Liquid Robotics is being awarded a $10 million sole-source contract for Wave Glider unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV).

This is the prelude to a five-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract that will be awarded in July, according to the presolicitation announcement in FedBizOpps.

The contract "will include the procurement of Wave Glider unmanned surface vehicle (USV) hardware and related engineering services including design, analysis, development, fabrication, integration, assembly, installation, repair and refurbishment, system upgrade, testing and training," the Navy said. "The anticipated contract requirements are to support research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) and operational missions of several on-going projects."

The presolicitation states the desired underwater vehicle "must possess the following attributes: two man portable and capable of unsupported autonomous missions of up to ten months duration, long distance transits of up to 1,000 nautical miles in the open ocean, constant sea-surface expression, solar energy harvesting during daylight hours, propulsion via wave power harvesting at all vehicle-to-wave headings, commandable vehicle heading and autonomous on-board navigation to a given and reprogrammable latitude/longitude waypoint on the ocean's surface, instrumentation payloads of 20 pounds in air, power generation in support of instrumentation requirements of ten watts, sustained thrust adequate under own propulsion sufficient to tow loads having steady-state drag forces of ten pounds per square foot and transient drag forces of 20 pounds per square foot, survivability in sea states up to a rating of five and winds to 50 knots, minimal radar return, low likelihood of visual detectability, minimal radiated acoustic noise, and available tow point greater than 12 feet below sea surface."

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