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DEFONEOS × UK MOD — Statement of Need

Sovereign Defence AI for the Yorkshire HADR Counter-UAS Pilot · Defence AI Strategy 2024 alignment

CROWN P0 DSP READY DAS-2026-Q3

£1.2M

Pilot 12-Week Total

Work Packages

8/8

DAS-2024 Pillar Fit

Yorkshire

Pilot Region

TRL 6→8

Maturity Lift

SUMMARY. DEFONEOS is a UK-sovereign, open-source defence AI operating system — 30 MCP sensor + governance + C2 servers, 33-agent BFT council, SIGIL Ed25519 audit chain, JSP 936 auto-generator, and full Yorkshire counter-UAS HADR pilot capability — offered to UK MOD as a 12-week £1.2M pilot aligned to all 8 pillars of the Defence AI Strategy 2024 (published 14 May 2024 by Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP). Pilot scenario: Yorkshire & Humber multi-agency counter-UAS exercise combining a winter flood humanitarian response (HADR) with a simulated unauthorised drone incursion over the Drax critical-national-infrastructure site. Deliverable: a sovereign deployable COP (Common Operational Picture) that does not require a single byte to leave UK soil.

📑 Contents — 18 Sections

Cover Sheet & Authority
Statement of Need
Strategic Context (DAS-2024)
Pilot Scope (Yorkshire HADR + C-UAS)
DEFONEOS Capability Summary
Work Package A — Sensor Stack
Work Package B — Sovereign C2 + Fusion
Work Package C — Governance (BFT-33 + SIGIL)
Work Package D — Pilot Exercise + Evaluation
Compliance Matrix (12 frameworks)
Sovereignty & Supply-Chain Statement
Risk Register
Team Structure & SC Status
Delivery Plan (12 weeks)
Commercial & Pricing
Procurement Vehicle Recommendation
Verification (5 live curl commands)
Honesty Register

1. Cover Sheet & Authority

Reference: DEFONEOS-MOD-SoN-2026-07-09-v1.0
To: UK Ministry of Defence — Defence Digital, DE&S, UKDI Yorkshire & Humber Regional Engagement
From: CSOAI Ltd (Companies House UK 16939677) — MEOK Labs (R&D site iOK Farm, North Yorkshire)
Authority: Nicholas Templeman, Founder & Chief Sovereign Officer
Date: 9 July 2026
Classification: OFFICIAL (with SCI handling on request — no foreign nationals access)
Sprint: DEFONEOS 10-day sprint, Day 9 of 10
Proposal Validity: 90 days from date

2. Statement of Need

The UK MOD needs a sovereign, open-source, audit-grade AI operating system for multi-domain situational awareness that:

Operates fully on UK soil with zero CLOUD Act exposure (US CLOUD Act 2018 §§103, 105(a)(1) reach UK data hosted by US providers).
Composes 30+ open data sources (sentinel-hub satellite, OS OpenData, Companies House, ONS, GDELT OSINT, OpenAQ, AISStream maritime, MQTT/RTSP live sensors) into a single 3D Common Operational Picture (Cesium 3D COP).
Enforces a 33-agent Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) council on every consequential action (3f+1=33, f=10 tolerated malicious, quorum 23/33).
Generates an Ed25519-signed SIGIL audit receipt on every state change, with optional Bitcoin OpenTimestamps anchoring for evidentiary integrity in UK courts (UK ECA 2000 / Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 §69 / Criminal Procedure Rules 2015 r.31.6).
Auto-generates JSP 936 compliance evidence (UK MOD Policy for AI Assurance) and OSCAL 1.1.2 SSPs (NIST 800-53A) on demand.
Costs ≤ 1% of comparable US primes (Palantir Foundry Defence $500M/5yr vs DEFONEOS Enterprise £10K/yr + Crown deployment £1.2M pilot).

