United Kingdom Seeks Biosensing Solutions

The UK MOD’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is seeking proposals for innovative technologies that provide an improved way to rapidly detect and locate hazardous biological agents in the field for the benefit of defense and security operations. Technologies are needed that can sense, locate and report the presence of deposited biological hazards in real-time or which can demonstrate a clear and achievable pathway to this goal.

This is Phase 2 of a multi-phase themed competition. It is not compulsory to have been involved in Phase 1 to apply. Proposals will need to deliver a higher level of maturity than achieved in Phase 1. DASA expects the starting Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the innovation to be TRL 3. By the end of the project, DASA expects the innovation to be sufficiently developed to achieve approximately TRL 4 – 5.

The focus of this competition continues to be on sensors and data processing, not on hosting platforms (such as remotely controlled or unmanned systems) or the integration of existing sensors upon platforms. The goal is to develop technologies which achieve a sensor integrated into a deployable system that can detect and report a range of biological agents in real-time. This system should enable hazards to be assessed and avoided.

Proposals must consider how the sensors will address:

• Low false alarm rate in a range of environments
• Minimised user burden in size, weight and power draw of the sensor

DASA is not looking for:

• Demonstrations of off-the-shelf products requiring no experimental development
• Sensors that offer no real long-term prospect of integration into defence and security capabilities
• Sensors that offer no real prospect of out-competing existing technological solutions

In depth requirements and additional information on the challenge can be found by visiting the DASA Competition Announcement.