Published date: 17 September 2021
Awarded contract - This means that the contract has been awarded to a supplier.
Contract summary
Industry
Research and Development services on security and defence materials - 73400000
Location of contract
South East
Value of contract
£159,841.87
Procurement reference
AII62
Published date
17 September 2021
Closing date
17 September 2021
Closing time
12pm
Contract start date
14 October 2021
Contract end date
7 March 2022
Contract type
Supply contract
Procedure type
Call-off from a framework agreement
A mini-competition or direct purchase from a pre-established framework agreement.
Contract is suitable for SMEs?
No
Contract is suitable for VCSEs?
No
Description
The emerging threat to SATCOM (through natural and hostile means) has resulted in a need to understand and exploit other long range Beyond Line Of Sight (BLOS) propagation options such as tropospheric scatter. While technological issues such as the large size, weight and power (SWaP) profile have been overcome in recent years, the lack of accurate propagation tools for deployment planning and operations have not.
Modern troposcatter systems tend to operate in C Band (4.4 - 5.0GHz) but variants are available in, S (~2GHz), X (~8GHz) and K (above 12GHz) -bands. These systems can potentially offer high bandwidths in excess of 100Mbps over geodesic distances in excess of 160km dependent upon climatic conditions.
The propagation mechanism for troposcatter systems depends on the operational scenario. Short range Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) paths may rely on atmospheric ducting, diffraction, or refraction, whilst long range Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) paths will be dominated by troposcatter i.e. scattering from refractive-index in-homogeneities.
Whilst the Troposcatter systems have benefitted from technological advances, the tropospheric propagation prediction tools have not developed to the same extent and most tools still use long term atmospheric data. In order to fully utilise troposcatter communications, therefore, it is imperative that deployed systems are supported by accurate propagation tools for mission planning and operations.
New propagation tools to support troposcatter systems must use novel data fusion methods and exploit real-time data to provide useful now-casts and forecasts information. In particular, they must correctly predict the performance of modern troposcatter modems in terms of quality of service and available bandwidth to ensure operational efficiency.
Importantly, for any propagation planning or analysis tools to work accurately, they must not only just consider troposcatter but incorporate other propagation modes such as; ducting and diffraction as well as the impact of terrain and ideally rain and sand side-scatter to provide a complete solutions.
Award information
Awarded date
14 September 2021
Contract start date
14 October 2021
Contract end date
7 March 2022
Total value of contract
£159,841.87
This contract was awarded to 1 supplier.
QinetiQ Ltd
Address
Room 1080, A7 Bldg
Cody Technology Park
FarnboroughReference
No reference - other
Supplier is SME?
No
Supplier is VCSE?
No
About the buyer
Contact name
Commercial CIS Transparency
Address
Porton Down
SALISBURY
SP40JQ
England
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Closing: 17 September 2021, 12pm
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