Guidance

Competition Document: Autonomy in Challenging Environments Phase 2

Updated 21 July 2020

1. Introduction

This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) Phase 2 competition is seeking proposals that can provide a step change in the capability of unmanned autonomous military systems to operate in challenging environments. Successful proposals will aim to deliver a greater level of functionality and/or application than in Phase 1 in a more operational representative environment.

This call is funded through Dstl’s Autonomy Incubator project that aims to identify and develop underpinning research and technologies to support the development and fielding of unmanned systems across defence. This work can be matured through the wider Dstl Autonomy programme and other research and development programmes.

Please note, it is not compulsory to have been involved in Phase 1 to apply to Phase 2. You should however make yourself aware of the previous competition scope and the projects we funded. Proposals that enable the exploitation of multiple phase 1 projects are also welcome. The Phase 1 projects will be presented at a virtual launch event for Phase 2.

2. Competition Scope

2.1 Background

Unmanned, autonomous and semi-autonomous systems have potential applications across many military capability areas and civilian operations and are expected to be increasingly deployed by the UK Armed Forces over the next few decades. Many autonomous systems have been developed and optimised in ideal conditions. However, military operations take place in environments that are challenging, from both a physical and electromagnetic (EM) perspective, affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of current autonomy technologies. These challenges are expected to evolve and consequently, there is a need for technologies to enhance the performance of autonomous systems in challenging environments to support current and future military operations.

2.2 Scope

This competition is seeking technologies to broaden the environmental and performance envelope of unmanned autonomous or semi-autonomous systems to include:

• unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV)
• unmanned surface vehicle (USV)
• unmanned ground vehicle (UGV)
• unmanned air system (UAS)
• or hybrid systems

The challenging environmental conditions within scope are:

• high winds (such as gust effects and air turbulence within urban environments)
• heavy precipitation (such as rain, snow, blizzards and ice)
• high dynamic range illumination (including changes to UV and night vision)
• water dynamics (such as currents and visibility)
• temperature (such as temperature extremes and fluctuations between extremes)
• sudden and enduring pressure or acoustic extremes underwater
• intense flashes of light (including infrared and ultraviolet)
• variable salinity
• dense vegetation (including flora and fauna)
• extreme and diverse terrains (such as variability in traction and elevation)
• high-obstacle environments (such as within caves and buildings)
• congested and contested EM environments (including radio frequency (RF) emissions)
• GPS denied environments

Any solutions proposed must not erode the core benefits of the existing or future anticipated unmanned autonomous or semi-autonomous systems which include:

• persistence: unmanned systems should be able to operate independently for long periods and/or over long ranges either singularly or through an exchange or replacement system. Priority will be given to ideas that will have a low impact on size, weight and power (SWAP), for example, novel structural concepts could be combined with sensing and perception.
• combat mass: where the unmanned systems increase the sphere of influence through larger numbers of low cost systems.
• reach: unmanned systems must collectively lead to an increase in effective range of operation which must still be achieved in high risk and physically constrained environments.

Phase 1 aimed to understand the feasibility, impact and potential military application of innovative ideas. In Phase 2, we are aiming to develop potential solutions with a focus on merging solutions and fusing learned knowledge in order to improve performance.

3. Competition Challenges

While solutions must aim to provide a step change in the capability of unmanned autonomous military systems to operate in challenging environments, Phase 2 proposals must also offer the ability to reach a higher maturity and a higher confidence of exploitation than work funded in Phase 1. Phase 2 proposals could be a continuation of existing Phase 1 projects, integration or exploitation of multiple Phase 1 projects, and/or additional technologies to demonstrate a more comprehensive/developed operational capability. Proposals should address one or more of the following challenge areas associated with the unmanned systems and environmental conditions listed above:

1. perception and situational awareness
2. mobility
3. maintaining effective human-machine partnerships

3.1 Challenge 1: Perception and situational awareness

This challenge seeks technologies to establish and maintain local situational and self-awareness of unmanned autonomous or semi-autonomous systems in adverse environmental conditions or across a spectrum of variable conditions. This requires that the system has the ability to sense, interpret, and understand its local environment, and then respond autonomously to that understanding appropriately.

