Competition Document: Humans in Systems: Accelerating Interaction Innovation

Updated 24 May 2023

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This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition is seeking proposals that enhance innovations in Human Machine Interaction (HMI); and interface technologies and approaches to support teamwork and collaboration. In order to ensure operational capability and task effectiveness is maintained, it is essential the interface between humans and machines is optimised for future capabilities, platforms, and systems.

This competition seeks proposals under three challenge areas

This competition is funded by Dstl

19 July 2023 12 midday (BST)

Via the DASA Online Submission Service for which you will require an account. Only proposals submitted through the DASA Online Submission Service will be accepted.

The total possible funding available for Phase 1 of this competition £1,000,000 (excluding VAT).This call is looking to fund several individual proposals. These will be from across all three Challenge Areas.

The call is interested in funding both small ‘seedling’ project (up to £50 thousand) as well as larger ‘development’ project (up to £150 thousand). The exact number of small and development projects will be determined subject to responses. However it is likely to be in the order of approximately 5 seedling and 5 development projects.

Additional funding for further phases to increase TRL may be available. If there will be a future phase, it will be open to applications from all innovators and not just those that submitted Phase 1 successful bids.

24th May 2024 – A dial-in session providing further detail on the problem space and a chance to ask questions in an open forum. If you would like to participate, please register on the Eventbrite page.

The Future Operating Environment is likely to be highly complex and challenging. Rapid technological change, especially in AI, is reshaping societies, enhancing capability and transforming the character of warfare, for the UK and our allies, as well as our adversaries. As UK Defence, we are committed to adopt Generation After Next technologies in a way that is ambitious, safe and responsible. The roles, tasks and activities undertaken by defence personnel are also likely to evolve and adapt.

Interactions between human and machine can be achieved through a wide variety of interface technologies and interaction approaches, selection of which will depend on the nature of the task and wider context and environment within which it is conducted. The effectiveness of these interactions has a significant impact on task performance, operator workload, error, training demands and a variety of other factors.

To maintain operational capability and task effectiveness, it is essential the interface between humans and machines is optimised for future capabilities, platforms, and systems. Interfaces must be efficient to interact with, providing assistance and facilitation wherever possible, to ensure humans’ maintain meaningful system relationships, that humans maintain the necessary situation awareness, with speed and agility to deliver task performance at optimal levels.

Dstl wishes to fund innovations in Human Machine Interface (HMI) technologies and interaction approaches to support improvements in human machine interaction and to support computer mediated teamwork and collaboration (across both human-human, and human-machine teams).

This call is not focused upon one single Defence domain (Maritime, Land, Cyber, Space or Air); rather it is interested in harnessing innovations that could be employed across some or all of these domains. Furthermore this call is not constrained to one particular type of defence role; therefore deployed operational environments, vehicle platform environments, control rooms and Headquarters are all within scope. It is recognised that each domain and role has unique constraints (such as lighting, vibration, available space) which can influence the nature of HMI design and we welcome innovations that address the HMI challenges thereby make a substantive positive impact on task performance.

With regards to this DASA call, the specific project research theme is Exploiting innovations in Human Machine Interaction (this might include new technologies and/or approaches) and technologies to support teamwork and collaboration between distributed teams (Aligning to a key project research outcome). This theme is concerned with accelerating and de-risking (for MOD) the requirement specification and development, of Human Machine Interface technologies for future defence capabilities likely to feature within Next-Generation and Generation After Next platforms, systems and capabilities.

In terms of this DASA call, HMI concerns: either the software or graphical/non graphical user interface, the hardware and physical interface; or in all likelihood both.

Specifically this call is interested in supporting innovation at two different maturity levels:

This competition has three challenges. All three are of equal interest, and of equal importance.

This challenge seeks to enhance the interaction between people and systems within physically constrained and environmentally challenging environments. This might include: the provision of and interaction with large quantities of information and the control or interaction with un-crewed semi-autonomous or remotely controlled platforms and sensor systems from within another vehicle.

Ideas that might help solve this challenge area may include:

This challenge seeks to unlock task performance improvements through the provision of novel interface technologies and interaction approaches and tools to support users in areas such as: control inputs, improving situational awareness, interacting with information, making decisions.

