Notice

It’s Good for Missiles to Talk: Competition Document

Updated 22 July 2022

1. Introduction

This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition, run on behalf of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), aims to identify and develop novel technologies that could be exploited in the development of a new category of missile – cooperative missiles.

Cooperative missiles can communicate with each other, share situational awareness and organise themselves to ‘work together’ efficiently to achieve a common objective. The aim of the work is to investigate how inter-missile communication and cooperative behaviours can be technically achieved to solve UK military challenges.

It is envisioned that by working together, cooperative missiles will offer the UK armed forces far more capability in the future than they have today. There are many benefits of enabling cooperation between missiles. For example, when considering collateral damage during missions or the live updating of safety data within missions if non-combatants enter the battlefield post-launch. This information could be shared by cooperative missiles to ensure an abort function is carried out live during a mission, under human operator authority.

UK defence systems enabled by AI, including missiles, will always be subject to context appropriate human involvement. For this competition, we are only interested in technologies that could enable cooperation between missiles.

This DASA competition seeks ideas for the early development of technologies to underpin the future or ‘Generation After Next’ of UK missile systems. It will inform future discussions on how Generation After Next technologies associated with cooperative missiles could be exploited within Defence. Successful submissions will identify and increase the maturity of novel technologies to enable exploitation in future cooperative missiles.

We encourage proposals where the innovation starts at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of approximately 2-3. By the end of the project, we expect the innovation to be sufficiently developed to achieve approximately TRL 4-5.

Successful proposals will present credible plans for progressing new, advanced technologies which could underpin a future cooperative missile.

Cooperative Missile Project

This DASA competition is funded by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) under the Integrated Review. It forms part of the Cooperative Missile Project managed under the MOD’s Science & Technology (S&T) Programme. Further information about the Cooperative Missile Project can be found here.

DASA projects taken into the Cooperative Missile Project for exploitation (subject to agreement between all parties) will require successful bidders to collaborate with defence strategic suppliers; however, there is no requirement for proposals funded through this phase of the competition to follow this route to market. Suppliers are encouraged to consider how they might work with defence strategic partners to exploit their innovation in the future.

2. Competition key information

Submission deadline

Midday on 03 August 2022 (BST)

Total funding available

The total funding available for Phase 1 of this competition is £800K (ex VAT). This is expected to fund multiple proposals between £100k to £200k (ex VAT) over a maximum project duration of 6 months. We are looking to fund bids at a relatively low TRL, starting at approximately TRL 2-3 for development up to approximately TRL 4-5.

Further funding may be made available for a second phase to develop higher TRL technologies. We would aim to launch Phase 2 on completion of the Phase 1 contracts.

The results or deliverables from Phase 1 projects may be shared under appropriate confidentiality arrangements with defence strategic suppliers to help formulate Phase 2 of the competition. Within this second phase, innovators will be strongly encouraged to collaborate with defence strategic suppliers, however it is not required to collaborate with defence strategic suppliers in Phase 1.

Success in Phase 1 will not be a pre-requisite for applying to Phase 2.

Where do I submit my proposal?

Via the DASA Online Submission Service for which you will require an account. Only proposals submitted through the DASA Online Submission Service will be accepted.

You will be required to enter your organisation’s DUNS number prior to submission of a full proposal on the DASA Online Submission Service. Please allow enough time to do this prior to submission.

Lookup or register for a DUNS Number here . Organisations registered outside of the United Kingdom can obtain their DUNS number here.

You must not submit any information classified above OFFICIAL. If this is a particular problem you should contact DASA in advance and we will discuss solutions with you.

3. Supporting events

Dial-in session

Monday 20 June 2022 – A dial-in session 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. To get the most out of this session, we strongly advise that you attend with a good knowledge of the competition document.

Industry collaboration survey during proposal preparation

We encourage collaboration between organisations for this competition. To support this, we have a short survey to collect details of those who wish to explore collaboration possibilities. If you are interested in a collaboration, please complete the survey and your details will be circulated among other potential suppliers who have completed the survey and are interested in collaborating.

If you choose to complete the supplier collaboration survey, please be aware all the information you submit in the survey will be provided to other suppliers who also complete the survey. All industry collaboration for proposal submissions is on an industry-industry basis. Inclusion or absence of any individual supplier organisation will not affect assessment, which will be solely on technical evidence in the proposal.

4. Competition Scope

4.1 Background: Why are we interested in cooperative missiles?

The development of cooperative missiles for future UK missile systems is a novel and key challenge that Defence is actively seeking to solve.

