Published date: 23 June 2022

Awarded contract - This means that the contract has been awarded to a supplier.


Closing: 24 April 2022, 5pm

Contract summary

Industry

  • Research and development consultancy services - 73200000

Location of contract

SP4 0JQ

Value of contract

£239,946.87

Procurement reference

DSTL/AGR/SERAPIS/UND/01

Published date

23 June 2022

Closing date

24 April 2022

Closing time

5pm

Contract start date

18 May 2022

Contract end date

31 March 2023

Contract type

Service 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

This work forms part of the project "AI and Autonomy for the ISR Enterprise" which seeks to release capacity and maximize understanding in our ISR enterprise in order to maintain Information Advantage. Specifically it will demonstrate a:
• World leading ISR capability, closely coupling 'exploit' and 'collect' throughout the ISR hierarchy, enabling collection tasking to be created dynamically and opportunistically, and AI enhanced PED from the core to the edge; and a
• Data-led and AI-enabled Intelligence Analysis function constrained by the available data, algorithms and computational power, rather than capacity of human operators.
The overall project is addressing one of the five core capability challenges identified in the 2020 MOD Science and Technology Strategy. It supports the development of generation-after-next capabilities. This requires it to work with cutting edge and innovative suppliers in industry and academia at pace.
Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Sensor Management can involve a variety of repeated, complex, high dimensional, near real time optimization calculations that are computationally very intensive. On current hardware, such calculations are not feasible for large numbers of sensors and/or significant, real-world scenario complexity. Quantum computing technology may potentially provide a means to overcome current processing limitations and deliver orders of magnitude improvement in speed for certain types of calculation, including optimization calculations.
The main focus of the proposed project is the research and development of quantum computer algorithms that support the types of battlefield Sensor Management optimization processes and scenario level data fusion processes of interest. The requirements that these processes need to meet are scenario dependent, time varying and non-linear. This means that the types and scope of application of quantum optimization and machine learning algorithms will need to be carefully considered by Suppliers.

More information

Attachments

Award information

Awarded date

18 May 2022

Contract start date

18 May 2022

Contract end date

31 March 2023

Total value of contract

£239,946.87

This contract was awarded to 1 supplier.

FRAZER-NASH CONSULTANCY LIMITED

Address

1 College Green Trinity Street
BS1 5TE
GB

Reference

Companies House number: 02562870

Value of contract

£239,946.87

Supplier is SME?

No

Supplier is VCSE?

No

About the buyer

Contact name

Commercial CIS Transparency

Address

Porton Down
SALISBURY
SP40JQ
England

Email

commercialcistransparency@dstl.gov.uk