Notice

Competition summary: Map the Gap: autonomous gap crossing survey

Updated 23 March 2020

1. Challenge

When advancing into enemy territory the military needs to be able to cross obstacles such as rivers (and other ‘wet gaps’ such as streams and bogs). Currently, the only way of identifying suitable crossing points is to send Royal Engineer reconnaissance troops to survey both banks of the river. This exposes them to danger at the forward edge of the battlefield, and also risks compromising the potential crossing point by signalling our interest in that location.

2. The Vision

The vision is to ultimately remove personnel from this dangerous and potentially compromising task. The concept envisages a semi-autonomous remote system that can collect the required measurements without the need to deploy personnel to the potential crossing location. Such a system could enable the survey of a greater number of crossing locations, increasing the choices available to the commander and giving an opportunity to surprise the enemy.

3. The Problem

There currently exists sensors that can take the measurements needed, as well as a variety of potential delivery platforms, but as yet there is no combined system to gather all of the required data. The challenge is to provide measurements for the key survey criteria, across both sides of a wet gap. This can be delivered in any form allowing remote deployment and measurement, but should be cognisant of how a final system would be employed within a military context. We are open-minded to and encourage novel approaches to solving this challenge beyond proposals that combine existing sensors and delivery platforms.

Key characteristics for consideration (further supporting characteristics will be released in the main competition document):

Cross-section of gap (resolution to be confirmed):

• Width of gap (which could be as much as several hundred metres wide)
• Contact zone profile (from 2m below min water level to 8m inland of the gap edge) - ruling gradients (%): near bank, far bank grounding, and far bank climbing out

Nature of Soil:

• Safe bearing pressure (both banks)

4. Challenges

This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition, run on behalf of the Defence and Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl), aims to develop and demonstrate a number of system demonstrators able to tackle some of the key issues of gap crossing survey.

Phase 1 contracts will be run for no longer than 10 months, culminating in a demonstration of the systems in a representative environment at technology readiness level (TRL) 5 (Technology basic validation in a relevant environment). This demonstration is likely to be run over two weeks at a wet-gap site in the UK, further details will be provided in the follow-on call.

For this DASA competition, a launch and collaboration event will be held. This will not only introduce the topic to interested suppliers, but also be an opportunity to network and form collaborations to integrate complementary technologies together.

5. What we are looking for

Successful submissions will demonstrate a clear plan to a TRL 5 demonstrator as part of Phase 1, with an outline plan of how the technology would be taken forward to a Phase 2, TRL 6 (technology model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment), demonstration, and eventually developed into an in-service capability.

Bids will be scored against their ability to provide the identified measurements (with priority weighting), but we will also consider the wider proposal for fielding and deploying the final system.

We are not looking for paper or purely lab-based studies.

6. Competition key information

The total funding for Phase 1 of the project is expected to be £1.2m, with a further £2.5m anticipated for Phase 2 activities. We plan to fund 3-4 bids as part of Phase 1.

This DASA competition is currently planned to open in February 2020 when the full competition document will be released on our website. Proposals must be submitted to the DASA submission service, for which you will have to register.

7. Supporting events

The total funding for Phase 1 of the project is expected to be £1.2m, with a further £2.5m anticipated for Phase 2 activities. We plan to fund 3-4 bids as part of Phase 1.

This DASA competition is currently planned to open in February 2020 when the full competition document will be released on our website. Proposals must be submitted to the DASA submission service, for which you will have to register.

The launch event will be on 4 February 2020, where there will be the opportunity to hear a presentation about the competition, have 1-to-1 sessions with the project team, and meet and interact with soldiers currently employed to carry out the role.

An additional dial in event and a number of 1-to-1 sessions (15 mins per session) with DASA and the project team will be available on 13 February 2020.

Please register for these events on Eventbrite:

Register for the Launch Event on 04 February 2020.

Register for the dial in on 13 February 2020.

Register for a 15 minute 1-to-1 session on 13 February 2020.

8. Help

Competition queries including on 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 of information to all potential suppliers.