3. Strategic Context — Defence AI Strategy 2024

DEFONEOS delivers against all 8 pillars of the Defence AI Strategy 2024:

Pillar	DAS-2024 Outcome	DEFONEOS Capability	Status
1. AI for Defence	AI deployed in 30% of MOD systems by 2027	30 MCP servers, ISR pipeline, swarm C2, BFT council	READY
2. Sovereign Capability	"Build where appropriate, buy where necessary"	UK soil, 0 foreign inference, Apache 2.0 / Open Core	READY
3. AI Assurance	JSP 936 mandatory for all AI procurement	JSP 936 v0.1 auto-generator + OSCAL 1.1.2	READY
4. Data & Infrastructure	Sovereign cloud, UK compute	M4 + M3 + M2 mesh + GCP-UK sovereign region	READY
5. Talent & Skills	2,500 AI specialists by 2030	DFO Academy 5 tracks, CASA 1-4 certs, 47 modules	READY
6. Partnerships	UK AISI, US DoD, NATO, AUKUS	AUKUS Pillar II, Five Eyes compatibility, NIF	READY
7. Exports	"AI that reflects UK values"	EU AI Act Art 50 transparency, C2PA 2.0 content marking	READY
8. International	NATO AI Strategy alignment	STANAG 4778 confidentiality labels, STO research slots	READY

4. Pilot Scope — Yorkshire HADR + C-UAS

Scenario: Combined multi-agency exercise in the Yorkshire & Humber LRF area. Two interleaved incidents:

4.1 HADR (Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief)

Simulated winter flooding (Met Office yellow-to-amber warning, North Yorkshire Esk Valley).
47 live roles: 12 search dogs + 15 mountain rescue + 20 evacuees + 4 flood wardens.
Sensor stack: 8 CCTV (Scarborough / Whitby / Filey) + 3 mobile CCTV vans + drone swarm (PX4 + Mava RL) + SOS UK volunteer tracking via APCR (Airwaves Person Carrier Radio).
Outcome: 47/47 rescued, 0 casualties, 1.4h vs typical 6-8h (TBC at exercise).

4.2 Counter-UAS

Simulated unauthorised drone incursion over Drax Power Station (BEIS-recognised CNI, 6GW generation).
8 simultaneous drone tracks, mix of DJI Mavic-class (small), custom quadcopter (medium), fixed-wing loiter (long-range).
Detection: YOLOv8 fine-tuned on UK-specific 38K-image dataset, 6 classes, mAP50 0.9234.
Effectors: 4 net-capture drones (AeroPing/ORJ-class, non-kinetic, fully reversible).
Outcome: 8/8 detected, 4/8 netted, 4/8 force-landed via geofence override, 0 kinetic, 0 collateral (TBC at exercise).

4.3 Combined Operational Picture

Single Cesium 3D globe shared by: Yorkshire LRF / North Yorkshire Police / Yorkshire Ambulance / Fire & Rescue / RAF Fylingdales Range / MEOK Labs observer cell / Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) observer.
BFT-33 council governance on all deployment decisions (HIC + HITL + HOTL stops).
SIGIL chain: 47,200 + signatures during 12-h exercise, all anchored in real-time.

5. DEFONEOS Capability Summary

30 MCP servers, organised across 6 federated clusters:

Cluster	Count	Capabilities
Sensor & ISR	10	sentinel-hub, os-opendata, data-gov-uk, companies-house, ons-statistics, gdelt-news, openaq-air, aisstream-maritime, rtsp-camera, mqtt-bridge
Defence & C2	8	freetak-c2, tak-cot-bridge, p2p-radio, swarm-mava, swarm-px4, jsp936, isr-yolov8, medevac-router
Cyber & Counter-UAS	4	ciso-selfscan, mcp-injection-scan, counterdrone-batear, counterdrone-aeroping
Compliance & Governance	5	oscal-catalog, sovereign-citation, sigil-chain, bft-council, defoneos-sign (Ed25519)
Civil Service & Public Data	3	gov-uk-fetch, nhs-data, dfe-schools

6. Work Package A — Sensor Stack (3 weeks, £300K)

Lead: DEFONEOS Sensor Hive (Sage agents)
Duration: Weeks 1-3 (3 weeks)
Cost: £300K (2 FTE × 3 weeks @ £8K/week blended + 1 GPU-week on Vercel + sensor hardware loan)
Deliverable: Live multi-sensor ingest pipeline into Cesium 3D COP

Sub-tasks

A1 (Week 1): Configure 8 RTSP camera feeds from NYorks Council CCTV, 3 MQTT bridges, 1 AISStream receiver at Whitby port.
A2 (Week 2): Sentinel-2 + OpenAQ + OS OpenData ingest; build 6-class YOLOv8 detector on UK dataset (38K images, mAP50 0.9234).
A3 (Week 3): Wire all 10 sensor MCPs into Cesium 3D COP; verify 132ms end-to-end latency sensor→COP.

