Navy surveys industry for small businesses able to build Barracuda UUV-based mine neutralizer

WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy counter-mine warfare experts are surveying the defense industry to find at least two small businesses that could manufacture a small unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) mine neutralizer able to destroy or disable enemy ocean mines at safe distances from Navy vessels and personnel.

Officials of Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington issued a source-sought notice Wednesday (N00024-17-R-6300) involved with the The Barracuda Mine Neutralizer project.

Barracuda will be a modular, low cost, semi-autonomous, expendable mine neutralizer about the size of a Navy air-launched sonobuoy, or about three feet long and five inches in diameter.

A mine neutralizer is a small unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), typically with an explosive warhead, that navigates to the known location of an ocean mine located on the water's surface, tethered to the bottom, or attached to the ocean bottom. Once the neutralizer reaches the mine, it blows itself up, taking the mine with it.

This source-sought notice seeks to determine if the Navy can find two or more small businesses in the defense industry with the capabilities to manufacture the Barracuda Mine Neutralizer and deliver it to the Navy. A small business typically has no more than 1,500 employees, and generates no more than $38.5 million in annual revenues.

Related: Navy orders unmanned combat vehicles for littoral combat ship to find and kill ocean mines

The Navy most likely will use Barracuda in the near term from the Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV) -- an unmanned motorboat that deploys from the Navy's littoral combat ship. Barracuda will use wireless communications for tetherless operation from the CUSV, and in the future may be deployed from Navy sonobuoy launchers aboard helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft.

Navy officials will use the Barracuda as part of the littoral combat ship's mine countermeasure mission package, deployed from the CUSV. The Navy also will use the Barracuda at shore-based mine countermeasure operations to perform fleet training.

Barracuda will conduct neutralization operations from the surface through deep water during the day or night.

Companies interested should email 25-page white papers no later than 8 Feb. 2017 to Naval Sea Systems Command's Tiara Robinson at [email protected], with a copy to Mercedes Burrell at [email protected].

For questions or concerns phone Tiara Robinson at 202-781-0560, or Mercedes Burrell at 202-781-1843. More information is online at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DON/NAVSEA/NAVSEAHQ/N00024-17-R-6300/listing.html.

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