Executive Summary
£200K
Fixed price (excl. VAT & T&S)
12 wks
From contract to certificate
100%
SIGIL-audited deliverables
The engagement
DEFONEOS Ltd will deploy a sovereign, air-gap-capable counter-drone (C-UAS) sensor fusion + decision stack onto MOD networks in 12 weeks, fixed-price £200K. End deliverable: a working deployment plus a JSP 936 compliant audit certificate, signed by a 33-agent BFT council, with every decision hash-chained to a publicly verifiable Ed25519 SIGIL ledger.
What the pilot proves
| Capability | Validation |
|---|
| Detect-Track-Classify-Respond loop | End-to-end on live drone swarm scenarios at MOD test range |
| Open-source sovereignty | 100% code reviewable. No proprietary dependencies. Audit-grade provenance. |
| UK regulatory compliance | JSP 936 AI assurance pack, JSP 440 spectrum, Cyber Essentials Plus ready |
| Operator workflow | Single-pane-of-glass TAK/ATAK interface. Designed for SNCO/JNCO use. |
| Defence procurement-ready | BFT governance, SIGIL audit, OFSI/SC-cleared personnel available |
What is OUT of scope (deferred to Phase 2)
- Hard-kill effectors (RF jamming authorised, kinetic requires DSTL sign-off)
- Multi-site federation (single-site deployment only)
- Sovereign AI model training (uses pre-trained SOV3 weights from this pilot)
- 24/7 SOC (in-pilot: business hours + on-call)
Why fixed-price
Fixed-price protects the buyer. If we miss a milestone, we eat the cost. The 12-week WBS is calibrated to a 3-engineer + 1 BFT-validator + 1 PM delivery pod; any scope expansion goes through formal change control with capped T&M rates.
12-Week Work Breakdown Structure
Six two-week phases. Each phase has a SIGIL-anchored gate review before the next phase is allowed to start.
1
Weeks 1–2 · Sovereign Stack Deploy
Provision SOV3 substrate on MOD network (air-gapped or accredited enclave). Deploy 10 core MCPs (ISR, TAK, BFT, C2, audit). BFT council initialised. All SIGIL chains anchored.
GATE 1
2
Weeks 3–4 · Sensor Integration
On-site installation of acoustic (Batear), RF (PX4 radar), EO/IR (gimbal), and AIS (if maritime variant) sensors. Sensor-to-fusion pipeline tested. Operator workflow validated with SNCO users.
GATE 2
3
Weeks 5–6 · C-UAS Loop Build
Detect (acoustic+RF) → Track (Kalman) → Classify (YOLOv8 + OpenAthena) → Decide (BFT vote) → Respond (RF jam authorise, EO slew, alert chain). End-to-end test on benign surrogate drone.
GATE 3
4
Weeks 7–8 · Scenario Validation
Live C-UAS exercise at approved MOD range. DJI Mavic + custom fixed-wing swarm. Measure latency, false-positive rate, operator workload. Iterate on classification thresholds.
GATE 4
5
Weeks 9–10 · JSP 936 Compliance Audit
Run 33-agent BFT council compliance audit per JSP 936 AI assurance pack. Produce evidence pack: model cards, training data lineage, risk register, human-in/on-loop evidence, red-team results. Sign with Ed25519.
GATE 5
6
Weeks 11–12 · Handover + Phase 2 Pitch
Operator training (2 days). Runbooks. Phase 2 proposal for multi-site federation, hard-kill integration, 24/7 SOC. Lessons-learned report SIGIL-anchored.
GATE 6
Milestone payment gates
| Gate | Week | Deliverable | Payment |
|---|
| 1 | 2 | Stack operational on MOD network | 20% (£40K) |
| 2 | 4 | Sensors integrated, operator workflow signed off | 20% (£40K) |
| 3 | 6 | C-UAS loop end-to-end with surrogate drone | 20% (£40K) |
| 4 | 8 | Live exercise results validated | 15% (£30K) |
| 5 | 10 | JSP 936 audit signed | 15% (£30K) |
| 6 | 12 | Handover + Phase 2 proposal | 10% (£20K) |
Delivery Team
5-person core pod. All BPSS-cleared at minimum; 2x SC-cleared available. All UK-based.
Engagement Lead / BFT Validator
10+ years defence AI. UK SC. Chairs 33-agent BFT council for compliance gate. Single point of accountability.
Lead SOV3 / Substrate Engineer
Architect of the sovereign substrate. Deploys and hardens SOV3 onto MOD network. Owns air-gap story.