Areas of interest include:

• novel or alternative sensing techniques (such as EM, acoustic, seismic, flow, novel electro-optic (EO) and polarisation sensing)
• novel sensor pre-processing techniques to aid autonomous activities
• imaging techniques that can operate in lowlight and high illumination environments
• techniques for dynamic sensor and platform stabilisation in turbulent or rough environments (through either physical or processing means)
• techniques for the abstraction of information to expand the operational window, with minimal human participation (including effects of sensor data uncertainty on real-time interpretation of the information)
• techniques or materials to minimise sensor obscuration due to moisture or contaminants (such as rain, mist, sea spray, surfacing, and rapid temperature changes)
• novel antennas, directional communications and other technologies aimed at reducing the vulnerability of autonomous systems.

This challenge is not just about better sensors, it is about situational / self-awareness, and therefore any sensor-based solutions should come with the requisite processing to demonstrate the required capability enhancement.

3.2 Challenge 2: mobility

There is an aspiration to maintain the freedom of mobility of autonomous systems as conditions deteriorate, particularly in dynamic, uncertain and cluttered environments. This challenge seeks solutions that will allow autonomous and semi-autonomous platforms to withstand the effects of challenging environmental conditions throughout their missions.

We are interested in innovative technologies which address this, such as anisotropic materials applications, soft robotics, embodied Artificial Intelligence (AI) or other novel methods to increase autonomous systems’ ability to respond or adapt to environmental challenges. Priority will be given to technologies that support the benefits and priorities identified in the scope. This challenge also facilitates the application of Challenge 1 technologies to maintain mobility.

3.3 Challenge 3: maintaining effective human-machine partnerships

At the core of future military advantage will be the effective integration of humans, AI and robotics into military systems – human-machine teams. Except for UUVs, research concepts for autonomous and semi-autonomous systems have generally relied on the ability to maintain constant communication between the human operator and the unmanned platform. During operations in the challenging environments described, maintaining effective human-machine teams is difficult when communications are not always guaranteed.

This challenge seeks proposals that address human-machine teaming when the ability to communicate with the unmanned systems is limited, fleeting or not at all possible for extended periods.

Areas of interest include:

• pre-mission planning: the collaborative development of mission plans, using a mixed initiative approach between the human and the system. Work in this area should focus on an anticipated loss of communications and the development of suitable contingencies and strategies.
• desynchronised operations (both deliberate and unplanned): when the communications link is lost, how the autonomous system continues to conduct the mission effectively and safely in line with the human operator’s intent, while dynamically adapting to changes in the external environment and optimising the opportunities to re-establish communications. Can the human operator predict what the system will do and anticipate when the autonomous system might resume communications?
• resynchronisation of the human-machine team: when communications are re-established how the human-machine team quickly share what they have been doing, their respective situational awareness and any updates to future plans.

Phase 2 is particularly seeking projects to deliver a greater level of functionality and/or application making it more operationally representative. Relating to the competition challenges, specific focus areas include:

• navigational fusion (particularly the fusion of novel approaches and temporally separated navigational solutions (i.e. using post-processed solutions to refine current location to enable navigation when in degraded / denied environments) to provide better situational understanding)
• fusion and exploitation of multiple perception algorithms
• pre-mission planning for where effective communications are not always guaranteed
• increasingly challenging link status for human-machine partnerships (from full link to lost link), whether planned or unplanned, desynchronising and resynchronising operations, where the mission needs to be completed and situational awareness maintained

3.4 Clarification of what we want

We want novel ideas to benefit users working in UK defence. Your proposal should include evidence of:

• demonstrable solutions to increase autonomous systems availability in challenging environment
• proof of concept research which has already demonstrated potential and been translated to practical demonstration
• innovation or a creative approach
• clear demonstration of how the proposed work applies to defence context
• for Challenge 3, relevance to improving actionable understanding and insight into human behaviour
• where appropriate, how the proposal improves the effectiveness or exploitability of Phase 1 submissions

3.5 Clarification of what we don’t want

For this competition we are not interested in proposals that:

• constitute consultancy, paper-based studies or literature reviews which just summarise the existing literature without any view of future innovation
• are an identical resubmission of a previous bid to DASA or MOD without modification
• offer demonstrations of off-the-shelf products requiring no experimental development (unless applied in a novel way to the challenge)
• offer no real long-term prospect of integration into defence and/or security capabilities
• offer no real prospect of out-competing existing technological solutions
• relate to the Space domain; we are focussing inside the earth’s atmosphere.
• are for sole use on manned platforms

4. Exploitation

It is important that over the lifetime of DASA competitions, ideas are matured and accelerated towards appropriate end-users to enhance capability. How long this takes will be dependent on the nature and starting point of the innovation. Early identification and appropriate engagement with potential end-users during this phase and subsequent phases are essential in order to develop and implement an exploitation plan.

