UK launches C-UAS competition
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced the launch of a £2 million competition for proposals to develop a range of solutions to mitigate the threat posed by UAS.
The competition will be run by the Defence and Security Accelerator, the MoD’s innovation hub, and will seek to develop new defensive capabilities which draw upon autonomous decision-making mechanisms and networked sensing systems capable of detecting, tracking, identifying and defeating hostile UAS, in swarms and in complex and varied environments.
The MoD is also looking for counter-UAS systems which can counter the threats posed by line of sight blockages, collateral, and those that can link systems together to improve understanding of the local UAS air picture.
The programme has included the extensive research, testing and evaluation of the counter-UAS technology currently employed by the MoD, including the series of Bristow trials with industry in 2013, 2015 and 2018.
Phase 1, which will deliver proof of concept of the proposals, will be worth approximately £800,000 and is scheduled to take place from July 2019 to March 2020. The total funding for the competition is expected to be at least £2 million, split over multiple phases.
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