The Joint Counter small unmanned aircraft systems (s-UAS) Office (JCO) released a request for information (RFI) for low collateral interceptor capabilities for a demonstration at Yuma Proving Ground in April, according to a new contract opportunity on beta.SAM.gov.
The whitepapers from the RFI must be submitted to the JCO by Jan. 22 and then the JCO will select companies to further explore their technologies by Feb. 2, according to an industry day presentation given by the JCO on Jan. 19. Up to 10 companies will be selected to complete phase two presentations and up to five companies will be chosen to demonstrate capabilities in April at Yuma.
The Air Force is leading the low collateral interceptor C-sUAS solution within the JCO. The JCO is a department-wide effort but will designate responsibility to specific services for responsibility for systems.
“While the JCO is leading the execution of this demonstration event in April, the Air Force will be engaged throughout the planning, execution and evaluation to ensure the best capability can be identified and delivered to the joint warfighter,” Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Like, Deputy C-sUAS Lead at the Air Force Research Laboratory and Joint Service Lead for low collateral effects interceptors, said. “Our goal is to identify partners not already part of DoD [Department of Defense] funded efforts and provide near term opportunities for inclusion and ongoing integration and demonstration efforts. We’ll be comparing the results that come out of this demonstration with ongoing solutions already under government contracts.”
During the industry day presentation, the JCO made clear that they are looking for new commercial off the shelf systems that are not already programs of record. The systems the JCO is looking for need to defeat multiple threat UASs with kinetic or non-kinetic effectors, Morgan said during the industry day presentation.
The JCO released joint operational requirements that are classified but include the need for the use of Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) and leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The JCO held an industry day in October where they revealed base requirement capabilities for C-sUAS systems that included command and control (C2), detect, track, identify, defeat, and exploit abilities.
However, while the JCO has detailed requirements for solutions, Army Lt. Col. Dave Morgan, who works with requirements capabilities at the JCO, said they want industry to provide new and innovative systems that might not fit all the requirements they have put out.
“Our challenge in laying these out was to strike the right balance between providing enough detail without stifling your innovation,” Morgan said. “So I’ll preface my pitch with this. You have potential solutions that are lockstep with the requirements that I’m going to describe. That’s great. However, if you’ve got a new or innovative approach, of course, you want to hear about that as well.”
The DoD recently released a C-sUAS strategy and Army Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, JCO Director, detailed the effort in a Jan. 8 webinar where he said the JCO needed a system of systems layered architecture with the ability to integrate different technologies and a common C2 system.