Currently, we seek to overmatch the capability of potential adversaries by improving the performance of individual missiles. For example, through use of a more sophisticated seeker or navigation system. With the cooperative approach, performance improvements can be achieved through leveraging networked technologies. This approach has disruptive potential as the sub-systems used may be comparatively less complex but, when they ‘work together’, they are greater than the sum of their parts.

This DASA competition seeks to fund hardware, software and system innovations that could underpin a future cooperative missile system.

4.2 Scope: The operating environment

The operating environment for cooperative missiles will be highly complex. Adversaries will be well defended and the threat they pose will push our launch platforms and supporting assets further away from the area of engagement. The target may be partially or fully concealed and is likely to be surrounded by buildings, trees and vegetation, which can make identification more challenging. There will be uncertainty in the scene as well as changing conditions, including metrological variation. GNSS will be degraded if not denied. It is this complexity that drives the need for introducing cooperation between missile systems.

The complex scene pictured above depicts an operating environment that may be common to other military capabilities, but its application to missile systems faces unique challenges. For example:

• missile flight durations are relatively short (in the order 10s to 1000s of seconds) and thus time is limited to share situational awareness data
• missiles fly faster than aircraft and their high velocity causes frictional heating and significant vibration, which can affect sub-system performance
• missiles typically, but not always, fly at a low level. This limits the seeker’s view of the target area and communications between missiles can be degraded by buildings or other objects
• missile subsystems are size, weight and power limited
• the above factors all limit the bandwidth and latency of missile to missile communications
• missile to missile communications are typically limited by bandwidth due to size, directionality, power, environment etc.
• missiles can only be used for one mission and hence sub-systems are typically much lower cost (and performance) compared to military aircraft

5. Competition challenges

This competition has 4 challenges.

5.1 Challenge 1: Distributed target detection and identification

The seeker is the part of the missile that detects, recognises and identifies the target. It ensures that the missile tracks the target and guides it until impact, and is often the most complex and expensive part of the missile. Increases in performance such as detecting targets at longer range require ever more sophisticated seekers, which drives up costs. Using multiple seekers in a cooperative fashion offers an alternative way to improve performance.

This challenge is looking for novel ways to detect, recognise and identify intended targets using multiple missile sensors distributed over a cooperative group. Static and moving targets should be considered in the operational context of a complex scene, including clutter. For this competition we are interested in visual band, infrared band and radio frequency (RF) band (Active or Passive) seekers. Proposals should consider how they would quantify the benefit of their proposed innovation compared to a single sensor.

Particular areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• combining sensor data to build a shared image of the target area, with multiple missiles potentially approaching the target from different directions
• increasing detection and identification range though use of multiple, distributed lower cost sensors
• improving the accuracy of target tracking in a complex scene by combining data from multiple sources. By combining sensor data, cooperative missiles could be made more robust against camouflage, concealment and deception
• approaches to the above with homogenous and/or heterogeneous arrays of sensors

5.2 Challenge 2: Data processing onboard and between missiles

Many cooperative functions, e.g. sensing or navigation, are likely to be computationally expensive and require inputs from many different systems. This challenge is concerned with the processing of large quantities of data across cooperative missile networks for particular missions.

Ideas that will help solve this challenge area may include:

• distributed processing in a missile environment. Distributed processing refers to computer systems that use processing spread over different sites, in this cases multiple missiles
• distributed database systems within a cooperative missile network
• edge processing – this is an alternative and complimentary technique where processing, analysing and storing data is performed at the point of generation to enable rapid, near real-time analysis
• transmission of data within a limited bandwidth cooperative missile network. Consideration should be given to the need for secure and robust data flows

5.3 Challenge 3: Enhanced navigation through cooperation

Global Navigation Satellite Services (GNSS) are likely to be unavailable or severely degraded in the operational environment of cooperative missile networks, making navigation more challenging. The distribution of sensors offers a potential solution. For this challenge, we are interested in applications of novel alternative navigation (AltNav) technologies and distributed navigation sensors.

Particular areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• use of multiple low cost Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) across the cooperative missile network to improve group navigation
• use of multiple GNSS feeds across the cooperative missile network when some are jammed or degraded to improve group navigation
• geolocation using diverse technologies that are distributed across the cooperative missile network
• synchronisation of timing information within the cooperative missile network

5.4 Challenge 4: Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The application of AI has been explored for use in non-distributed missile systems. This includes advancements in target recognition for missiles operating within human-machine teams. More recent advancements in AI provide further opportunities in the context of cooperation within distributed missile networks, enabling potentially novel applications for the Generation After Next of UK missile systems.

