Field testing of an automated system for detecting and reporting on the potential release of biological threats into the environment is going well and the program office expects the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to review the next-generation BioWatch system late this fall to decide whether to enter low-rate initial production (LRIP), an official overseeing the program tells TR2.
The indoor and outdoor field tests of 12 Generation-3 prototype units developed and built by Northrop Grumman [NOC] began in Chicago in the late January and are expected to wrap up in June or July, Bob Hooks, deputy assistant secretary for Weapons of Mass Destruction at the DHS Office of Health Affairs (OHA), says.
If the DHS Acquisition Review Board approves the decision to begin LRIP, Hooks expects it will take about a year for OHA to begin operational test and evaluation (OT&E) with the production units. OHA is seeking $25 million in its FY ’12 budget request for 30 LRIP units for operational testing.
Testing would begin in late FY ’12 and continue into FY ’13. In FY ’13 OHA expects to request funding for additional Gen-3 LRIP units as part of a four city test and to keep the production line going, Hooks says. Depending on how the OT&E effort is going, DHS could just leave the units in place for permanent deployment, he says.
Overall the prototype field testing is going well, Hooks says. The units have already endured heavy snow falls, up to 30 inches in one storm, and very low temperatures. Hooks says some of the tubing used by the reagents to transit to where the PCR analysis is done froze in some of the machines early in the testing. Those tubes were replaced with another material and there hasn’t been a reoccurrence of the problem, he says.
That’s the reason testing is done and these types of problems are expected, Hooks says.
In addition to the prototype testing in Chicago, assay testing is finishing at Los Alamos National Labs and systems level testing against live agents continues at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. All of this testing should also be completed early this summer, Hooks says.
The purpose of the field testing in Chicago is to check on the reliability, availability and maintainability of the systems in part to help determine that the systems can operate in various environmental conditions and that they can keep operating without breaking down. The testing also involves local public health officials to help develop a concept of operations and to familiarize them with the system, Hooks says.
“When you go into the OT&E you’re actually executing the concept of operations and verifying that it works,” Hooks says.
The results of the testing in Chicago, Los Alamos and Dugway will be reviewed by OHA as well as two independent test groups, one within the DHS Science and Technology Directorate and another that has experience with bio-detection, Hooks says.
If the system doesn’t meet all OHA’s requirements, then a trade-off analysis will have to be performed, Hooks says. That’s one reason for having the ARB process, which may include trade-off studies to decide whether it’s “still a wise investment…either to continue forward into OT&E or does it makes sense to stop right now because it’s not even close to what we want,” he says. “I think we have to be a little careful on a black and white because we’re moving into a whole new realm. This is transformative technology. This is not an incremental improvement…If it only meets 80 percent of that objective instead of 100 percent that still may be a wise investment.”
Earlier this year OHA issued a Request for Information seeking other potential sources for an autonomous, networked Gen-3 system for BioWatch to give OHA potential options going forward should Northrop Grumman’s system not pan out or if it finds it may need an alternative technology in certain environments or conditions (TR2, March, 2). OHA last year dropped United Technologies [UTX] from the program prior to the field testing.
The information OHA has gathered through this process will be used to craft a Request for Proposals that Northrop Grumman would have to respond to and allow others an opportunity to get into the program, possible with newer technology that has been independently tested and validated, Hooks says. If an alternative system is added to the program it would still have to go through additional testing with DHS, including OT&E, he says.
OHA hopes to have the RFP out in late FY ’13 or early FY ’14, basically once OT&E is complete. If OT&E goes well and depending on changing politics and risk assessments the schedule could change, Hooks says.
If Northrop Grumman is successful in OT&E, Hooks expects to be able to begin ramping its system to full rate production by FY ’14. He says the RFP could allow OHA to continue to procure the Northrop Grumman system and at the same time put another company on contract for system level testing.