The Department of Defense has started soliciting information on potential vendors capable of addressing knowledge gaps on various illicit maritime activities.
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Enhancing Maritime Awareness & Security
According to the notice issued on the Defense Innovation Unit, the DOD aims to enhance awareness of marine-based activities, including illegal maritime activities, such as drug trafficking, piracy, human trafficking, transport of counterfeit contraband goods, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The department also intends to understand how to safeguard critical and supporting infrastructure in the maritime domain, while assessing implications for force protection.
Four Phases of Development
To realize this objective, the DOD seeks vendors to develop a secure sensing, data-driven commercial edge network architecture. The program includes four development phases.
For the first phase, the potential contractor will leverage existing commercial infrastructure, including fiber optics, pipelines and undersea cables, to detect objects and activity in the ocean and the seafloor and provide the DOD with real-time data. The proposed system will have electro-optical, infrared, electromagnetic, still imagery, full-motion video and geolocation features.
Phase two will cover areas without existing infrastructure by utilizing a commercially available low-profile system to monitor maritime domains and infrastructure for three months or more. This is meant to close surveillance gaps across strategic ocean areas and infrastructure where illegal activities usually occur.
For phase three, remaining coverage gaps will be addressed by validating sensor data transmission pathways, automating data analysis and enabling intuitive data search and visualization.
The final phase will involve advanced commercially available approaches for countering and misleading technologies developed in the earlier stages.
Interested parties can submit their responses until Aug. 3.
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