The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is looking for organisations to come forward with innovations to enable the remote monitoring of its legacy nuclear sites.
Official DPRTE 2024 event partner, Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA), has launched Phase 2 of the Remote Monitoring of Sensitive Sites Competition, run on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
Following on from Phase 1, which oversaw £700k in funding allocated between 10 innovative organisations, this competition will see the NDA make up to £1.5 million of funding available, seeking proposals for a complete autonomous security alarm and interdiction network (ASAIN).
The ASAIN concept aims to minimise human error when monitoring secure areas and can autonomously monitor, track and detect security breaches. This keeps human operators out of harm’s way while giving them the information they need to inform their response.
The NDA is responsible for decommissioning the UK’s earliest nuclear sites safely, securely and sustainably.
The estate spans 17 nuclear sites across the UK, made up of around 950 hectares of designated land on which over 800 buildings are located, and security of these sites is paramount.
Innovative solutions are being sought to explore how the estate can be kept secure remotely to help augment existing arrangements, manage risks proportionately and deliver value for money for the taxpayer – with an ambition to look at how the technology could be utilised across other sectors.
Andrew Gray, the NDA’s Innovation Delivery Manager, said: “Keeping our sites safe and secure is absolutely critical to delivering our mission in line with our regulatory obligations.
“We are continually seeking cutting edge technologies and innovative solutions to enable us to overcome the challenges we face in nuclear decommissioning, and deliver effectively and efficiently for the public.
“We look forward to seeing the concepts that are put forward and exploring how we can share the benefits more widely across the nuclear industry and other sectors.”
The competition will have a 6 month initial development phase followed by a 12 month test and evaluation phase on an NDA site.
Suppliers will be invited to a demonstration event after the 18 month contract is completed, where they will demonstrate their systems to stakeholders from across the Defence and Security and Nuclear Decommissioning communities.
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Post written by: Matt Brown
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