Ideas that might help solve this challenge area may include:

This areas is focused on tools which may benefit both co-located and distributed teams engaged in collaborative and co-operative working. Often teams operate within constrained systems, architectures, and workstations; where the introduction and implementation of new team aids is prohibitive.

Ideas that might help solve this challenge area may include:

We want novel and innovative ideas to benefit end-users working in UK Defence and Security. Your proposal should include evidence of:

and

Proposals should clearly demonstrate how the work or innovation applies to any defence and security context. A demonstration of technologies or ‘Wizard of Oz’[footnote 1] approaches would be welcome to show the potential benefits, but this is not a necessity.

We are not interested in proposals that:

It is important that over the lifetime of DASA competitions, ideas are matured and accelerated towards appropriate end-users to enhance capability. How long this takes will depend on the nature and starting point of the innovation.

For DASA to consider routes for exploitation, ensure your deliverables are designed with the aim of making it as easy as possible for collaborators/stakeholders to identify the innovative elements of your proposal.

Whilst DASA recognises that early identification and engagement with potential end users during the competition and subsequent phases are essential to implementing an exploitation plan, during the competition phase there should be no correspondence between suppliers and DASA other than via the DASA helpdesk email at [email protected], or their local Innovation Partner.

All proposals to DASA should articulate the expected development in technology maturity of the potential solution over the lifetime of the contract and how this relates to improved capability against the current known (or presumed) baseline.

A higher technology maturity is expected in subsequent phases. Include the following information to help the assessors understand your exploitation plans to date:

Long term studies may not be able to articulate exploitation in great detail, but it should be clear that there is credible advantage to be gained from the technology development.

Include project specific information which will help exploitation. This competition is being carried out as part of a wider MOD programme and with cognisance of cross-Government initiatives. We may collaborate with organisations outside of the UK Government and this may provide the opportunity to carry out international trials and demonstrations in the future.

19 July 2023 12 midday (BST)

Via the DASA Online Submission Service for which you will be required to register.

Only proposals submitted through the DASA Online Submission Service will be accepted.

The total funding available for Phase 1 of this competition is £1,000,000 (excluding VAT).

Also;

Additional funding for further phases to increase TRL may be available. Any further phases will be open to applications from all innovators and not just those that submitted Phase 1 bids.

Click here for more information on our competition process and how your proposal is assessed.

Queries should be sent to the DASA Help Centre – [email protected]

Your resourcing plan must identify, where possible, the nationalities of proposed employees that you intend to work on this phase.

In the event of a proposal being recommended for funding, the DASA reserves the right to undertake due diligence checks including the clearance of proposed employees. Please note that this process will take as long as necessary and could take up to 6 weeks in some cases for non-UK nationals.

You must identify any ethical / legal / regulatory factors within your proposal and how the associated risks will be managed, including break points in the project if approvals are not received.MODREC approvals can take up to 5 months therefore you should plan your work programme accordingly. If you are unsure if your proposal will need to apply for MODREC approval, then please refer to the MODREC Guidance for Suppliers or contact your Innovation Partner for further guidance.

All proposals submitted that contain animal work will be reviewed by a Dstl veterinary surgeon and will be considered non-compliant without inclusion of appropriate information. For UK locations that are proposing use of animals under ASPA (Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986) as part of work under DASA, the location must demonstrate that they hold a Project Licence that covers the work proposed, and Establishment Licence for the location and Personal Licences for anyone carrying out the regulated procedures. International innovators proposing animal work under AAALAC should provide the equivalent documentation. For locations outside of the UK that do not have AAALAC, proposal assessment will need to include a Dstl veterinary surgeon making custom assessment of the location's applicable national regulations, any other accreditations held by the location and the local governance systems for the location.

Requirements for access to Government Furnished Assets (GFA), for example, information, equipment, materials and facilities, may be included in your proposal. DASA cannot guarantee that GFA will be available. If you apply for GFA, you should include an alternative plan in case it is not available.Failure to provide any of the above listed will automatically render your proposal non-compliant.