This is a general challenge to understand how advances in AI could be exploited in cooperative missile systems. Particular areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• improving the robustness of limited bandwidth communications between the cooperative missile network
• optimising the searching of a scene across the distributed cooperative missile network
• target detection in the presence of obscurance (e.g. smoke or camouflage systems) across a distributed cooperative missile network
• target recognition and identification within the distributed cooperative missile network
• prioritisation and allocation of targets across the cooperative missile network
• execution and monitoring of tactical navigation in a dynamic environment within the cooperative missile network

UK defence systems enabled by AI, including missiles, will always be subject to context appropriate human involvement. For this competition, we are only interested in technologies that could enable cooperation between missiles.

5.5 We are interested in…

Novel ideas that ultimately bring benefit to end-users working in UK Defence and Security through integration into the Generation After Next of UK missile systems. Your proposal should include evidence of:

• solutions focused on one or more of the challenge areas listed above
• consideration of how low TRL technology demonstrators might transition to exploitable technologies and contribute to the future of cooperative missiles
• theoretical development, method of advancement or proof of concept research which demonstrates the potential for translation into practical demonstration in later phases
• an innovation or a creative approach, with ambition to deliver workable demonstrations of new concepts
• clear demonstration of how the proposed work applies to the defence context

5.6 We are not interested in…

We are not interested in proposals that:

• remove human control from the operation of missile systems
• focus specifically and solely on development of the warhead, payload, propulsion or actuator sub systems and guidance and control algorithms within missile systems
• focus solely on new missile concepts
• constitute consultancy, paper-based studies or literature reviews which summarise the existing literature without any view of future innovation
• are unsolicited resubmissions of a previous DASA bid
• offer demonstrations of off-the-shelf products requiring no experimental development (unless applied in a novel way to one of the challenges)
• offer no real long-term prospect of integration into the Generation After Next of UK missile systems
• offer no real prospect of out-competing equivalent technologies
• utilise existing commercially restricted algorithms
• are from organisations not willing to co-operate with defence strategic suppliers in potential subsequent phases

6. Accelerating and exploiting your innovation

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 the competition 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 potential collaborators/stakeholders to identify the innovative elements of your proposal in order to consider routes for exploitation.

6.1 How to outline your exploitation plan

A higher technology maturity is expected in subsequent phases. Include the following information 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

6.2 Is your exploitation plan long term?

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

Include project specific information which will help exploitation. This competition is being carried out as part of a wider MOD programme and with cognisance of cross-Government initiatives. We may collaborate with organisations outside of the UK Government and this may provide the opportunity to carry out international trials and demonstrations in the future.

7. How to apply

Submission deadline

Midday on 03 August 2022 (BST)

Where do I submit my proposal?

Via the DASA Online Submission Service for which you will be required to register.
Only proposals submitted through the DASA Online Submission Service will be accepted.

Total funding available

The total funding available for Phase 1 of this competition is £800k (ex VAT).

Additional funding for further phases to increase TRL may be available. Any further phases will be open to applications from all innovators and not just those that submitted Phase 1 bids.

For further guidance

Click here for more information on our competition process and how your proposal is assessed.

Queries should be sent to the DASA Help Centre – accelerator@dstl.gov.uk

7.1 What your proposal must include

• the proposal should focus on the Phase 1 requirements but must also include a brief (uncosted) outline of the next stages of work required for commercial 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 £200k (ex VAT). Proposals will be rejected if the financial cost exceeds this capped level
• you must 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 1, a mid-project event and an end of project event at the end of Phase 1, as well as regular reviews with the appointed Technical Partner and Project Manager; all meetings will be in the UK. Meetings may also take place virtually
• your proposal must demonstrate how you will complete all activities/services and provide all deliverables within the competition timescales (6 months). Proposals with any deliverables (including final report) outside the competition timeline will be rejected as non-compliant

7.2 What your resourcing plan should include

Your resourcing plan must identify, where possible, the nationalities of proposed employees that you intend to work on this phase.

If your proposal is recommended for funding

In the event of a proposal being recommended for funding, the DASA reserves the right to undertake due diligence checks including the clearance of proposed employees. 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. If you are unsure if your proposal will need to apply for MODREC approval, then please refer to the MODREC Guidance for Suppliers or contact your Innovation Partner for further guidance.

