Unmanned Aerial System

The government authority located in Washington, DC is seeking a kinetic One-Way Attack Unmanned Aerial System that features enhanced terminal guidance capability on approach to a target. The system must passively perceive and navigate through complex, cluttered, and unstructured environments at mission-relevant speeds. Utilizing a designated target as a destination, the system must navigate to the target location and object by building a model of its current position relative to that designated target. The agency requires the system to utilize passive sensors to perceive the local environment and to identify, analyze, and select suitable navigation paths through unstructured, dynamic environments. The selected provider must develop, install, and demonstrate prototype systems determined to be the most feasible solution from a feasibility study on a passive visual-inertial simultaneous localization and mapping navigation system. The system must navigate to both static and dynamic targets, identify obstacles between the platform and the target, and execute a navigation plan while dynamically adjusting to environmental changes. All data, compute, and sensors used for navigation must be organic to the aircraft, meaning no cloud compute or reach-back is authorized. The system must utilize a Modular Open System Approach, remain open software compatible, and use industry-standard flight controls such as Mavlink or Ardupilot. Only organizations from the United States are eligible to participate, and the performance of the work will take place offsite. The agency is currently looking for proposals to determine the budget, and specific key dates are not provided in the solicitation.