US Air Force to sprinkle fairy dust.
A very interesting use for a very small sUAS.
AF112-002 TITLE: Aerial Distribution of Taggants
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform
The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.
OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate innovative methods to unobtrusively distribute taggants onto moving targets for tracking, locating, and identification purposes.
DESCRIPTION: Taggants are very small devices that emit an electro-magnetic signal. They can be applied to targets of interest and used to track/locate them in tactical situations. These targets of interest could be vehicles or personnel, which could be moving or stationary. To effectively “tag” the target, the taggant must be administered “unobtrusively,” meaning that the target should not be cognizant that taggants have been applied to them. Obviously, this application is more easily accomplished by some sort of ground agent, but it is desirous to be able to distribute taggants aerially via a small remotely piloted aircraft (SRPA). This is not as an easy task when factoring unobtrusiveness. The easiest, but obtrusive, means of delivery would be for the SRPA to “divebomb” the target or “shoot a paintball” at the target. The target would obviously notice a swooping SRPA and likely feel the sting of the well-placed pellet.
The key to “unobtrusiveness” for aerial application is the ability to deliver a “cloud” of taggants on the target’s location or directly in its path. In order to do this the taggants must be dust-like and have the ability to attach to the target. One method of distribution would be “crop-dusting” from a sufficiently high altitude (to avoid detection) and letting the dust-cloud fall on the target or in front of it if it is moving. This method would likely utilize a large amount of taggant to assure probability of successful tagging, although it might be useful when tagging a group of targets.
The next method would be to deliver a small munition close by and pneumatically blow a cloud of taggants on or in front of the target. The munition could potentially air burst above the application zone or emplace itself near the application zone and be proximity or command-detonated. These methods are given as examples; other innovative methods are also sought.
PHASE I: Design a feasible concept mechanism for unobtrusive aerial taggant distribution as described above. The feasibility of the concept capability must be validated by means of analysis and/or simulation.
PHASE II: Refine the Phase I results to develop the mechanism into a feasible configuration/prototype that can be employed by a SRPA. This phase must demonstrate the prototype’s capability to distribute taggants.
PHASE III DUAL USE COMMERCIALIZATION:
Military Application: Counter-insurgency and global war on terror (GWOT), marking civilians to prevent collateral damage, marking coalition forces without Blue Force Tracker.
Commercial Application: Law enforcement and Homeland Security, wildlife tracking, remote or toxic chemical spill mapping.
