US Marine Corps issues RFI for observation and sensing tech

The US Marine Corps (USMC) is looking for commercially available technologies that can detect and identify both personnel and unknown combatants and other persons of interest day or night in all weather conditions.

Meanwhile, beginning this fiscal year, the USMC also embarked on a comparable approach for conducting identity operations in a denied, degraded, intermittent, and low bandwidth environment that involves the passive collection of biometric signatures and reducing the size, weight, and power of biometric and forensic collection and analysis devices.

The USMC is considering the potential acquisition of commercial remote detection and identification technologies as part of its Observation and Sensing System (OSS) program, according to a Request for Information (RFI) issued by the Marine Corps Systems Command’s program executive office for land systems.

The RFI says the Marine Corps “is seeking interested parties that can provide force protection and littoral expeditionary advanced capability for the detection, identification, and tracking of manned and unmanned ground, air and sea vessels and personnel operating within the vicinity of specific missions,” including uncrewed platforms and other targets that troops might need to engage.

The RFI explained that the Marines Corps is contemplating an accelerated acquisition schedule, and thus it is interested in non-developmental systems and commercially available optic and active sensor technology that’s currently at an eight or nine technology readiness level.

The OSS is a modular family of systems that integrates the capabilities to perform active surveillance of ground, air and sea-based targets consisting of manned and unmanned vehicles, as well as people, by using various sensors to support security for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations.

The RFI says the Marines need the ability to perform “slew-to-cue” operations; real-time display, processing and recording of video data; auto-focus and auto-tracking of targets; and the ability to relay information via multiple radio frequency sources.

“OSS will detect, classify, and identify targets fusing artificial intelligence and machine learning to alert security forces of activity and coordinate response force as appropriate. OSS will utilize on-board edge computing in order to minimize the data communicated to the local Command and Control system,” according to the RFI.

The RFI indicates that the Marine Corps wants to acquire these new technological capabilities sooner than later and wants RFI respondents to identify how many systems they’ve already developed and matured, and their production capacity in terms of timelines and quantities. Responses are due October 8.

The USMC’s biometric-enabled identity operations (IdOps) strategy provides a structure to integrate traditional and emerging US Department of Defense identity operations enablers. The strategy drives identity dominance planning and guides resourcing to train and equip Marines to employ IdOps across the full range of military operations.

The Marine Corps has been studying the potential gaps that exist “between current capabilities and the desired end state,” which attaining and maintaining “identity dominance over the nation’s adversaries while contributing to the national intelligence enterprise and ultimately homeland defense.”

The IdOps a mission is an enabler for law enforcement, intelligence, force protection, counterinsurgency operations, humanitarian operations, site exploitation, physical security, and other mission sets in settings where a largely anonymous enemy is often hidden and indistinguishable from the civilian population.

The USMC’s fielding of passive biometric verification is distinguished by the automatic collection of biometric data without any active participation by the target and is used by the Marine Corps in environments where stealth is paramount.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometric sensors  |  biometrics  |  long-distance  |  Marines  |  tender  |  U.S. Government