Requirements for access to Government Furnished Assets (GFA), for example, information, equipment, materials and facilities, may be included in your proposal. DASA cannot guarantee that GFA will be available. If you apply for GFA, you should include an alternative plan in case it is not available.

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

7.3 Export control for overseas partners

All relevant export control regulations will apply if a company ultimately wants to sell a developed solution to a foreign entity. All innovators must ensure that they can obtain, if required, the necessary export licences for their proposals and developments, such that they can be supplied to the UK and other countries. If you cannot confirm that you can gain the requisite licences, your proposal will be sifted out of the competition.

Additionally, if we believe that you will not be able to obtain export clearance, additional checks may be conducted, which may also result in your proposal being sifted out of the competition.

7.4 Cyber risk assessment

Supplier Assurance Questionnaire (SAQ)

Innovators must complete a Supplier Assurance Questionnaire (SAQ), using the DASA Risk Assessment Reference (RAR) for this competition: RAR-549009228 and answer questions for risk level “very low”.

DASA has completed a Cyber Risk Assessment (CRA) for this competition. In order to submit to this competition innovators are required to work towards cyber resilience. If selected for funding, the innovator must prove cyber resilience before a contract will be awarded.

Defence Cyber Protection Partnership

The Defence Cyber Protection Partnership (DCPP) will review your SAQ submission and respond with a reference number within 2 working days. The completed SAQ form and resulting email response from DCPP must be downloaded and included within the DASA submission service portal when the proposal is submitted. Please allow enough time to receive the SAQ reference number prior to competition close at midday on 03 August 2022 (BST).

If the proposal is being funded, the SAQ will be evaluated against the CRA for the competition, and it will be put it into one of the following categories:

1. compliant – no further action
2. not compliant – if successful in competition and being funded, the innovator will be required to complete a Cyber Implementation Plan (CIP) before the contract is placed, which will need to be reviewed and agreed with the relevant project manager

Innovators can enter a proposal without all controls in place, but are expected to have all the cyber protection measures necessary to fulfil the requirements of the contract in place at the time of contract award, or have an agreed Cyber Implementation Plan (CIP).

The CIP provides evidence as to how and when potential innovators will achieve compliance. Provided the measures proposed in the Cyber Implementation Plan do not pose an unacceptable risk to the MOD, a submission with a Cyber Implementation Plan will be considered alongside those who can achieve the controls.

A final check will be made to ensure cyber resilience before the contract is placed. Commercial staff cannot progress without it. This process does not replace any contract specific security requirements.

Further guidance for completing this process can be requested by emailing the DASA Help Centre: accelerator@dstl.gov.uk.

Additional information about cyber security can be found at: DCPP: Cyber Security Model industry buyer and supplier guide.

7.5 Public facing information

When submitting your proposal, you will be required to include a title and a short abstract. The title and abstract you provide will be used by DASA, and other government departments, to describe your project and its intended outcomes and benefits. They may be included at DASA events in relation to this competition and in documentation such as brochures. The proposal title will 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. As this information can be shared, it should not contain information that may compromise Intellectual property.

7.6 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 that demonstrate compliance against the competition scope and DASA mandatory criteria will be taken forward to full assessment.

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 1.	Pass / Fail
The proposal identifies the need (or not) for MODREC approval.	Pass / Fail
The proposal identifies any GFA required for Phase 1.	Pass / Fail
Maximum value of proposal is £200k (ex VAT).	Pass / Fail
The proposal demonstrates how all research and development activities/services (including delivery of the final report) will be completed within 6 months from award of contract (or less).	Pass / Fail
The innovator provides unqualified acceptance of the terms and conditions of the contract.	Pass / Fail
The bidder has done all of the following: submitted a Supplier Assurance Questionnaire (SAQ) number; attached the email from DCPP; attached the submitted SAQ form.	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 the front-line military commands. You will not have the opportunity to view or comment on assessors’ recommendations.

DASA reserves the right to disclose on a confidential basis any information it receives from innovators during the procurement process (including information identified by the innovator as Commercially Sensitive Information in accordance with the provisions of this competition) to any third party engaged by DASA for the specific purpose of evaluating or assisting DASA in the evaluation of the innovator’s proposal. In providing such information the innovator consents 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 here.

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.

Innovators are not permitted to attend the Decision Conference.

