Brenda Marie Rivers
The General Services Administration is looking for potential sources of drone and artificial intelligence capabilities to support the Joint AI Center’s humanitarian assistance and disaster relief technology development initiative.
GSA said in a notice posted Dec. 23 on the beta SAM website that its Federal Systems Integration and Management Center seeks search-and-rescue drone platforms fitted with sensors and edge-level AI processing features.
The Department of Defense unit intends to send AI-driven drone swarms that will follow a predetermined flight pattern, detect individuals and man-made items and transmit the information to analysts at a control station through datalink.
According to the request for information, the SAR drones must have the capacity to operate for at least two hours and be launched from air, sea and ground. The drones must also fly at an airspeed of at least 50 knots and be air-droppable from a larger aircraft.
Technologies that will result from the program will support efforts to establish an “end-state environment where human-resources are not required to constantly watch the sensor, but they can be cued to respond when something of interest is identified,†the notice stated.
Interested parties may submit responses to the RFI until Jan. 20.