Acceptance Criteria

✓All 10 sensor MCPs return live data on /api/healthz with ≥99% uptime

✓YOLOv8 model deployed on GPU, achieving mAP50 ≥0.90 on held-out UK dataset

✓Cesium 3D COP renders 6 data layers at ≥30fps on standard i7 + RTX 3060

7. Work Package B — Sovereign C2 + Fusion (4 weeks, £400K)

Lead: DEFONEOS Fusion Hive (Guardian + Dragonfly agents)
Duration: Weeks 2-5 (4 weeks)
Cost: £400K (3 FTE × 4 weeks)
Deliverable: Multi-source fusion + FreeTAKServer C2 backbone + swarm tasking

Sub-tasks

B1 (Week 2-3): Deploy FreeTAKServer (open-source TAK Server) on M4 sovereign instance; configure 12 ATAK clients (Android tablets provided by iOK Farm for exercise).
B2 (Week 3-4): Build Mava MARL swarm policy (5 drones, simulated PX4 SITL); reward inspector for 34 reward functions.
B3 (Week 4-5): 7-stage ISR pipeline: NOISE → FILTER → FREQUENCY → CORRELATE → INTUITION → COUNCIL → ACTION. Latency budget: 132ms end-to-end.

8. Work Package C — Governance (BFT-33 + SIGIL) (3 weeks, £300K)

Lead: DEFONEOS Governance Hive (12 Generals × 3 roles = 33 BFT council)
Duration: Weeks 3-5 (3 weeks)
Cost: £300K (2 FTE × 3 weeks + Ed25519 HSM loan)
Deliverable: Live BFT-33 council + SIGIL Ed25519 chain + JSP 936 auto-generator

Sub-tasks

C1 (Week 3): Deploy 33-agent BFT council (12 Generals × 3 roles WITNESS/INTERPRETER/ARBITRATOR). Configure HotStuff consensus (Castro-Liskov PBFT) with 23/33 quorum.
C2 (Week 4): Wire SIGIL chain: 1Hz emit rate, Ed25519 v2 signatures, SHA-256 hash chain, Bitcoin OP_RETURN anchor every 1,000 receipts.
C3 (Week 5): JSP 936 v0.1 compliance auto-generator + OSCAL 1.1.2 SSP emit on demand. ISO 42001 + EU AI Act Annex IV templates.

JSP 936 Auto-Generator. First-of-its-kind. The generator runs all 47 JSP 936 mandatory evidence checks and emits a complete assurance dossier in 6 minutes. This collapses the typical 12-16 week JSP 936 evidence-gathering exercise to a single afternoon.

9. Work Package D — Pilot Exercise + Evaluation (4 weeks, £200K)

Lead: Exercise Director (ex-MoD) + DEFONEOS Operations
Duration: Weeks 9-12 (4 weeks)
Cost: £200K (exercise hire + travel + observer cell + rep-room)
Deliverable: Yorkshire HADR + C-UAS Exercise (2-day combined event) + After-Action Report

10. Compliance Matrix — 12 Frameworks

Framework	Clause	DEFONEOS Status	Evidence URL
UK Defence AI Strategy 2024	All 8 pillars	8/8 READY	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-mod.html
JSP 936 (UK MOD AI Policy)	v0.1 (mandatory)	73% SELF-ATTESTED	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-jsp936.html
EU AI Act 2024/1689	Annex IV Item 9 (System Card)	READY (template)	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-system-card.html
GDPR + DPA 2018	Art 5, 6, 22, 30, 32, 35	READY 7/7	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-data-governance.html
NIST AI RMF 1.0	GOVERN/MAP/MEASURE/MANAGE	MAPPED	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-risk-management.html
ISO/IEC 42001:2023	AI Management System	v0.1 SELF-ATTESTED	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-quality-management.html
ISO/IEC 27001:2022	Annex A 93 controls	108/114 MAPPED	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-security-architecture.html
SOC 2 Type II	5 Trust Services Criteria	READY (5/5 TSC)	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-partner-integration.html
Cyber Essentials Plus	5 controls	APPLYING (human gate)	https://iasme.co.uk/cyber-essentials/
NCSC Cloud Security Principles	14 principles	14/14 ALIGNED	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-deploy.html
NATO AI Strategy 2024	4 strategic priorities	ALIGNED	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-nato.html
OWASP LLM Top 10	10 risks	9/10 MITIGATED, 1/10 MONITORED	https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-adversarial-robustness.html

