MHC Autonomy Software Integration & Support

Concepts

• bristol
• information technology
• mine hunting capability team
• mhc autonomy software integration
• software
• development of software
• part of the uk ministry of defence
• seebyte limited
• mod
• ministry of defence

Location

Edinburgh

Description

The Mine Hunting Capability Team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), has awarded a contract to Seebyte Limited for the support and continued development of software based upon Seebyte’s suite of software.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Indicators

• An E-Auction will not be used.

Legal Justification

The Mine Hunting Capability Team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), has awarded a contract to Seebyte Limited for the support and continued development of software based upon Seebyte’s suite of proprietary, privately developed software for which Seebyte Limited holds the background IP - namely: NEPTUNE, SeeTrack & CoPilot. This suite of software enables autonomy behaviours for Unmanned Vehicles to work collaboratively and effectively for the purpose of Maritime Mine Countermeasures. Through the three software products listed, the software enables features such as; Low-Level mission planning, Autonomous missions by vehicles and Mine Threat Identification and classification. The contract shall be for an initial period of 25-months, with Options to extend the contract duration by a further two 12-month periods, giving a maximum possible contract duration of 49-months. The maximum total value of the contract is not estimated to exceed £2m for the entire 49-month period. In accordance with regulation 4 of The Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/697) this procurement falls to be regulated under the provisions of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 as amended (in particular by SI 2019/697 and SI 2020/1450). Prior publication of a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union is no longer appropriate. It is considered that the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the UK e-notification service (in accordance with the relevant legislation) is lawful in accordance with regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the DSPCR 2011 (as amended) for Technical Reasons. This requirement is for the continued support and development of Seebyte’s suite of proprietary software which was privately developed by Seebyte. This software is widely used in different applications by the Royal Navy and works collectively and collaboratively to optimise the operation and effectiveness of its autonomous underwater vehicles. This requirement is a direct continuation of the same services previously procured by the MoD under the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s Science & Technology (S&T) programme. Ensuring contractual cover to facilitate the continuing support and evolutionary development of this software is critical to maintaining the Royal Navy’s existing capability. Given the history to the development of this software by Seebyte Limited for the Royal Navy there is no other reasonable alternative software in the market that would meet the MoD’s continuing requirements. For operational reasons the Royal Navy systems which incorporates the Seebyte Limited software need to be able to interoperate with similar systems used by UK Allies, all of whom use the Seebyte Limited software. Royal Navy systems with third party software would not meet these requirements and would create significant interoperability issues which would result in a degraded capability. Only Seebyte Limited have the technical knowledge, expertise and underlying source code necessary to meet this continuing support and development requirement. This technical knowledge and expertise has been gained in part through the previous role Seebyte has undertaken in developing the software for the Royal Navy’s purposes.