GB-Bristol: Land Vehicle Exercise (LVEX) SBRI Phase 2-Signature Reduction MOLLE

LVEx will contribute towards efforts to return to Contingent Operations by identification, prioritisation and evaluation of equipments and concepts designed to improve the Mounted Close Combat (MCC) capability.

This competition is divided into two separate strands.

1.

COTS - Mature “Commercial off the Shelf” (COTS) equipment, which is ready to be tested in a military context will be considered.

2.

SBRI - Novel concepts and applications, including COTS offerings currently applied in non-defence areas that require R&D to make them applicable to defence needs are sought in order to provide innovative solutions.

Ultimately this will help MoD to de-risk procurement, generate evidence of capability gaps and inform requirements for future Equipment Programmes.

LVEx 2013 focuses on four key themes.

Industry is invited to submit COTS technologies with innovative applications, or concepts that could provide solutions to any or all of the themes: • Mobility - We are looking for innovative ways to enhance the mobility of our vehicles over difficult terrain.

Platforms of interest are those of our vehicles weighing 40 tonnes and below. • Signature Reduction - We are interested in solutions for reducing the visual, acoustic and electronic signatures of our vehicle fleet i.e. how easy it is for our vehicles to be seen, heard or sensed. • Weight saving - We are very interested to see solutions which demonstrate how technology could reduce the weight of our wheeled vehicles.

Platform types of interest include all those vehicles weighing 20 tonnes and below e.g.

Ridgeback, Jackal, Coyote, Husky, etc. • Stowage - We invite industry to demonstrate innovative solutions for optimising internal and external stowage across our entire vehicle fleet.

Specific problems include: stowage of personal kit, stowage of individual weapons due to the lack of a universal weapon rack, external Stowage of fuel, Electronic Counter Measures and water (all of which will also require protection).

Technologies developed and equipment shall be evaluated and the performance and effectiveness demonstrated through the established MOD Level A-B-C trials process: • Level A – System Performance evaluation (paper assessment/system demonstration) • Level B – Fight-ability (soldier field tests)/System performance capture • Level C – User Performance & System Effectiveness (vignette trials) This MOD call for proposals will launch vis SBRI (The Technology Strategy Board) on Monday 16 September 2013 and will close on 23 October 2013 at 12:00 hrs.

To register your interest in either of the two strands, go to www.innovateuk.org/competition-display-page/-/asset_publisher/RqEt2AKmEBhi/content/land-vehicle-exercise-lvex-2013 A Competition Brief and Statement of Work can be downloaded at the TSB portal above.

Application Process and supporting downloads This competition is run by the Technology Strategy Board.

All proposals must be submitted via the TSB Portal above.