United Kingdom Cooperative Missile Technology

The Defence & Security Accelerator (DASA), on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MOD), seeks to identify and develop novel technologies to develop a new category of missile – cooperative missiles. Cooperative missiles can communicate with each other, share situational awareness, and organize themselves to ‘work together’ efficiently to achieve a common objective.  The aim of the project is to investigate how inter-missile communication and cooperative behaviors can be technically achieved to solve UK military challenges. 

It is envisioned that by working together, cooperative missiles will offer far more capability in the future than they have today. For example, when considering collateral damage during missions or the live updating of safety data within missions if non-combatants enter the battlefield post-launch. This information could be shared by cooperative missiles to ensure an abort function is carried out live during a mission, under human operator authority.

The MOD seeks proposals from industry for the early development of technologies to underpin the future or ‘Generation After Next’ of missile systems. This will inform future discussions on how Generation After Next technologies associated with cooperative missiles could be exploited within Defence. Proposals from industry should be at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of approximately 2-3. By the end of the project, accepted proposals are expected to achieve approximately TRL 4-5. 

Proposal should include, but are not limited to: 

•    Novel ways to detect, recognize and identify intended targets using multiple missile sensors distributed over a cooperative group,

•    The processing of large quantities of data across cooperative missile networks,

•    Applications of novel alternative navigation (AltNav) technologies and distributed navigation sensors, and

•    How advances in AI could be exploited in cooperative missile systems.

For information on how to submit your proposal to the MOD on Cooperative Missiles Technology, or for information on other opportunities in the UK defense and security sectors, please contact PJ Menner at the U.S. Embassy London via PJ.Menner@trade.gov.