Notice

CDE themed competition: future sonar

Further information on this Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) competition for research funding.

• From: Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and Centre for Defence Enterprise
• Published: 30 June 2014

Documents

Future sonar competition document

PDF, 368 KB, 12 pages

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Details

This competition closes on Thursday 29 May 2014 at 5pm. Proposals must be submitted using the CDE portal.

Summary of this competition

Total funding available for this competition is £850k.

This competition closes on Thursday 29 May 2014 at 5pm.

Please be aware that £600k of the total budget is reserved for challenge 1 as this is the only planned opportunity for funding in this technology area during the next 4 years. Therefore, this CDE competition is the single entry point for research in this technology area.

Harnessing discovery and invention for future sonar advantage, including challenges in measuring decision effectiveness and non-destructive evaluation of sonar technology – a precursor scheme for long-term collaborative research and development in acoustic sensing.

The Ministry of Defence’s maritime freedom of manoeuvre research programme presents an opportunity to take part in a new research and development programme aimed at:

• providing the Royal Navy (RN) with a step change in sonar capability in the 2030s and beyond
• creating new partnerships, tools and knowledge required to support the UK sonar technology industry

The RN operates world-class sonar systems from its ships, submarines and aircraft that are underpinned, in many places, by innovation from the 1990s and earlier. In the future, the RN must deliver this capability more flexibly from a mix of traditional platforms and deployable or disposable systems. It must also meet the challenges of operating with a smaller navy in the face of changing threats.

We are seeking solutions to reduce sonar cost, size, mass, power, environmental impact and to increase reliability, bandwidth, directionality, sensitivity, and robustness.

This CDE competition also includes 2 further challenges seeking:

• new measures of decision effectiveness
• new techniques that can lead to improved non-destructive evaluation of sonar technology

This CDE themed competition seeks projects of up to 9 months that can advance the exploitation readiness of a recent technological discovery or breakthrough that could offer a sonar advantage. This CDE competition acts as a precursor scheme to a follow-on research programme starting in 2015.

Organisations that are successful in this CDE competition will be offered the opportunity to bid for a further 3-year programme of research. This is to allow the proposed solutions to be matured and developed over the medium term. This opportunity won’t be offered to other organisations. The additional 3 years of research funding will be placed via a separate contracting mechanism. (Please note that this will be subject to meeting DSTL normal procurement regulation.)

This competition launched at our Innovation Network event in March 2014.

View the presentation slides that were briefed at the event

This competition closes on Thursday 29 May 2014 at 5pm. Proposals must be submitted using the CDE portal.

Centre for Defence Enterprise

Building R103
Fermi Avenue
Harwell Oxford
Oxfordshire
OX11 0QX

Email cde@dstl.gov.uk

Telephone +44 (0)30 67704236

Alternative number +44 (0)30 67704237

Please email for the quickest response.

Published 30 June 2014