DASA is launching a new competition to develop a semi-autonomous reconnaissance and survey system to help troops safely and stealthily advance into enemy territory over water.
The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is launching a competition to develop a semi-autonomous reconnaissance and survey system to help troops safely and stealthily advance into enemy territory over water.
The military need to be able to cross obstacles such as rivers, streams, bogs and other so-called ‘wet gaps’. Currently, the only way of identifying suitable crossing points is to send Royal Engineer reconnaissance troops to survey both banks of the river – exposing them to danger which also risks compromising the operation by signalling interest in that location to the enemy.
DASA, on behalf of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), is seeking ideas from industry and academia to create a new remote system capable of surveying potential crossing sites by gathering data on both sides of the water.
We are open to any novel or innovative solution to this challenge.
Our vision is to ultimately remove personnel from these dangerous tasks with a remote system that allows more crossing locations to be surveyed, increasing the choices available to commanders and giving an opportunity to surprise the enemy.
We are looking for collaborative bids from the brightest and the best of industry and academia to create an innovative and unique capability.
The Map the Gap: Autonomous Gap Crossing Survey competition will have an initial £1.2m available in funding for Phase 1 with an additional £2.5m anticipated for further development in Phase 2.
DASA expects to fund three to four bids during Phase 1.
The competition will formally launch in February 2020 when full details and requirements will be released.
You can find out more about the competition here