The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) is seeking proposals for the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for Advanced Technology Demonstrations a node of the Radiation Awareness and Interdiction Network (RAIN) system.
A RAIN system would be composed of many potential nodes that would be deployed around a region, and provide actionable information on whether radiological or nuclear threat materials are entering or departing that region.
The overall goal of the effort is the integration of radiation detectors, ancillary sensors, image capture systems, and automated analysis and data communications capabilities to detect, localize and provide actionable information on a specific conveyance carrying radiological or nuclear threat materials.
The RAIN ATD seeks to demonstrate individual nodes that would:
- Detect radioactive sources in vehicles as they approach (or depart) a region
- Identify the vehicle carrying the source or a small set of suspect vehicles containing the source carrier
- Transmit timely and actionable information, to include but not limited to vehicle license plate, to a law enforcement operations center to support alarm adjudication and threat interdiction prior to the threat reaching the protected region
- Have minimal impact on the flow of traffic and commerce
- Have a system architecture emphasizing flexibility, agility, simplicity and robustness for wide-ranging road, traffic and environmental conditions
- Have a reasonable cost to procure, deploy, and operate (including alarm adjudication)
- Take into consideration the safeguarding of Protected Personal Information
- Discriminate between benign sources, such as medical patients and naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), and threat sources which could be used in a radiological dispersal device or nuclear weapon
The wide range of road types and traffic conditions in a typical urban environment requires technical approaches based on flexible and modular designs, which are easily adapted to the unique characteristics and constraints of a given roadway location. For instance, the available mounting positions for individual sensor modules will depend upon the existing site infrastructure. Because cost is a major impediment to achieving large area coverage, solutions should utilize economical hardware and software components.
DNDO anticipates making multiple awards under this BAA. DNDO reserves the right to fund all, parts, or none of the full proposals received and will fund awards by phases as options under selected efforts. Total funding for this BAA in FY14 is anticipated to be $3.0M with additional funding potentially available in later years.
Further details are available under Solicitation Number: HSHQDC-14-R-B0006.
