This Military&AerospaceElectronics article is reprinted here with permission.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy researchers are surveying industry to find companies able to develop embarkable electronic warfare (EW) systems within the next five years to augment today's Navy capabilities in EW system performance, reliability, and maintainability.
Officials of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington issued a special notice last week (N00173-21-R-DH02) for the Surface Electronic Warfare Embarkable Prototype System (EPS) Development project.
Researchers in the Surface Electronic Warfare Branch of the NRL Tactical Electronic Warfare Division needs to design, develop, and demonstrate the effectiveness of embarkable prototype systems that function complete ship set—embarkable units and cables.
System prototypes will be part of developing a next-generation Navy EW system. Researchers also would like to fabricate additional legacy systems to ensure carrier support group continuity of coverage.
Researchers are looking for companies able to support requirements development; system modeling and simulation; component design and software development; prototype assembly; a component and prototype laboratory; and field testing within the first two years of contract award.
Companies also should be able to design and test RF components; develop software; provide configuration management; and provide field testing within four years of contract development. In five years of contract award the project will focus on building, testing, and installing components and line-replaceable units aboard Navy platforms.
Ultimately, Navy researchers want to deliver eight next-generation embarkable prototype systems for two different classes of surface warships. In addition, researchers want an additional seven embarkable EW prototypes for forward-deployed naval forces.
Companies that wish to participate should email their expertise and intentions of interest no later than 14 May 2021 to the NRL's Deirdre Hughes at [email protected] or Kristopher Ramsey at [email protected].
