The Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) partnered with the Army Research Lab and the Maneuver Center of Excellence’s Maneuver Battle Lab will host 20 commercial vendors in an acquisition project called the Culvert Denial Challenge Sept. 29 at Fort Benning, Ga.
The challenge-based acquisition project is aimed at denying an enemy the ability to implant IEDs in road culverts.
Photo: U.S. Army
Army Contracting Command released the final list of challengers Sept. 18. After awarding the two-part challenge, subsequent areas of the contract allow JIEDDO and ARL to conduct technology development and validation testing. The contract also supports limited quantity procurement for operational evaluation. Challenges will be conducted Sept. 29 through Oct. 10.
The Fort Benning event will bring in 20 commercial vendors from industry to demonstrate their emerging technologies and systems that could help with the problem. The culvert denial challenge seeks technology to improve the speed of inspection and surveillance confirmation of suspicious activity surrounding road culverts in Afghanistan where insurgents routinely place IEDs.
Ten vendors were selected to participate in a surveillance challenge and another ten vendors selected for an inspection challenge.
The surveillance teams offered potential solutions relying on unmanned systems, micro-radar technologies, seismic sensors and hyperspectral imaging.
The participating companies include: Primal Innovation, A-T Solutions, L-3 Communications [LLL], EFW (Elbit), Advanced Recon Corp, QinetiQ, Niitek, Applied Research Associates, Roboteam, and CyPhy Works.
The inspection teams offered potential solutions relying on quadcopters, ground robots, canines, and electromagnetic sensors. Companies participating include: Stolar Research, ATSC (Inuktun), iRobot, Lockheed Martin [LMT], Pearson Engineering, Science and Engineering Services, QinetiQ, Roboteam, Applied Research Associates, and K2 Solutions.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy included this project as a case study demonstrating an innovative way to promote sound buying practices-minimizing the investment of major resources up front before a solution has proven itself, JIEDDO said in a statement.
JIEDDO’s case study was used because of its successful results, best practices and lessons learned, the organization said. JIEDDO’s Counter-IED Robotics Challenge in 2012 and its Ultra-Light Reconnaissance Robot Challenge in 2011 were also cited in the White House’s Innovative Contracting Case Studies document.
Challenge-based acquisition brings the innovation opportunity of a challenge into the procurement framework of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, according to the statement. This allows the government to use challenges as the core of its evaluations, optionally pay vendors for participation, and test and purchase quantities beyond simply prototypes. It is a mechanism to communicate needed capability, encourage innovation in a minimally prescriptive environment, assess candidate offerings, and purchase proven solutions.
To implement challenge-based acquisition successfully, the government allows industry to innovate within a well-defined outcome-based framework. Concurrently, industry takes on a role that more closely mirrors how it normally develops and brings a product to the commercial market by independently developing a solution to address a given capability need.
The companies were collectively awarded a ceiling $49.4 million indefinite- delivery/indefinite-quantity, multi-year contract for the ARl/JIEDDO Culvert Denial Challenge program. The contract covers the initial task order challenge event, through possible future testing, development, and deployment. The funding and work location will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 15, 2019. This award includes a minimum of guarantee of $3,400 that will be obligated on the first task order.