Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2019-12-10
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, DE&S ISTAR Windfarm Team
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Restricted procedure
CPV classification: 31121340 | 35722000 | 35723000 | 38115000 | 38115100
Estimated value: 1 GBP
Submission deadline: 2020-01-31

Technical requirements: Paper-based Feasibility Study and Possible Future Demonstration of Mature Solutions for Improving Air Surveillance for the Purposes of Air Defence in Airspace affected by Wind Farms
Radar. Air defence radar. Radar apparatus. Radar surveillance equipment. Wind farm. Wind turbines can adversely affect a number of MOD operations including radars, seismological recording equipment, communications facilities, naval operations and low flying. These effects are not limited to specific geographical areas. The size of wind turbines as well as the geographical footprint of the next generation of wind farm developments are expected to grow significantly and exacerbate the challenges posed to the UK’s AD infrastructure. A solution is required to enable the continued operation of military AD surveillance capability in the presence of current and future wind turbine developments.
This project and its associated dynamic pre-qualification questionnaire (DPQQ) constitute a process to better inform the authority as to the existence of technologies, and their respective capabilities, that may deliver effective aerial surveillance, for the purposes of UK AD, in airspace affected by wind turbines.
It must not be inferred that a procurement will follow the paper-based feasibility study or any demonstration conducted. However, those candidates, or technologies represented by those candidates, that show sufficient promise may be considered further for evaluation and any possible future procurement.
The authority’s overarching requirement is to mitigate the unwanted adverse effects resulting from wind farms on the UK’s current and future AD aerial surveillance systems. Wind turbines, when in Radar Line of Sight (RLOS) impact on the AD Primary Surveillance Radars (PSRs) the UK currently uses to deliver a Recognised Air Picture (RAP); these PSRs are reaching the limits of their wind farm mitigation capabilities. With the expected proliferation of wind farms, especially offshore, and the increase in their respective footprints and individual turbine dimensions, the challenges represented by, inter alia, increased false alarms and reduced probability of detection, which then impair situational awareness, will only increase. The authority, therefore, is seeking to improve its knowledge of those technologies, and their respective performances/capabilities, which may be fielded to improve AD aerial surveillance, focusing not only on current generation windfarms, but also the larger next generation developments consisting of turbines with a tip height of up to 350 m/1150ft Above Mean Sea Level (AMSL) located at all ranges but especially out to 70NM from the coast.
Notwithstanding that the UK currently relies on a combination of PSRs and Secondary Surveillance Radars (SSRs) to deliver its surveillance picture, and that a dependence on PSRs is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, including following a replacement or augmentation of the extant radars, the authority is ‘solution agnostic’, at this stage, over the types of technology that may provide the mitigation sought.
— be at least at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 at the point of demonstration to the MOD (see definition of TRLs at Annex A to the associated DPQQ),
— conform with relevant health and safety and other mandated standards (e.g. Radio frequency licence).
With the overarching requirement that full AD capability is delivered, proposed solutions, therefore, may be designed as:
— an alternative source of data for the ‘host PSR’ within defined contexts, zhich may be geographic regions (eg an infill) or other operating conditions, or
— a total replacement system for the PSR (eg a different PSR or a novel sensor) with the capability to meet the full gamut of surveillance requirements.
The authority will analyse the responses to the DPQQ with a view to possibly inviting ‘Potential Providers’ to demonstrate their respective systems, either as part of a Concept Demonstration (CD) conducted by MOD at an MOD site, or under alternative arrangements as proposed within individual responses; follow-on demonstrations are subject to confirmation.
The authority intends to review the responses to the DPQQ between 3.2.2020-14.2.2020 and, if required, may pose clarification questions to the respondents on the submissions received.
Once the qualified proposals have been identified and demonstration dates are known, a nil-value framework agreement will be released to successful candidates, which will need to be signed and returned before potential providers may participate in any future demonstrations, be they under the envisaged demonstration plan or alternative arrangements further into the future. The framework agreement will cover only the demonstration of technologies herein described and will not encompass any future MOD acquisition programme.
Although the timing and venue of an MOD-run Concept demonstration (CD) have yet to be confirmed (see further discussion within the DPQQ), the Authority is looking to offer those proposed solutions it wishes to investigate further the opportunity to demonstrate at an MOD-site overlooking the North Sea. Current assumptions are that the CD may occur between mid-March and late-July 2020, allowing for MOD to view as many candidate solutions as practicable to be demonstrated consecutively; each being offered between 1 and 2 weeks notionally to take part (some tolerance may be afforded dependent on the number of systems demonstrating). Although mitigation of onshore wind farms is relevant, the Authority is especially interested in offshore wind farm mitigation, particularly against developments out to 70 NM from the coast, and will look for evidence of each solution’s (potential) performance against such a target development; such evidence may derive from modelled as well as live data. The MOD’s preferred site (currently) for the CD is RAF Staxton Wold, which has a view of the Westermost Rough and Humber Gateway wind farms (around 30 – 40 NM distant). These, then, would be used for demonstration purposes, accepting that they possess smaller, more-dense footprints, with lower tip heights and are nearer to the coast than some of the new generation developments would be. The MOD’s expectation is to provide dedicated flight trials aircraft to overfly one or both wind farms (to be determined) looking for the solution to exhibit the necessary detection, tracking and discrimination of genuine airborne contacts, as well as rejection of unwanted wind farm-generated clutter and other effects. Potential providers are reminded that the solution(s) sought are for AD purposes, which requires a system ultimately to deal with non-cooperative aircraft, which may be fast-moving, low in Radar Cross Section (RCS) and conducting high-g manoeuvres.


Award value: 1