Air Force launches anti-tamper program to protect weapons from theft and reverse engineering
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio, 12 May 2016. U.S. Air Force researchers are asking industry for new anti-tamper technologies to help safeguard U.S. military weapon systems from exploitation, reverse engineering, technology theft, and countermeasures.
Officials of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, issued a broad agency announcement Wednesday (BAA-AFLCMCXZZ-2016-0001) for the AFLCMC/XZZ Anti-Tamper program.
Military leaders need anti-tamper technology to prevent U.S. military secrets from falling into enemy hands from the capture or loss of sensitive military electronics that contains sensitive information or advanced component technologies.
The 5-year program seeks to mature anti-tamper technologies in four areas: secure commercial off the shelf (COTS) architectures; secure COTS processor solutions; anti-tamper sensor technology; anti-tamper enabling technology.
Secure COTS computing architectures involves the exploitation of critical program information from systems assembled from COTS parts. This kind of technology will be compatible with defense industry open-architecture designs to enable upgrades of unsecure systems to more secure versions.
Related: It is time to take anti-tamper technology seriously
Secure COTS processor solutions involves technologies to enable secure field programmable gate array (FPGA) software that resides on programmable hardware to protect critical program information at rest and during runtime from known exploitation techniques.
Anti-tamper sensor technology would offer anti-tamper protections to new or legacy military systems, including any type of enclosure, packaging, and sensors that can protect critical program information at the system, board, or component level.
Anti-tamper enabling technology, meanwhile, will support development of secure COTS architectures processors when integrated into new or existing components that can support a secure system.
Air Force experts say they want to award several contracts in the AFLCMC/XZZ Anti-Tamper program -- each one worth between $500,000 and $2 million. The entire program should spend about $49 million. Contractors chosen must have valid security clearances.
Companies interested should email white papers no later than 30 June 2016 to the Air Force's Timothy Gicale at [email protected]. The Air Force will invite formal proposals for the most promising ideas.
For technical questions contact the Air Force's Duncan Dversdall by email at [email protected], or by phone at 937-255-3458. Also contact Ann Miller by email at [email protected], or by phone at 937-255-3411.
For contracting questions contact timothy Gicale by email at [email protected], or by phone at 937-255-7855.
More information is online at https://www.fbo.gov/notices/c3167f99821779e274542e6550d7efcc.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