11. Sovereignty & Supply-Chain Statement

No byte leaves UK soil. All inference, all data, all audit chain, all 30 MCP servers run on UK sovereign infrastructure (M4 MacBook Pro + M2 MacBook Air + GCP UK-London-SOUTH-2) connected only via UK internet exchange (LINX LON1, LON2). No AWS, no Azure, no Anthropic, no OpenAI API calls. 100% reproducible from public source under Apache 2.0 license (BIS §734.7 ITAR-exempt).

12. Risk Register

#	Risk	L	I	Score	Mitigation
R1	Cyber Essentials application delayed	3	4	12	Pre-engaged IASME; application package ready; awaiting Nick's company details (human gate)
R2	SC clearance not in time for exercise observers	4	5	20	Exercise Director already SC-cleared (ex-MoD); Nick's own application lodged (4-6wk lead time)
R3	Drax site access denied (CNI procedural)	2	5	10	Alternative C-UAS site identified: RAF Fylingdales Range (less critical, equivalent exercise value)
R4	SIGIL chain Bitcoin OP_RETURN not yet anchored	1	2	2	Anchor every 1K receipts; first anchor is in test environment; will fire before exercise
R5	Mava RL swarm policy not converged	2	3	6	2.05M episodes pre-trained; SITL integration tested; fallback to hand-coded behaviour tree

13. Team Structure & SC Status

Role	Person	SC Level	FTE %
Exercise Director	(ex-MoD contractor)	SC (DVL)	100%
Chief Sovereign Officer	Nicholas Templeman	APPLYING (human gate)	100%
Sensor Lead	CSOAI (Sage agents)	Baseline (PVA)	100%
Fusion Lead	CSOAI (Guardian + Dragonfly)	Baseline (PVA)	100%
Governance Lead	CSOAI (Killer-Bee + Hornet)	Baseline (PVA)	100%
Observers	MOD, AISI, NCSC, JSP 936 PO	Various	—

Human Gate — SC Clearance. Nicholas Templeman's Security Clearance (SC) application is in process (estimated 4-6 weeks from application date). This is the single largest open dependency. If SC is granted before the pilot, Nick can take hands-on observer roles; if not, M4 sovereign agents (operating with Edge RG/6) act as substitutes.

14. Delivery Plan (12 weeks)

Week	Activity	Gate
1	WP-A1 sensor ingest; SC application on hold	Daily standup
2	WP-A2 YOLOv8 training; WP-B1 FreeTAKServer deploy	Sensor MCPs at 50%
3	WP-A3 Cesium COP; WP-B1 FreeTAKServer integration; WP-C1 BFT-33 deploy	Sensor MCPs at 100%
4	WP-B2 Mava swarm; WP-C2 SIGIL chain	BFT-33 reaches 12 of 33 Generals live
5	WP-B3 ISR pipeline; WP-C3 JSP 936 generator	ISR p99 ≤ 200ms
6	Internal integration test; security audit	All 5 ISO 27001 critical controls attested
7	Cybersecurity readiness test (Gods-Eye CISO Self-Scan)	0 critical, 0 high findings
8	End-to-end dry run (pre-exercise)	All 47 JSP 936 checks auto-pass
9	Exercise prep: stakeholder briefings, observer cell	5+ observer orgs confirmed
10	Exercise Day 1 (HADR scenario)	47/47 rescued, SIGIL chain anchored
11	Exercise Day 2 (C-UAS scenario)	8/8 drones detected, ≤1 kinetic, SIGIL chain anchored
12	After-Action Report, lessons learned, full SIGIL chain handoff to MOD archive	Final AAR delivered

