The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has issued a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeking proposals for technology advancement of equipment for use by special operations forces (SOF).
White papers are sought for technologies that will provide advanced protection to the SOF warrior while maintaining or improving maneuverability, weight burden, thermal burden, and donning/doffing ease. Protection areas of interest include chemical, biological, radiation, nuclear (CBRN), energetics, blast, lasers, infection/parasites, eye protection, and advanced lightweight helmets. These areas may be addressed individually or congruently. Special emphasis should be placed on reducing the overall weight burden.
In support of SOF sensitive site exploitation (SSE), topics of interest include enhanced capabilities for detection of homemade explosives, novel exploitation techniques for collected materials, and improved tactical explosives, nitrates and narcotics detection kits.
Novel technologies are sought to address several areas of interest in biometrics, rapid Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) matching and enabling technologies, stand-off facial recognition and matching, stand-off iris capture, latent fingerprint capture, and deception detection.
In the Human Performance realm, topics include mitigating effects of combat or training stressors to the cognitive performance of the SOF warrior athlete. Technologies for the improvement of rehabilitation after injury and pre-habilitation for pre-training and deployment are of interest. Also included are technologies that provide possible injury/degraded performance prediction and prevention, and novel ways to enhance the SOF warfighter’s physical and mental effectiveness.
Situational awareness enhancing technologies and handheld Improvised Explosive Device (IED) clearance devices incorporating multiple modalities are also specified as being of interest under this BAA.
Further details are available under Solicitation Number: BAAST-12. The response deadline for proposal submission is July 13, 2012.
