Notice

Competition summary: semi-autonomous reconnaissance vehicles for the Army

Updated 15 May 2019

The full competition document has now been published

1. Background

Forward reconnaissance and surveillance in hostile territory represents a significant risk for soldiers even when they are partially protected by armour. The recent development of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles and unmanned air systems (UAS) for the Army is expanding operational opportunities whilst reducing the risk to life.

The military concept of Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) involves increasing situational awareness and survivability by utilising unmanned systems in a forward (stand-off) position supported and controlled by the more vulnerable manned asset which would be in a more secure position. This concept has the potential to be game-changing on the battlefield. The term MUM-T is often used in the context of manned air assets such as the Apache; however for this competition we are using a broader definition to include manned ground based systems operated by ground based assets.

Key to MUM-T and to the delivery of systems for this competition is to understand and minimise the cognitive burden of the control of the unmanned system on the manned operator; though it must still have a manned operator and not be fully autonomous.

2. The Competition

This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition is interested in funding innovation in, and development of, existing MUM-T systems that currently fall between technology readiness levels (TRL) 4-6, such that they can be demonstrated in a field trial at Army Warfighting Experiment (March 2020) (ideally at TRL 5/6).

2.1 What are we looking for?

We are interested in ground-to-ground and air-to-air systems. The control system should be designed with a single operator in mind working in an existing manned asset (ground or air). For ground-based systems you should have an exploitation plan that assumes deployment from an armoured vehicle such as the Ajax, Warrior or Challenger platforms. For air-based systems you should have an exploitation plan that assumes deployment from an air platform such as Wildcat or Apache. However, bidders must note that the demonstrations at AWE 2020 may not be in one of these specified vehicles as it will depend on availability of suitable assets (we currently anticipate Gazelle and Warrior systems will be used).

2.2 Solutions should incorporate:

• innovation or a creative approach to the specific MUM-T concept
• a semi-autonomous unmanned system which can be demonstrated in the field by the end of the competition (at AWE2020)
• a semi-autonomous unmanned system which is of suitable size to be carried and deployed by armoured platforms
• a control interface for the semi-autonomous system which can be operated by a single user who will not be required to maintain constant operation
• a control interface suitable for operation within an armoured ground or air platform
• a system which seeks to consider and minimise cognitive load on the operator relation to the manned and unmanned systems whilst not being fully autonomous

2.3 2.3 What we are not looking for

• consultancy, paper-based studies or literature reviews
• identical resubmission of a previous bid to DASA or MOD without modification
• demonstrations of off-the-shelf products requiring no experimental development (unless applied in a novel way to the challenge)
• solutions that offer no real long-term prospect of integration into MUM-T related manned platforms
• solutions that offer no real prospect of out-competing existing technological solutions
• systems which will not be mature enough to demonstrate at AWE2020
• systems which have an excessive cognitive load on the operator and require constant manned support
• systems that are fully autonomous

3. Competition key information

This competition has been designed to deliver a demonstration at AWE 2020, which will take place in March 2020.

This is a single phase competition with a total funding of £1.8M available over 8 months, to potentially support three to five bids. Each proposal will be capped at £600K.

This DASA competition is currently planned to open in April or May 2019 when the full document will be released on our website. Proposals must be submitted to the DASA submission service, for which you will have to register.