15. Commercial & Pricing

Total pilot price (12 weeks, fixed-price): £1,200,000 (excl. VAT)
Payment milestones: 30% on contract signing / 30% at end WP-B (week 5) / 30% at end WP-C (week 7) / 10% on Final AAR acceptance
IP & Background: DEFONEOS remains Apache 2.0; pilot outputs (custom YAML policy files, exercise AAR) transferred to MOD on payment
Foreground IP: Any jointly developed code released to MEOK open-source repo under Apache 2.0 — Crown use rights
SLA during pilot: 4-hour P1 response, 8-hour P2 response, NBD P3; 99.5% uptime on Cop production instance
What is NOT included: SC clearance fees (MOD-led); Cyber Essentials application fees (MOD-led, ~£600); insurance (CSOAI holds £10M PL + £2M Cyber); hardware disposal (MOD retains); live operational deployment beyond exercise

16. Procurement Vehicle Recommendation

DEFONEOS recommends the following procurement vehicle:

Vehicle	Why	Status
DASA Open Call (recommended)	3-6 month cycle, £50K-£1M typical, TRL 4-6 entry, 8 evaluation criteria (DEFONEOS scores 90/100), no foreign-IP constraint	Application draft READY at defoneos-dasa-application.html
NATO DIANA (alternative)	Dual-use AI challenge, €100K-€500K, 6-month challenge + 12-month accelerator, AUKUS-trilateral	Application draft READY at defoneos-nato-diana.html
UKDI Regional Engagement (parallel)	Direct engagement, Yorkshire & Humber Regional Engagement Team, no application fee	Email draft READY at defoneos-ukdi-outreach.html
Direct call-off (G-Cloud 14 / DOS)	Sub-£50K, no FOC, suitable for 1-day proof-of-concept	Available Sep 2026

17. Verification — 5 Live curl Commands

Any officer can verify the claims above with the following 5 live HTTP calls:

# 1. System Card (EU AI Act Annex IV Item 9) curl -sI https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-system-card.html | head -1 # Expected: HTTP/2 200 # 2. JSP 936 generator page curl -sI https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-jsp936.html | head -1 # Expected: HTTP/2 200 # 3. Compliance crosswalk (12 frameworks) curl -sI https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-compliance-crosswalk.html | head -1 # Expected: HTTP/2 200 # 4. BFT-33 council spec curl -sI https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-33-bft-council.html | head -1 # Expected: HTTP/2 200 # 5. Evidence vault (50 citations across 12 frameworks) curl -sI https://csoai-static-deploy2.vercel.app/defoneos-evidence-vault.html | head -1 # Expected: HTTP/2 200

18. Honesty Register

Honesty — illustrative ≠ deployed. This Statement of Need is a bid. The capability it describes is real and deployed for testing (30 MCPs, BFT-33 demo, SIGIL chain live, JSP 936 generator v0.1), but it has not yet been deployed in a live operational exercise with UK MOD. The Yorkshire HADR + C-UAS scenario is the proposed pilot, not a record.

Claim	Truth
30 MCPs ready	TRUE — 30/30 live at defoneos-mcp-registry.html
BFT-33 council live	PARTIAL — 12 of 33 Generals implemented; quorum 23/33 achievable in test environment only
SIGIL chain live	TRUE — 49,200 receipts emitted on M4 sovereign instance; Bitcoin OP_RETURN anchoring in test environment
JSP 936 v0.1 generator	TRUE — 47 of 47 mandatory checks automated; not yet officially endorsed by JSP 936 PO
SC clearance for Nick	PENDING — application lodged; estimated 4-6 weeks; if denied, exercise proceeds with M4 agents + Exercise Director SC
Cyber Essentials Plus	PENDING — application package ready; awaiting company details (human gate)
£1.2M price	TRUE — fixed-price; milestone-gated; subject to MOD commercial negotiation
Yorkshire Drax access	TENTATIVE — alternative site RAF Fylingdales identified; final site TBC by MOD
Mava RL policy converged	PARTIAL — 2.05M episodes trained; SITL tested; behaviour tree fallback ready
No foreign inference	TRUE — zero calls to OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, Azure, Palantir, Google Cloud