UKDI submissions are welcome from the private sector, academia and Public Sector Research Establishments (PSRE’s). UKDI will examine the legal status of organisations prior to placement of any contract or agreement. In most cases there are no nationality restrictions, however UKDI individual competition documents will detail any necessary restrictions.

To be eligible to submit a proposal into this competition you must be a UK organisation registered at Companies House, based in the UK, and plan to carry out the work in the UK. Your organisation does not need to be UK-owned.

We encourage collaboration between innovators for this competition. To support this, we have a short survey to collect details of those who wish to explore collaboration possibilities. If you are interested, please complete the collaboration survey before 12 May 2026.

Funding limits and expectations: UKDI are expecting proposals to cost no more than £350,000. A number of proposals may be funded. Your proposal must not exceed £1,000,000 (excluding VAT)

Technology Readiness Level (TRL): Reach at least TRL 6 by the end of the project

Contract start month: Aim to start early September 2026

Project duration: Equal to or less than six months from the project start date

Please note that this competition has specific deliverables as part of its pre-sift criteria. Only those proposals that demonstrate compliance with the UKDI pre-sift criteria will be taken forward to full assessment. For the full list of criteria, please see Section 8.

• we are expecting proposals to cost no more than £350,000. Your proposal must not exceed £1,000,000 (excluding VAT)
• the final deliverable month indicated must be less than or equal to 6 months from the project start date agreed by both parties
• the proposal output to reach at least TRL 6 at the end of the agreed project. Please refer to the TRL guide
• your proposal must detail any overseas supply chain dependencies and the risk if disrupted which would impact the ability to deliver your proposed solution at scale, and if appropriate how these dependencies could be mitigated
• all innovators must ensure that they can obtain, if required, the necessary export licences for their proposals and developments, such that they can deliver to at least TRL 6 demonstration timelines and be supplied to the UK and other countries
• to be eligible to submit a proposal into this competition you must be a UK organisation registered at Companies House, based in the UK, and plan to carry out the work in the UK. Your organisation does not need to be UK-owned
• the proposal includes indicative costs for the quantities detailed in challenges 1, 2 and 4
• the proposal does not require MODREC, due to the extended timelines to achieve MODREC

The UK Government continuously evaluates insights from global events, to rapidly implement solutions that strengthen military and economic advantage.

This competition aims to identify and accelerate innovative solutions and techniques, ensuring they can be scaled and deployed faster than our adversaries.

Our areas of interest are:

• Counter‑UAS Interceptor Sensors
• One‑Way Attack UAS Seeker
• UAS Survivability
• UAS Navigation
• Telemetry Data
• Maritime Autonomous Navigation
• Maritime Terminal Guidance

These challenges are designed to identify innovations that could be deployed, at an appropriate scale, in operational areas within 12 months.

It is therefore essential that proposals include not just what is proposed but also demonstrate that viable solutions can be manufactured and scaled up for deployment in a relevant timeframe.

Following demonstration and project completion, the project will either be allocated to a further development or procurement route or cease if no longer required.

If, following completion, a project is selected for further development or procurement then additional or alternative DEFCONs and/or clauses may likely apply to any future contract.

For full details of each challenge, please view the full competition scope. A brief summary of each is given below.

Challenge 1: Counter UAS Interceptor Sensors

We are seeking sensor solutions for high‑speed counter‑unmanned aircraft system (UAS) interceptor UAS. Solutions must have sufficient sensor performance to enable identification and selection of a target UAS by a human operator, manoeuvre to within 3 metres or less of the target at combined closing speeds of up to Mach 1. Cost is expected to be less than £2000 per unit, and small size, weight and power is strongly preferred.

Challenge 2: One-way Attack UAS seeker

A seeker is a sensor that detects, tracks, and guides a projectile or unmanned system toward its target. We are seeking novel, passive seeker solutions for use in sub-300kph one‑way attack unmanned aircraft systems (OWA UAS), designed to improve accuracy. Solutions must be resilient to countermeasures such as visible and infra-red decoys and directed energy attack.

Challenge 3: UAS Survivability

We are seeking passive survivability solutions to improve the resilience of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or guided missiles against detection, targeting, and engagement. Solutions may include, but are not limited to: low‑cost radar‑absorbent materials; multi‑spectral decoys, including thermal, radar, or electronic‑emission signatures.

Challenge 4: UAS Navigation

We are seeking autonomous navigation systems for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that do not require the use of GNSS or proprietary Low Earth Orbit satellite services. Solutions must be capable of operating in a completely GNSS‑denied environment and determining their own position without manual input, achieving minimum positional accuracy of 50 metres and objective positional accuracy of 5 metres.

Challenge 5: Telemetry Data

We are seeking low‑probability‑of‑detection / interception jam‑resistant means to obtain low-bandwidth telemetry data. Solutions must be capable of transmitting data from UAS operating as low as 50 metres above ground level back to a ground station at a fixed friendly location. A useful range for returning telemetry data would be at least 300 km.

Challenge 6: Maritime Autonomous Navigation

We are seeking maritime autonomous navigation solutions for unmanned surface vessels (USV), indicative size 5-15 m in length, at speeds of up to 60 kts, that can operate day and night, in all weather conditions (minimum Sea State 3), for up to 48 hours, over a distance of 1000 nautical miles. Solutions must provide position and timing and an autonomy stack navigation function to integrate with an existing vessel control system. Solutions must not rely on GNSS or the use of proprietary Low Earth Orbit satellites.

Challenge 7: Maritime Terminal Guidance

Terminal guidance refers to the final phase of a guided munition’s engagement, ending upon impact with the target. We are seeking automated maritime terminal guidance solutions suitable for unmanned surface vessels (USVs) that make use of existing onboard hardware, such as forward looking infrared (FLIR) cameras, daylight Electro-Optic cameras, x‑band radar and other commonly integrated maritime sensors. Solutions may utilise other optical systems or sensors and should not assume a single mandated hardware configuration.

We are not interested in proposals that:

• cannot achieve at least TRL 6 by the end of the project period
• have already been sold into the UK Defence Marketplace, unless adapted or repurposed in an innovative way and this is made clear in your proposal
• platforms themselves (e.g. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) or Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs)
• rely on rare or exclusive means of manufacture that would preclude deployment at an appropriate scale in an operational theatre within 12 months – the ability to exercise existing industry is likely to be important
• constitute consultancy, paper-based studies or literature reviews which just summarise the existing literature without any view of future innovation
• are an unsolicited resubmission of a previous DASA bid
• offer demonstrations of off-the-shelf products requiring no experimental development (unless applied in a novel way to the challenge)
• offer no real long-term prospect of integration into defence and security capabilities
• offer no real prospect of out-competing existing technological solutions in price, while maintaining enough performance to be relevant

UKDI has a team of locally based Innovation Partners that can provide support in working with UKDI. It is strongly recommended that you contact your local Innovation Partner to discuss your idea for any aspect of this competition.

You can initiate this through the submission of a Contact UKDI Form by following instructions on the Contact a UKDI Innovation Partner page if you do not already have an established relationship with your local Innovation Partner.

Competition queries including on process, application, commercial, technical and intellectual property aspects should be sent to the UKDI Help Centre at accelerator@dstl.gov.uk, quoting the competition title. UKDI cannot guarantee a response to a query received 3 weeks before the competitions closes.

You can also contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Security and Defence team for advice.