The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued a request for information (RFI) on Thursday for ways to improve the protection of fixed, mobile ground and naval forces against a variety of small unmanned air systems (sUAS) technologies.
“DARPA is interested in identifying novel, flexible, and mobile layered defense systems and component technologies to address this increasingly important issue as well as conventional threats,” Jean-Charles Ledé, program manager at DARPA, said. “We’re looking for scalable, modular, and affordable approaches that could be fielded within the next three to four years and could rapidly evolve with threat and tactical advancements.”
The RFI requests include conceptual designs and performance capabilities, including substantiating preliminary performance data if available for the concept of operations; assessing technological maturity, including data to substantiate technology maturity and identification of key risk areas requiring mitigation to enable system demonstration; program outlines for maturing the system to the point where it would be ready for demonstration, including high-level rough order of magnitude cost and schedule; an assessment on system affordability; estimated size, weight and power requirements; abilities to address other threats; and abilities to integrate third-party subsystems.
Based on the information submitted, DARPA may request that some submitters attend a mobile force protection workshop at the agency’s offices in Arlington, Virginia, at a date to be named in September.
DARPA is encouraging participation from all capable sources, including private companies, public entities, individuals, universities and their affiliated research teams, non-profit research institutions, foreign entities, and U.S. government-sponsored labs.