed participation in:
  • a one day collaboration event
  • a one day demonstration event

6.3 How you proposal will be assessed

Proposals will be assessed by subject matter experts from the Home Office, Department for Transport, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and Other Government Departments. We will also involve airports and other potential end users in the assessment process under appropriate Non-Disclosure Agreements. Additionally, we will involve International Government partners where we have Memoranda of Understanding that protects the sharing of commercially sensitive material.

After assessments are made and reviewed, proposals will be discussed internally at a Decision Conference where: based on the assessments, budget and wider strategic considerations, a decision will be made on the proposals to recommend for funding.

Where a project is not funded under this competition, feedback will be provided shortly after the completion of the decision conference.

6.4 Contracts

Please refer to the contract guidance and DASA terms and conditions section of the DASA website for contract details prior to submitting your bid.

You will be assigned a Technical Partner (TP) as a point of contact and to help support your project. In addition, the DASA team will work with you to support your project.

Deliverables from contracts will be made available for information to Home Office, the Department for Transport, and subject to review by relevant government departments.

Full-rights outputs of funded work may be exposed to international government partners. This is to promote international collaboration and to give projects the best chance of exploitation through exposure to a larger scope of international aviation requirements. This will only be done under the protection of existing intergovernmental memoranda of understanding.

7. Key dates

Competition open	25 July 2018
Webinar	1 August 2018 at 10.30 am
Pre bookable One to One telecom sessions	7 and 8 August 2018
Competition closes	20 September 2018 at 1 pm
Decision Conference	December 2018
Contracting	January 2019

8. Help

Queries that are about the competition including process, application, technical, commercial and intellectual property aspects, should be sent to accelerator@dstl.gov.uk quoting the competition title.

While all reasonable efforts will be made to answer queries, DASA reserves the right to impose management controls if volumes of queries restrict fair access to all suppliers.

9. Annex 1: Ethical and Legal Requirements

9.1 MOD Research Ethics Committee

All research involving human participation conducted or sponsored by any government department is subject to ethical review under procedures outlined in Joint Service Publication 536 ‘Ministry of Defence Policy for Research Involving Human Participants’, irrespective of any separate ethical procedures (eg from universities or other organisations). This ensures that acceptable ethical standards are met, upheld and recorded, adhering to nationally and internationally accepted principles and guidance.

The following definitions explain the areas of research that require approval:

• clinical: conducting research on a human participant, including (but not limited to) administering substances, taking blood or urine samples, removing biological tissue, radiological investigations, or obtaining responses to an imposed stress or experimental situation

• non-clinical: conducting research to collect data on an identifiable individual’s behaviour, either directly or indirectly (such as by questionnaire or observation) All proposals must declare if there are potential ethical issues. Securing ethical approval through this process can take up to 3 months. We, therefore, recommend that you only include research in phase 1 that doesn’t require ethical approval. Work that might require ethical approval should be planned for future phases of work which have longer and more flexible timescales. However, if you think that your phase 1 proposal may require ethical approval, please ensure that you adopt an approach in your submission as follows:

• milestone 1: gaining ethics approval for the project, including delivery of the research protocols (the protocol will need to be detailed by completing the ethics application form)
• milestone 2: proposed research that will be carried out subject to gaining ethics approval (optional phases to be formally invoked, where appropriate)

A contractual break point must be included after milestone 1. Read more on the MOD Research Ethics Committee.

The requirement for ethical approval isn’t a barrier to funding; proposals are assessed on technical merit and potential for exploitation. Successful proposals will be supported through the ethical review process; however, an outline of your research methods must be included in your proposal to help this process.

9.2 The Regulation of Investigatory Power Act (2000)/Investigatory Powers Act 2016 considerations

The Regulation of Investigatory Power Act (RIPA)/Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is an act of UK Parliament, regulating the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance and investigation, and covering the interception of communications. DASA encourages all suppliers to be mindful of legal and ethical considerations particularly where experiments may impact on privacy under Investigatory Powers legislation and obligations under the Data Protection Act. Your proposals must identify and minimise legal risk.

9.3 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Any research or work that involves the collection of personal data must be managed in accordance with GDPR, further details can be found here.