Royal Navy Carrier and Littoral Strike Groups need a clear picture of the battlespace to ensure surface and airborne threats can be responded to within appropriate timescales.

In partnership with the Royal Navy, the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is pleased to launch the Look out! Maritime Early Warning Innovations competition, which aims to develop alternative future concepts for the Early Warning systems currently deployed in Maritime Task Groups.

£1.25 million is available for Phase 1 of the competition, with a maximum of £250k for each funded proposal. The closing date for proposals is midday BST on Tuesday 6 July 2021.

Seeking an alternative solution to traditional airborne sensor-mounted platforms

Royal Navy Carrier and Littoral Strike Groups need a capability that provides air and surface surveillance that enables over-the-horizon situational awareness. This capability ensures Commanders can detect, track and recognise surface and airborne objects, and respond to them efficiently.

Current early warning maritime capabilities are delivered by sensors mounted aboard airborne platforms, with the current assumption for a follow-on for Crowsnest (an AEW fitted to the Merlin Mk2 helicopter) being a singular large radar sensor mounted on an uncrewed air platform.

DASA welcomes alternatives that are not based on this approach and match or exceed current airborne capabilities. They are seeking a potential successor to Crowsnest, which has a planned out-of-service date of 2029. Submit a proposal If you have an innovative idea that can enhance:

• horizon surveillance and/or target detection capability
• operational effectiveness through timely processing and dissemination of information
• operational efficiency through optimisation of system functionality

What early warning maritime challenges do we want you to overcome?

• improving threat detection and situational awareness, including detecting, tracking, recognising and identifying hostile and non-hostile contacts, on the surface of the water and in the air
• enhancing information processing and dissemination, including integrating the data from sensors and other air and surface platforms within the Maritime Task Group into a composite picture of activity to enable timely decision making
• optimising efficiency by minimising workforce requirement through a reduced operator and support burden
• novel or innovative methods of combining system functionality will also be considered, alongside solutions to enhance decision-making efficiency

Thinking of submitting a proposal?

The closing date for proposals is Tuesday 6 July 2021 at midday BST. Click here for the full scope in the competition document.