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

7.7 Things you should know about DASA contracts: DASA terms and conditions

Please read the DASA terms and conditions which contain important information for innovators. For this competition we will be using the Innovation Standard Contract (ISC), Terms and Schedules. We will require unqualified acceptance of the terms and conditions; if applicable, please ensure your commercial department has provided their acceptance.

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 including, when appropriate, introductions to end-users and business support to help develop their business.

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

For this competition, £800k is currently available to fund proposals. There may be occasions when additional funding may become available to allow us to revisit proposals deemed suitable for funding. Therefore, DASA reserves the right to keep such proposals in reserve. In the event that additional funding becomes available, DASA may ask whether you would still be prepared to undertake the work outlined in your proposal under the same terms.

8. Phase 1 key dates

Open Q and A Dial-in

20 June 2022

Competition closes

Midday 03 August 2022 (BST)

Feedback release

Aim: end September 2022

Contracting

Aim to start Nov 2022 and end 6 months later in April 2023

9. Help: Contact the DASA Help Centre

Competition queries including on process, application, commercial, technical and intellectual property aspects should be sent to the DASA Help Centre at accelerator@dstl.gov.uk, quoting the competition title. If you wish receive future updates on this competition, please email the DASA Help Centre.

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 innovators.

10. Clarification Questions and Answers

10.1 General questions

Q: Can we address more than one challenge in the same proposal?

A: Yes.

Q: What is the difference between Challenge 1 and Challenge 2?

A: Challenge 1 looks at the principles of how the target can be detected and identified with distributed sensors. Challenge 2 looks at the hardware side in general and the processing demands of Challenge 1 and Challenge 3 (enhanced navigation). The challenges overlap, you can address them together in your proposal.

Q: How many months are given to complete the development?

A: Per the mandatory criteria: “The proposal should demonstrate how all research and development activities/services (including delivery of the final report) will be completed within 6 months from award of contract (or less).”

Q: How many proposals are you looking to fund in Phase 1?

A: The total funding available for Phase 1 of this competition is £800K (ex VAT). This is expected to fund multiple proposals between £100k to £200k (ex VAT).

Q: Who is the customer for this competition?

A: Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl)

Q: Can we recruit a researcher as part of our proposal?

A: The resources you use and where they come from is for the proposing organisation to decide. Details of any researchers will need to be included in your proposal as per our terms and conditions.

Q: Are we able to collaborate with other suppliers?

A: Yes. To support this, we have a short survey to collect details of those who wish to explore collaboration possibilities. If you are interested in a collaboration, please complete the survey and your details will be circulated among other potential suppliers who are interested in collaborating.

Q: What is the format, scope and process for submitting the proposal and the timeline?

A: Details on the proposal format and submission process can be found here. The competition closes at Midday on 03 August 2022 (BST). The overall timeline can be found in section 8 of the competition document above.

Q: What TRL are Phase 1 projects expected to reach? What will be the expected TRL for Phase 2?

A: In Phase 1 we expect the innovation to be sufficiently developed to achieve approximately TRL 4-5. The TRL level for the potential Phase 2 has not yet been determined. Please note the TRL depends on the application: something of high TRL in the automotive or aerospace sector will have a different TRL when applied to a missile.

Please find guidance on technology readiness levels here.

Q: Is there an expectation of demonstration versus paper-based studies for Phase 1?

A: A demonstration would be preferred but we would not rule out a paper based study. The proposal cost should reflect the deliverables.

Q: Can we request data (government furnished assets (GFA)?

A: Requirements for access to Government Furnished Assets (GFA), for example information, equipment, materials and facilities, may be included in your proposal. DASA cannot guarantee that GFA will be available. If you apply for GFA, you should include an alternative plan in case it is not available.

Any GFA request should be included in the Viability section of your proposal.

Q: Is a letter of support from a customer or front line command required for this phase?

A: No, it is not required however if you do have one, please include it.

Q: When you refer to primes and strategic suppliers, which companies are you referring to?

A: For this competition, MBDA and Thales.

Q: What are the expected timescales for integration and testing in a prime missile system?

A: Usually in the order of years. We are running this competition, including a potential Phase 2, to accelerate this process.

Q: Are there any legal barriers to using the technology from this challenge in commercial applications as well?

A: All Intellectual Property developed under this project shall remain in the ownership of the supplier. Please review our Terms and Conditions and seek independent advice or guidance if you are uncertain about what they mean.

