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Part III of III Parts
Hannah Lander was connected with the United Kingdom—UK—of Great Britain—GB—Ministry of Defence’s—MOD’s—Defence Sourcing Portal—DSP—underwater transducers request for information—RFI. Attempting to honour copyright: the present article in orange-brown-italics paraphrased—if not quotes—the aforementioned RFI with response in black text.
DISCLAIMER
The present website ought not be confused with the MOD’s ‘Defence Gateway’ linked to here, or the aforementioned DSP. The present website, however, expands upon certain DSP publications and promotes profitable interaction with its readership.
For those who would prefer hearing articles—rather than reading them—an online audio-video version shall herein be linked to. It is our intent to make the same available after the present readable article has been published. Graphics and data that are not available in the video are to be displayed throughout the present readable article.
UNDERWATER TRANSDUCER CAPABILITY: RFI RESPONSE CONCLUDED
PROJECT
RQ 00 00 08 46 46,
Romeo Quebec quintuple zero, eight, four six, four six.
A REHASH OF REQUESTS AND RESPONSES
Only information is presently requested. The MOD collects information regarding organisations within the UK with an expertise in acoustic transducers and their systems.
The aforementioned organisation types may comprise academia, large corporations, small-to-medium enterprises, and start-ups in business, in decreasing population order.
By late spring of 2026, defencegateway.xyz— dgx —was a start-up which represented a number of other start-ups.
One such business start-up possesses acoustic or transducers or hydrophone intellectual property—IP. Their aforementioned IP exists in the range from the second to the seventh technology readiness levels—TRL 2 to TRL 7—inclusive.
The TRL grading mentioned accords with the evaluation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA. So—in other words—the aforementioned start-up has access to acoustic transducer formulation, know-how, proofs of concept, laboratory and field prototypes.
‘• Employment / group size with regards to transducers expertise’
Presently, there are at least three dgx loosely-affiliated businesses and organisations capable of designing and manufacturing high-fidelity transducers—and their components.
• website
defencegateway.xyz
‘• location’
UK territory
‘• openness to collaborate’
Start-ups represented by dgx are looked after by the same. As such, dgx is open to collaborating with any organisation whose interaction history was at least ‘neutral’ in behavioural-quality.
‘• interest in working with defence’
A sense of duty and excitement at viewing the DSP opportunities is what tethers dgx to offer products and services. Despite this, the work-culture that we have thus far experienced—in regards to the treatment of data-collectors and researchers—is wanting …
‘No funding will be provided for participation in this RFI.’
… And it is this type of policy that is the source of some of our reservations. We aim to provide a positive solution, shortly, though in the present article …
‘Suppliers are not required to provide any information on costs.’
… One reading of the above quoted excerpt is that: money is no object. In other words: the project is of sufficient import so as to be adequately funded.
Yet the present RFI pertaining to transducers and their associated systems, amounts to a literary review. It is necessary to establish background research prior to project undertaking, proper.
This work goes unfunded by the MOD, at the non-trivial relative expense to small businesses! The situation is akin to enlisting unpaid scouts who are instrumental for success in an ensuing military engagement.
… Enabling the sovereign sage—as well as the good general—striking, conquest, the achievement of feats beyond ordinary men’s reach, is foreknowledge.
This foreknowledge can not be augured from the spirits; it cannot be inductively obtained from experience, nor by calculation—however deductive.
Knowledge pertaining to the dispositions of the enemy can be only obtained from other men.
Therefore scouts are utilised, of whom their sort are five:
Local,
Inward,
Converted,
Doomed,
Surviving.
When these five types of scouts are all employed, no one can unveil the secret system. This is named:
‘divine manipulation of the threads.’
It is the most precious faculty of the sovereign.
Enlisting local scouts means employment of the services of the district’s inhabitants …
The passage excerpt was the centred italicised text between the two ellipses. It was paraphrased from a translation of the General Sun Tsu’s ‘the Art of War’, Book Thirteen.
Returning to the MOD’s RFI …
Information ought to be submitted to Sam Sparks
Email:
ssparks@dstl.gov.uk
By 16th June 2026. The ‘Work Category’ is ‘Supplies’
For ‘Buyer Details’, the ‘Buyer Organisation’ is the MOD, and contact is Hannah Lander
Email:
hlander@dstl.gov.uk
The actual project listing can be found on the DSP website, which is often updated. As such, any link to the project webpage would quickly expire.