All proposals to DASA should articulate the expected development in technology maturity of the potential solution over the lifetime of the contract and how this relates to improved operational capability against the current known (or presumed) baseline. Your deliverables should be designed to evidence these aspects with the aim of making it as easy as possible for possible collaborators/stakeholders to identify the innovative elements of your proposal in order to consider routes for exploitation. DASA Innovation Partners are available to support you with defence and security context.

You may wish to include some of the following information, where known, to help the assessors understand your exploitation plans to date:

• the intended defence or security users of your final product and whether you have previously engaged with them, their procurement arm or their research and development arm
• awareness of, and alignment to, any existing end-user procurement programmes
• the anticipated benefits (for example, in cost, time, improved capability) that your solution will provide to the user
• whether it is likely to be a standalone product or integrated with other technologies or platforms
• expected additional work required beyond the end of the contract to develop an operationally deployable commercial product (for example, “scaling up” for manufacture, cyber security, integration with existing technologies, environmental operating conditions)
• additional future applications and wider markets for exploitation
• wider collaborations and networks you have already developed or any additional relationships you see as a requirement to support exploitation
• how your product could be tested in a representative environment in later phases
• any specific legal, ethical, commercial or regulatory considerations for exploitation

Longer term studies may not be able to articulate exploitation in great detail, but it should always be clear that there is some credible advantage to be gained from the technology development.

MOD is collaborating with several nations in this area, which may provide the opportunity for carrying out joint development and international trials in the future. Please highlight where this may benefit (or inhibit) your proposal.

5. How to apply

Proposals for Phase 2 must be submitted by Thursday 10 September 2020 at midday BST via the DASA submission service for which you will be required to register.

The total funding available for Phase 2 of this competition is £2M (ex VAT), but individual proposals cannot exceed £400K (ex VAT). If successful, contracts will be awarded for a maximum duration of 12 months.

Further guidance on submitting a proposal is available on the DASA website.

5.1 What your proposal must include

The proposal should focus on the Phase 2 requirements but must also include a brief (uncosted) outline of the next stages of work required for exploitation.

When submitting a proposal, you must complete all sections of the online form, including an appropriate level of technical information to allow assessment of the bid and a completed finances section. Completed proposals must comply with the financial rules set for this competition. The upper-limit for this competition is £400K (ex VAT). Proposals will be rejected if the financial cost exceeds this capped level. It is also helpful to include a list of other current or recent government funding you may have received in this area if appropriate, making it clear how this proposal differs from this work.

A project plan with clear milestones and deliverables must be provided. Deliverables must be well defined and designed to provide evidence of progress against the project plan and the end-point for this phase; they must include a final report. You should also plan for attendance at a kick-off meeting at the start of Phase 2, a mid-project event and an end of project event at the end of Phase 2, as well as regular reviews with the appointed Technical Partner and Project Manager; all meetings will be in the UK. You should also be prepared to present your work and any findings at a MOD annual Autonomy Conference at the end of the current financial year. Your proposal must demonstrate how you will complete all activities/services and provide all deliverables within the competition timescales (12 months). Proposals with any deliverables (including final report) outside the competition timeline will be rejected as non-compliant.

A resourcing plan must also be provided that identifies, where possible, the nationalities of those proposed Research Workers that you intend working on this phase. In the event of proposals being recommended for funding, DASA reserves the right to undertake due diligence checks including the clearance of proposed research workers. Please note that this process will take as long as necessary and could take up to 6 weeks in some cases for non-UK nationals.

You must identify any ethical / legal / regulatory factors within your proposal and how the associated risks will be managed, including break points in the project if approvals are not received. MODREC approvals can take up to 5 months therefore you should plan your work programme accordingly. Further details are available in the DASA guidance. If you are unsure if your proposal will need to apply for MODREC approval, then please contact DASA for further guidance.

Requirements for access to Government Furnished Assets (GFA), for example, information, equipment, materials and facilities, should be included in your proposal. DASA cannot guarantee that GFA will be available.

Failure to provide any of the above listed will automatically render your proposal non-compliant.