10.2 Scope Questions:

Q: How are we supposed to demonstrate our technology? Should we use simulators designed for a distributed missile network?

A: This is up to the proposer. Simulations or demonstrations on unmanned aerial vehicles or ground vehicles are both viable approaches. In Phase 1 we are seeking to develop low TRL technology which corresponds to a simple and low cost demonstration.

Q: Is targeting specific points on the same target an interest? For example, circumventing next generation armour by striking weak points at the rear by looping around?

A: Yes. However the question to address is how you would achieve that with a group of cooperative missiles.

Q: Calculating missile relative position and other tasks all depend on image quality in-flight. Would drones produce good enough proxy data?

A: Yes, at this stage. But please note, as stated in section 4.2 of the competition document, the actual environment maybe complicated and congested with the presence of potential countermeasures, such as jamming and smoke.

Q: Will the software modules we are going to develop be executed or processed in the missiles’ processor-electronics part?

A: That is a topic for a future challenge, how do you think we can look at doing it in the future? Remember we are looking at the Generation After Next missiles.

Q: Will targets be manually designated or can missiles select and self-allocate out of all available?

A: Missiles can self-allocate subject to context appropriate human involvement.

Q: Can Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) be exploited in the proposal?

A: Yes.

Q: Can we learn more about the hardware and the operating system which our capabilities interact with?

A: As this competition is seeking to develop low TRL technology your proposal does not need that information. For Phase 1 we are interested in the principle of your technology, not integrating it into a system.

Q: Will we learn more about current missile processing capabilities?

A: Not for Phase 1. The principle is that current missiles do not have the processing capabilities we will require in the future, but as per Challenge 2 we would like your ideas on how to solve that problem.

Q: What level of oversight and control do you expect from the use of Artificial Intelligence in this competition?

A: There will always be human oversight of AI. The human aspect is the subject of other work and this competition focusses on the underpinning technology.

Q: Are loitering munitions in scope?

A: Yes, cooperation between loitering munitions.

Q: What constitutes a ‘cooperative missile network’ – could the network include non-missile assets or other sensor platforms working collaboratively with missiles?

A: Yes, the term can be defined narrowly (missiles talking to other missiles) or more broadly (to include other platforms). Please note, as per section 4.2 of the competition document, the expected operating environment is complex. The missile network will not be able to relay to sensor platforms, hence the push for the missiles to work together themselves.

Q: The examples given in the competition document seemed to be against ground targets. Is there any interest in anti-air scenarios?

A: Yes, both are in scope. We are interested in cooperation in air, land and maritime environments.

Q: Is there an upper number of missiles to be assumed in a cooperative group?

A: No, but the figure is unlikely to exceed 20. More than four would be the baseline.

Q: Are you able to prioritise the missile roles and targets? For example, ground vehicles, buildings, aircraft, drone swarms, ships?

A: Not at this stage. Your proposal should focus on one or more of the four challenges rather than specific targets.

Q: Do you have any interest in maritime anti-ship scenarios?

A: Yes.

Q: What is the average time (in-air time of the missile once fired) over which all these capabilities should work, seconds/minutes?

A: This depends on the missile type, range and mission. A typical cruise missile flies at greater than 500mph and the fly out time is tens of minutes. Air to Air missiles are supersonic.

Q: Would drones with payloads, for example Switchblade, be included in your definition of a missile or are we only talking about more traditional missiles?

A: The distinction between drones and missiles is becoming blurred. Your innovation should not be constrained by the traditional definition of a missile.

Q: What sensor payload combinations are commonly used together? Or is it enough to theorise or demonstrate IR, UV, RGB etc. without knowing precedents?

A: IR and/or RF is typical. This may be different in the future and all parts of the EM spectrum are of interest.

Q: Is the ability to transmit battle damage assessment of value?

A: Yes, if it is done through the network. This competition is interested in cooperation between missiles.

Q: Are leveraging a mother craft’s sensor capabilities during flight, friendly AWACS or other sources in scope?

A: Yes, but only as a compliment. Your proposal should not make too many assumptions about the availability of additional platforms given the high level of threat in the expected operating environment.

Q: Civilian technology will not work in a high vibration or heat environment, will assessors make allowances for this in the proposal? Can we fix that issue later?

A: Yes, we are not expecting the technology to be ready for integration at this stage. During the potential Phase 2, MBDA and Thales will advise on this if you choose to collaborate.

Q: Must the missile take a direct route to a target or can more exotic pathfinding be used?

A: Pathfinding is in scope.