Prior to the aforementioned deadline … The present acoustic transducers related project title:
‘Underwater Transducer Capability’
Can be searched as a current DSP opportunity. Beyond the deadline, the previous quoted phrase should be searchable as a past DSP opportunity.
SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEM
At last, we present a solution to what we see as a problem with the RFI system in general. It may not be a problem for other organisations, but we doubt this.
Our solution is an inconvenience for the final winner of an anticipated tender. This is because the tender often only exists due to the unpaid labour of the non-winning RFI responders.
The winner, assuming they even participated in the RFI, is compensated by their contract.
We therefore propose that the prize, the winning contract sum, be reduced and paid ‘backwards’. In this way, the RFI researchers’ compensation ranges from national minimum wage, to post graduate student rates of payment.
A student studying for their doctorate in philosophy—PhD—is accustomed to receiving funding during their IP background search or literature review. Paying businesses less than this impacts the quality of the information submitted in the request—and thus: project scope and depth.
Underpaying researchers tends to result in project products and services that are soon obsolete in a dangerously competitive world.
As such, we offer our solution to this recruitment oversight.
For example:
The transducers or their components’ RFI may have a number N of relevant and required pieces of information. The transducer’s:
Power rating
Mass
Dimensions
Sensitivity
Robustness
As an exemplary five pieces of information. Let us call these, N = 5, five categories.
For each category, the first three or so RFI-responding-organisations should be considered under the following conditions.
They must each provide mutually corroborating, yet independently sourced information.
Upon this … They should receive part of the prize-money that would have otherwise been fully-allocated to the anticipated transducers related tender-contract winner.
When the three or so organisations satisfy the category requirements, then the RFI section for that category is closed. The RFI response organisation or supplier community is notified to prevent the waste of their labour, time … And thus, national resources.
Of course, each category may have a sub-category which accounts for different technologies. Let us take transducers or their components’ electrical ‘power rating’ as an example.
The device may operate on alternating or direct current—AC or DC respectively—depending upon geographical deployment.
In such cases, then the following three paragraphs are duly considered.
The first three or so independently sourced and mutually-corroborated AC RFI responding organisations should be paid. This subcategory then ought to be closed upon the aforementioned community’s notification.
The first three or so independently sourced and mutually-corroborated DC RFI responding organisations should be paid. This subcategory then should also be closed upon the aforementioned community’s notification.
… And so on, until all required information has been gathered across all categories and subcategories. Let us call this approach: ‘tasking’; it does not require a structured questionnaire, only that incoming organisation responses are read.
Reiteration and clarification:
The MOD acquires the information required per category or subcategory. Once the first three or so organisations with expertise in transducers respond independently and definitively, then they are paid.
A categorised modular and access-adjustable database would nucleate. For security, this could require login to it, hosted on the DSP website.
Alternatively, the database could be hosted on non-MOD websites. An example of such is:
defencegateway.xyz
For those projects which can be informed by its affiliated personnel. For other projects, different websites may be used.
The present website:
defencegateway.xyz
And others could record the contributions of the RFI responders. MOD personnel could also frequently visit websites such as:
defencegateway.xyz
To award the RFI responders proportionally … According to the hours taken to have gathered the information.
There is information that is not readily available online, or readily accessible to artificial-intelligence—AI. There is information that has been sourced from academic journals—whose access is not always free. The acquisition of limited accessibility knowledge, privileged information, ought to be rewarded proportionally.
We at dgx hope that this measure will prevent the anticipated selection of skewed data reporting for future RFIs. It is perhaps too late to apply such a policy to the present transducers RFI.
At present, the organisations that are least injured by donating labour and funds are the largest. These large organisations may present conflicts of interest in biassed reporting of information, tending to follow predictable industrial—design and manufacturing—trends.
Some smaller organisation innovation is unfunded and underreported. These prove disruptive when civilian IP migrates commercially, is developed internationally, and inexorably militarised.
The UK may not be able to directly compete with the larger global-superpowers, however strategic-innovation can contribute to her relevance.
This often involves access to those capable of predicting technological disruption across timescales ranging from years to a decade ahead. The start-ups represented by dgx have already vindicated themselves in this regard.
This is the final post in the short series.
To return to the first post or the previous post, click on the relevant links in the present sentence.
Defence Gateway Expansion 
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