HMGCC Co-Creation Challenge: Rapidly Deployed Tech to Track Intruders

The UK government requires temporary use spaces to be secured ensuring they haven’t been entered and compromised whilst left physically unattended. Intruder monitoring systems that can be easily and quickly deployed by non-technical staff are being sought in the latest challenge released by HMGCC Co-Creation.

The team is keen to hear from experts in technology which can rapidly find and monitor intruders – with a particular focus on using high-tech sensors, portable power and encrypted communication.

Organisations are being asked to apply develop and demonstrate technology to meet this challenge over a 12-week period, HMGCC Co-Creation will provide funding for time, materials, overheads and other indirect expenses.

The UK government operates permanent and temporary facilities globally in various environments. Once a new location has been selected, unauthorised access is prevented by various means prior to and during occupation of that space. However, it is not always possible to deploy permanent intruder monitoring systems in some situations.

Scope

• The output of the 12-week project should focus on demonstrating technology that shows potential for follow-on projects. This is open to Technology Readiness Levels from 4 – 7, and could focus on different parts of the challenge, such as:
  • High-tech sensors for intruder monitoring.
  • Full system development, considering ease of use (e.g., sensors easy to install, GUI, etc.).
  • Encrypted communication to ensure that information captured from the sensors has a low probability of interception.
• Mandatory targets for a solution are listed below. This doesn’t necessarily need to be solved during the 12-week project, but a clear path to provide a solution for this must be considered.
  • Must sense human presence in an environment.
  • Must be power efficient and be able to run for extended periods of time without mains power (although backup power doesn’t have to part of the solution).
  • Must demonstrate that it is (or could be) useable and deployable to non-technical personnel.
  • Must be scalable to be deployed from a single room up to a large-scale facility.
  • Must offer remote monitoring in real time.
  • Must be usable world-wide.
  • A full system must have an API to allow integration into existing monitoring solutions.
  • Must have anti-tamper and anti-jamming capability.
• The system must comply with International Air Transport Association (IATA) dangerous goods regulations (such as lithium battery regulations used as backup power options) to enable transport on regular commercial flights.
• Targets that should or could be met, and further considerations:
  • The communication from the sensor/processor to the user should be encrypted.
  • It could use low-power processing methods such as edge artificial intelligence reducing power consumption.
  • It could have different modes of operation, for example if a system uses multiple sensors, then power saving modes could be initiated to turn off certain sensors.
  • During development, an alarm system does not need to conform to BS-EN50131, but this should be considered for future phases of work.
  • The solution could sense if a perimeter has been compromised by non-human presence outside the specified boundary (e.g. a drone).
  • The system should be small enough to be easily carried by a person, for example aircraft cabin bag size.
  • The system should be able to securely log data locally, for instances when the remote monitoring link is unavailable.
  • The system should be able to push notifications to end users.
  • The system could have multi-sensor verification.

Funding Information

• Budget per single organisation: up to £60,000
• Project duration: 12 weeks

Eligibility Criteria

• This challenge is open to sole innovators, industry, academic and research organisations of all types and sizes. There is no requirement for security clearances.
• Solution providers or direct collaboration from countries listed by the UK government under trade sanctions and/or arms embargoes, are not eligible for HMGCC Co-Creation challenges.

Evaluation Criteria

• All proposals, regardless of the application route, will be assessed by the HMGCC Co-Creation team. Proposals will be scored 1–5 on the following criteria:
  • Scope: Does the proposal fit within the challenge scope, taking into consideration cost and benefit?
  • Innovation: Is the technical solution credible, will it create new knowledge and IP, or use existing IP?
  • Deliverables: Will the proposal deliver a full or partial solution, if a partial solution, are there collaborations identified?
  • Timescale: Will the proposal deliver a minimum viable product within the project duration?
  • Budget: Are the project finances within the competition scope?
  • Team: Are the organisation/delivery team credible in this technical area?

For more information, visit Connected Places Catapult.