Tender: MINERVA Initiative – Windows-Based UAS Airspace Deconfliction Software for DND/Canadian Army

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The Department of National Defence (DND) is seeking a supplier for a Windows-based software solution under the MINERVA Initiative to provide an airspace common operating picture that enables planning, deconfliction and control of uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) traffic and associated radio frequency (RF) spectrum use for the Canadian Army. The required solution must create and store flight plans including RF requirements, maintain a flight-plan repository that stores 4D (3D + time) trajectories and spectrum requirements, integrate supplemental data services such as crewed aircraft flight plans and weather, generate optimal 4D flight paths based on mission goals and physical limits, check new flight requests against existing plans, airspace constraints and RF requests to detect and resolve conflicts (via set priorities or human decision), and generate 4D deconflicted airspace blocks (“tunnels” or “boxes”). Additional desired capabilities include analyzing real-time UAS data to prevent collisions and automatically adjust flight paths, real-time monitoring of adherence to pre-approved trajectories, and demonstrating capacity to have critical components (radio, ground control station, on-board computer, any software) produced or sourced in NATO, NATO Partner or Major Non‑NATO Ally countries with OEM and origin details provided. The Challenge is funded under the Innovative Solutions Canada Call for Proposals with a contract funding mechanism, a maximum Phase 2 contract value of $500,000 CAD (excluding applicable taxes, shipping, travel and living expenses), Phase 2 durations up to 15 months, and an estimated five Phase 2 contracts; multiple contracts may result and selected companies are eligible for one contract per phase per challenge. Prototype demonstration travel to Suffield, Alberta is required; meetings (kick-off, progress review, final review) will be by telephone or videoconference. Offerors may include an optional attachment (8.5" x 11", up to 10 MB, JPG/GIF/TIF/PDF/PNG) which is not mandatory but is part of the Additional Outcomes scoring.