Sensor Fusion Engineer
Acoustic + RF + EO/IR pipeline. Kalman tracker. YOLOv8 + OpenAthena classification. Latency tuning.
BFT / Compliance Engineer
33-agent BFT council operator. JSP 936 evidence pack author. SIGIL chain custodian.
Programme Manager
Schedule, risk, change control. Single POC for buyer. Phase 2 proposal author.
On-call Operator Liaison
Ex-military SNCO/JNCO. Trains end users. Captures usability feedback into backlog.
Working patterns
- Weekly progress review (30 min) with buyer's technical POC
- Bi-weekly steering committee (60 min) with buyer's senior responsible owner
- On-site presence weeks 3-4, 7-8, 11-12 (sensor install, exercise, handover)
- Daily SIGIL commit to dedicated pilot chain (visible to buyer)
- All code committed to private GitHub repo, mirrored to buyer's chosen VCS
Commercial Structure
| Line | Amount |
|---|
| Phase 1 (Weeks 1-2): Sovereign Stack Deploy | £40,000 |
| Phase 2 (Weeks 3-4): Sensor Integration | £40,000 |
| Phase 3 (Weeks 5-6): C-UAS Loop Build | £40,000 |
| Phase 4 (Weeks 7-8): Scenario Validation | £30,000 |
| Phase 5 (Weeks 9-10): JSP 936 Compliance | £30,000 |
| Phase 6 (Weeks 11-12): Handover + Phase 2 Pitch | £20,000 |
| Total Fixed Fee | £200,000 |
|---|
What's included
- All labour for the 5-person pod
- Open-source software (Apache 2.0 / MIT / GPL — buyer keeps all IP)
- SIGIL audit trail + 33-agent BFT validation
- 2-day end-user operator training (up to 12 students)
- Runbook + 12-month defect warranty
What's NOT included (rechargeable at cost)
- Hardware sensors (acoustic arrays, RF, EO/IR, compute) — option to procure via DSP
- T&S for on-site visits (MOD site access permits assumed granted)
- SC clearance upgrades if needed for restricted data
- Hard-kill effector integration (deferred to Phase 2)
- 24/7 SOC (deferred to Phase 2)
Payment terms
30 days from invoice. Invoices raised at each gate. Buyer may withhold gate payment pending SIGIL evidence of completion — 5-day dispute window, then auto-release.
Risk Register & Mitigations
| Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation |
|---|
| MOD network accreditation delay | Medium | High (slips gates) | Phase 1 runs in DEFONEOS' sovereign enclave in parallel; cut-over at week 3 once accredited |
| Sensor supply chain (acoustic arrays) | Medium | Medium | Pre-validated supply chain from existing DEFONEOS sensor blitz; 2-week buffer |
| BFT council fails to reach quorum | Low | High | 33 agents, quorum 23/33. Geo-distributed across 4 UK regions. Failover to 21-agent reduced quorum with buyer consent. |
| SIGIL chain corruption / dispute | Very Low | High | Ed25519 hash-chained; tamper-evident. Daily anchor to Bitcoin (proofof.ai) provides external immutability. |
| Live exercise weather/availability | Medium | Medium | 2 weeks of contingency built into Phase 4-5. Alternative: synthetic swarm (validated against live-data baseline). |
| Personnel loss (resignation/illness) | Low | High | 2-person redundancy on every role; cross-trained pod. Backup bench: 3 additional SC-cleared engineers. |
Exit criteria
The buyer may exit at any gate with 5 business days notice. On exit:
- All completed work delivered in source form, Apache 2.0
- Full SIGIL audit trail handed over
- Pro-rated refund of any unspent gate payment (net of sunk cost)
- 30-day knowledge-transfer period at DEFONEOS' T&M rate
Success criteria (all must be met)
- Live C-UAS exercise: detect ≥95%, classify ≥85%, false-positive ≤5%
- End-to-end sensor-to-decision latency ≤3 seconds
- JSP 936 audit pack signed by 33-agent BFT (quorum 23/33) with ≥80% confidence
- ≥3 operators trained and signed off competent
- SIGIL chain 100% intact and independently verifiable on proofof.ai
Why this beats the alternative
vs Palantir (£50M+/yr, 18 months)
£200K vs £50M+. 12 weeks vs 18 months. Open source vs proprietary. UK sovereign vs US-headquartered. SIGIL-audited vs opaque.
vs Bespoke build (£1.5M, 9 months)
£200K vs £1.5M+. Reusable 30-MCP substrate vs throwaway prototype. BFT governance built in vs bolted on. JSP 936 pack from day 1.