A total of $9 million funding has been allocated for three to 10 proposals for the AUKUS Maritime Innovation Challenge 2025, which is open to commercial companies offering systems for enhancing undersea command, control and communication capabilities. The U.S. Defense Innovation Unit said in a statement Monday that it is collaborating in the proposal solicitation for the challenge with Australia’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator and the U.K.’s Defence and Security Accelerator.
DIU also noted that the challenge is being pursued under Pillar II of the trilateral AUKUS alliance of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States focused on global maritime security.
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Desired System Capabilities
The AUKUS challenge solicitation seeks proposals designed to provide near real-time communications between undersea vehicles and similar UVs, with a capability to communicate with command-and-control systems/battle management systems as well as seabed systems.
The proposals on enhancing underwater warfighting capabilities should also optimize bandwidth utilization and effective range, while UVs operate in contested/congested environments. In addition, the challenge seeks system capabilities for the optimal matching of assets to tasks in complex and dynamic environments.
TRL 6 Proposals Qualify
According to DIU, systems that had achieved Technology Readiness Level 6 in a model or prototype demonstration are eligible to submit proposals in the challenge. The deadline for the submission of proposals is on April 28, with a tri-national question-and-answer session scheduled on April 3.
The proposal solicitation follows the conclusion and announcement of winners in the inaugural AUKUS Electronic Warfare Challenge in September. The U.S. winner, Distributed Spectrum, was awarded $150,000 for its radio frequency sensing platform for real-time intelligence gathering on adversary activity.
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