The Air Force on Monday released a request for information seeking new airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that can fill in service technology shortfalls for the coming fiscal year.
The RFI released via FedBizOpps says most efforts would serve to meet capability gaps in the low-to-high airborne environments for both manned and unmanned platforms. Each September, the Air Force Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Capabilities Working Group (GCWG) identify ISR shortfalls, with additional priority shortfalls named throughout the year.
In this request, the working groups are seeking multiple sensors with the following modalities: electro-optical daytime (EO/IMINT); infrared nighttime (IR/IMINT); synthetic aperture radar (SAR/GMTI); hyper- spectral imagery and multispectral imagery (HSI/MSI); laser-type specialty sensors (LIDAR); and SIGINT.
For each of these modalities, six technical support areas are anticipated for further development or study, the request said. Those areas include airborne sensors and subsystems; command, control, processing and storage; data communications; test and demonstration; modeling and simulation; and trade studies and general analysis.
“Efforts may be required to address any critical element/system from initial sensor data collection to final ISR product distribution,” the RFI said. “These efforts will generally be targeted to hardware development but may also include non-hardware development efforts (for example, the development of concepts of operations (CONOPS) or system architecture(s)).”
Two responses are required for participation: an initial business information document indicating interest by May 15, and responses to a contractor capability survey by May 31.