The Explosives Branch within Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate plans to conduct operational field demonstrations of remotely- operated and standoff explosive countermeasure technologies to address the threat from suicide bombers, left-behind and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDS) under a multi-year program.
The Standoff Technology Integration Demonstration Program (STIDP) is beginning with a Request for Information on remotely operated and standoff explosive detection technologies and system integration strategies that have the ability to detect unique signatures that could be attributed to the components of a VBIED, according to a DHS notice in last Friday’s FedBizOpps.
“The ultimate goal of the program is to prevent explosive attacks at large public events via a spiral development approach,” DHS says. “Of particular interest are technical solutions that could detect one or more VBIED signatures by integrating two or more emerging technologies,” DHS adds.
By standoff, S&T says it means in the current solicitation the “ability to screen an individual or vehicle beyond the lethal blast zone of an explosive device.”
The agency also says that technologies to be considered for this project must be operated unmanned.
The STIDP program is planned to run through 2013, during which time S&T will explore how well various technologies and systems fare against a number of explosives threats. One of the features of the program will be systems integration as well as how multiple sensors can be integrated to produce a stronger detection result. That means there will be a need for “technologies with open interfaces or are easily integrated into other third party architectures (preferably open architectures),” S&T says.
Responses to the current RFI (RSIE-08-RFI-01) are due by Sept. 30. Contact: Albert Dainton, 202-254-6371, [email protected].