5.2 Public facing information

When submitting your proposal, you will be required to include a proposal title and a short abstract. The title and abstract you provide will be used by DASA, and other government departments, to describe the project and its intended outcomes and benefits. It will be used for inclusion at DASA events in relation to this competition and included in documentation such as brochures. The proposal title will also be published in the DASA transparency data on GOV.UK, along with your company name, the amount of funding, and the start and end dates of your contract.

5.3 How your proposal will be assessed

At Stage 1, all proposals will be checked for compliance with the competition document and may be rejected before full assessment if they do not comply. Only those proposals which demonstrate their compliance against the competition scope and DASA mandatory criteria will be taken forward to full assessment. Failure to achieve full compliance against Stage 1 will render your proposal non-compliant and will not be considered any further:

Mandatory Criteria

The proposal outlines how it meets the scope of the competition	Within scope (Pass) / Out of scope (Fail)
The proposal fully explains in all three sections of the DASA submission service how it meets the DASA criteria	Pass / Fail
The proposal clearly details a financial plan, a project plan and a resourcing plan to complete the work proposed in Phase 2	Pass / Fail
The proposal identifies the need for MODREC approval	Pass / Fail
Maximum value of proposal is £400K	Pass / Fail
The proposal demonstrates how all research and development activities/services (including delivery of the final report) will be completed within 12 months from award of contract (or less)	Pass / Fail
The bidder has obtained the authority to provide unqualified acceptance of the terms and conditions of the Contract	Pass / Fail
Clearly stated Safety Cases have been provided where applicable	Pass / Fail

Proposals that pass Stage 1 will then be assessed against the standard DASA assessment criteria (Desirability, Feasibility and Viability) by subject matter experts from the MOD (including Dstl), other government departments and front-line military commands. You will not have the opportunity to comment on assessors comments.

DASA reserves the right to disclose on a confidential basis any information it receives from you during the procurement process to any third party engaged by DASA for the specific purpose of evaluating or assisting DASA in the evaluation of your proposal. For the specific purposes of considering additional funding for a competition and onward exploitation opportunities, DASA also reserves the right to share information in your proposal in-confidence with any UK Government Department. In providing such information you consent to such disclosure. Appropriate confidentiality agreements will be put in place.

Further guidance on how your proposal is assessed is available on the DASA website.

After assessment, 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 that are recommended for funding.

Proposals that are unsuccessful will receive brief feedback after the Decision Conference.

5.4 Things you should know about DASA contracts

Please read the DASA terms and conditions which contain important information for suppliers. For this competition we will be using the Innovation Standard Contract (ISC) links to the contract here: Terms and Schedules. We will require unqualified acceptance of the terms and conditions. For the avoidance of any doubt, for this Themed Competition we are NOT using the DASA Short Form Contract (SFC).

Funded projects will be allocated a Project Manager (to run the project) and a Technical Partner (as a technical point of contact). In addition, the DASA team will work with you to support delivery and exploitation.

We will use deliverables from DASA contracts in accordance with our rights detailed in the contract terms and conditions.

For this phase/competition, £2M is currently available to fund proposals. There may be occasions where additional funding from other funding lines may subsequently become available to allow us to revisit those proposals deemed suitable for funding but where limitations on funding at the time prevented DASA from awarding a subsequent contract. In such situations, DASA reserves the right to keep such proposals in reserve. In the event that additional funding subsequently becomes available, DASA may ask whether you would still be prepared to undertake the work outlined in your proposal under the same terms.

6. Phase 2 Dates

Virtual launch event	21 July 2020
1-2-1 event	29 July 2020
Competition closes	10 September 2020
Feedback release	14 December 2020
Contracting	Aim to start contracts in December 2020 and end 12 months later in December 2021

6.1 Supporting events

21 July 2020 – A virtual launch event providing further detail on the problem space and a chance to ask questions in an open forum. If you would like to participate, please register on the Eventbrite page.

A series of 20 minute one-to-one teleconference sessions, giving you the opportunity to ask specific questions.

29 July 2020 – If you would like to participate, please register on the Eventbrite page.

7 August 2020 - If you would like to participate, please register on the Eventbrite page

7. Help

DASA has a network of regionally based Innovation Partners who are available provide guidance to suppliers on submitting to a competition. If you would like guidance, please submit an outline of your idea via the DASA website. This will be sent to an Innovation Partner who will contact you within ten working days to discuss.

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 of information to all potential suppliers.

If you are experiencing technical difficulties with the submission service, please contact accelerator@dstl.gov.uk.