On receipt of a ‘Fund’ decision, successful suppliers must prove cyber resilience data before the contract is awarded. The start of this process is the submission of a Supplier Assurance Questionnaire (SAQ). The SAQ allows suppliers to demonstrate compliance with the specified risk level and the corresponding profile in Def Stan 05-138, and the level of control required will depend on this risk level.

To expedite the contracting time of successful suppliers we ask all suppliers to complete the SAQ before they submit their proposal. The SAQ can be completed here using the DASA Risk Assessment RAR-864729040 and answer questions for risk level "Very Low".

The Defence Cyber Protection Partnership (DCPP) will review your SAQ submission and respond with a reference number within 2 working days. The resulting email response from DCPP should be attached (JPG or PNG format) and included within the DASA submission service portal when the proposal is submitted. You will also be asked to enter your SAQ reference number. Please allow enough time to receive the SAQ reference number prior to competition close on 19 July 2023 at 12 midday (BST).If the proposal is being funded, the SAQ will be evaluated against the CRA for the competition, and it will be put it into one of the following categories:

The CIP provides evidence as to how and when potential innovators will achieve compliance. Provided the measures proposed in the CIP do not pose an unacceptable risk to the MOD, a submission with a CIP will be considered alongside those who can achieve the controls. A final check will be made to ensure cyber resilience before the contract is placed. Commercial staff cannot progress without it. This process does not replace any contract specific security requirements.

Further guidance for completing this process can be requested by emailing the DASA Help Centre:[email protected].

Additional information about cyber security can be found at: DCPP: Cyber Security Model industry buyer and supplier guide.

At Stage 1, all proposals will be checked for compliance with the competition document and may be rejected before full assessment if they do not comply. Only those proposals that demonstrate compliance against the competition scope and DASA mandatory criteria will be taken forward to full assessment.

Proposals that pass Stage 1 will then be assessed against the standard DASA assessment criteria (Desirability, Feasibility and Viability) by subject matter experts from the MOD (including Dstl), other government departments and the front-line military commands. You will not have the opportunity to view or comment on assessors’ recommendations.

DASA reserves the right to disclose on a confidential basis any information it receives from innovators during the procurement process (including information identified by the innovator as Commercially Sensitive Information in accordance with the provisions of this competition) to any third party engaged by DASA for the specific purpose of evaluating or assisting DASA in the evaluation of the innovator's proposal. In providing such information the innovator consents to such disclosure. Appropriate confidentiality agreements will be put in place.

Further guidance on how your proposal is assessed is available on the DASA website.

After assessment, proposals will be discussed internally at a Decision Conference where, based on the assessments, budget and wider strategic considerations, a decision will be made on the proposals that are recommended for funding.

Proposals that are unsuccessful will receive brief feedback after the Decision Conference.

Please read the DASA terms and conditions which contain important information for innovators. For this competition we will be using the Innovation Standard Contract (ISC), links to the contract: TERMS and Schedule . We will require unqualified acceptance of the terms and conditions; if applicable, please ensure your commercial department has provided their acceptance.

Funded projects will be allocated a Project Manager (to run the project) and a Technical Partner (as a technical point of contact). In addition, the DASA team will work with you to support delivery and exploitation including, when appropriate, introductions to end-users and business support to help develop their business.

We will use deliverables from DASA contracts in accordance with our rights detailed in the contract terms and conditions.

For this competition, £1 million is currently available to fund proposals. There may be occasions when additional funding may become available to allow us to revisit proposals deemed suitable for funding. Therefore, DASA reserves the right to keep such proposals in reserve. In the event that additional funding becomes available, DASA may ask whether you would still be prepared to undertake the work outlined in your proposal under the same terms.

Competition queries including on process, application, commercial, technical and intellectual property aspects should be sent to the DASA Help Centre at [email protected], quoting the competition title. If you wish receive future updates on this competition, please email the DASA Help Centre.

While all reasonable efforts will be made to answer queries, DASA reserves the right to impose management controls if volumes of queries restrict fair access of information to all potential innovators.

Wizard of Oz is a design technique which enables the development of limited functionality prototypes - which can be used for early testing and evaluation - with missing functionality provided through human intervention. (Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale (2004). Human Computer Interaction. 3rd Edition. Pearson Education Ltd. Harlow: Essex) ↩