Show Stopper - Non-Kinetic Disablement of Non-Compliant, Small Watercraft

Problem Statement: 

The use of small watercraft by our nation’s adversaries, including transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and state actors, to smuggle illicit cargo and aliens across the U.S.'s maritime borders presents a growing security challenge. These agile vessels, often operating in densely populated areas and under cover of darkness, require interdiction strategies that do not expose the suspect vessel’s operators, civilian bystanders, and law enforcement personnel conducting the interdiction to an undue level of risk.  

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of War (DoW) are seeking solutions capable of reliably stopping non-compliant small watercraft without placing undue risk to the DHS/DoW personnel conducting these interdictions, operators/passengers onboard the non-compliant vessel (NCV), and nearby innocent civilians on the water.   

Design Reference Mission:

Imagine the following scenario: off the Southern California coast, a U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) boat is on patrol in US territorial waters and identifies a suspect vessel operating at high speed. The USCG boat turns toward the suspect vessel, which observes the USCG asset coming toward them and starts to accelerate and swerve erratically. The vessel’s operator tosses his cell phone into the water and starts to turn back toward the international maritime border. At this time, the suspect vessel is deemed to be noncompliant and the appropriate use of force rules apply while the USCG boat attempts to interdict the NCV.  

Based on the NCV's speed and the vessel operator straddling the engine of the personal watercraft, the USCG officer determines that any immediate use of force, including and up to disabling fire, would place undue risk to nearby mariners and/or the passengers onboard the NCV. The USCG asset continues to pursue the NCV and waits for a less risky time to employ its progressive use of force tactics to stop the NCV. A short time later, the NCV crosses into Mexican waters and the USCG asset must cease pursuit. If the USCG asset had a non-lethal solution that could have disabled the NCV from a distance and not placed undue risk to nearby innocent civilians and the passengers onboard the NCV, they could have safely apprehended the NCV and maintained the United States’ border sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Proposed Solution:

A solution brief’s technical merit and relevance will be based on the solution’s ability to meet the primary attributes and the cumulative evaluation of the secondary solution attributes:

Primary Attributes:

• The solution must be able to disrupt, disable, or prevent the continued operation of a non-compliant small watercraft or its operator through non-kinetic effects with minimal collateral damage or risk exposure to nearby civilians and the solution’s operators. This could be, but is not limited to, localized, non-kinetic energy (e.g., electromagnetic radiation), a novel Electronic Attack (EA) method, or other novel means. 
• The solution must be able to defeat a single high-speed small watercraft at a time.
• The solution must be able to be utilized or deployed from USCG small boats (25’-45’) while underway. The solution must be standalone and require minimal technical integration with the boat. 
• The solution must exist in a technically mature state of development in order for the government to host a baseline assessment of the solution’s capabilities at a government identified test location, subject to range availability, planned to occur within 60 days of receipt of a prototype OT award. 

Secondary Attributes:

• Shortening the amount of time from when the decision to employ the solution is made until it is ready to defeat the noncompliant small watercraft is preferred and must be characterized. Additionally, minimization of the “dwell time” (the time from solution starts acting upon the target to the defeat of the target) is also desirable and must be characterized.
• It is preferred if the solution can simultaneously defeat multiple noncompliant small watercraft with various engine types (e.g. 4-stroke gasoline, 2-stroke gasoline, diesel) and various propulsion methods (e.g. outboard propeller, inboard propeller, shrouded or water jet propulsion).  
• Additionally, it is also preferred if the solution can defeat multiple noncompliant small watercraft over an extended period of time without requiring any crew interaction (e.g. reloading of the effect, installation of new energy source, resetting of the device, etc). 
• Preferred solutions will be easily operated and require minimal operator training prior to use. Additionally, it is preferred for solutions to be maintenance-free or require minimal field-level maintenance.  
• The solution should minimize installation size, weight, power, and any restrictions imposed on other systems onboard a maritime vessel. 
• Solutions should not rely upon the host platform for power or other ancillary power sources but come with its own power source (swappable is preferred). 
• The production solution should be capable of achieving compliance for shipboard installation onboard a USCG, DHS, or other DoW maritime vessel and able to operate in a harsh maritime environment (e.g. exposure to salt water, shock, etc).    
• The solution should be able to demonstrate adaptability to evolving operational threats including the ability to leverage real-time, or near real-time, operational deployment data, logs, and user feedback to assess, correct, and/or improve system behaviors and performance including safely, securely, and promptly deploying software updates to fielded systems. Companies may assume the U.S. government will share data on evolving threats. The ability for the vendor to receive a DD254 (Contract Security Classification Specification) and/or DD2345 (Military Critical Technical Agreement) is required in order to share the data at the appropriate classification level, but an active DD-254 is not required for a prototype OT to be awarded to a vendor. Additionally, successful solutions may be required to provide personnel with appropriate security clearances and eventually the ability to obtain a Facility Clearance to store classified information.

Supplementary Information:

• Each brief should detail how the proposed non-lethal solution maximizes effectiveness against the localized target(s) while minimizing collateral damage to protected assets, infrastructure, innocent bystanders, and nearby marine wildlife. Descriptions and definitions of non-lethal and low collateral effects can be found in DoD Inst 3200.19, Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW) Human Effects Characterization. Compliance with approved non-lethal weapons effects should be apparent through either inspection or similarity with existing, approved DoW non-lethal methods.  
• Solutions briefs will identify the maximum range that they will be able to defeat small watercraft, and state whether that range has been validated or proven in an operational environment, in the lab or a controlled testing environment, or this is a theoretical range based on solution’s design characteristics. 
• Solutions briefs will describe the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of the solution.
• Solutions briefs will identify if the solution can be used in dismounted (mobile) operations.