BRUSSELS — The Netherlands is the lead nation in an EU effort to build two mobile counter-IED labs for use by EU countries at a cost of about €10 million (US $10.6 million).
The money will come from an ad hoc EDA budget. The new labs are due to be available for deployment in theater an out of area theatre of operations by the end of 2015, according to an EDA official.
Coordinated by the European Defence Agency (EDA), There are currently 12 European countries involved in the project and others have expressed an interest in taking part. too. The twelve countries are Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden are involved, while other countries have also expressed interest in the project. Only these 12twelve countries currently can decide on where the labs would be deployed.the deployment of the labs.
The goalaim is to have the labs In terms of the useage of the labs, the aim is to have them ready to be deployed within five days and fully operational in a given mission area within 21 days.
The aim of the overall project is called JDEAL, short for the Joint Deployable Exploitation and Analysis Laboratory (JDEAL) The aim is to gather information about IEDs to better understand, contribute to understanding, identifying and reveal ing IED threat networks. This will in turn enable EU countries to adapt the tactics, techniques and procedures that they use in operations and training.
The EDA has already issued a tender, which cannot be seen by the general public, to produce two wholly deployable, fully functional laboratories, with all operational and technical functionalities as well as the adequate housing for them. The EDA Agency is currently evaluating offers received by industry in order to design, develop and deliver the JDEAL capability.
Asked which companies had responded to the tender, an EDA official said that had offers had been received but that "the names of the companies cannot be disclosed as the evaluation process is ongoing."
The technical functionalities required by the EDA's tender cover area such as electronics, chemical, media and documentation exploitation, triage, and command and control.
After the EDA has finalized contracts with supplier companies, the final delivery of a deployable JDEAL deployable capabilities is expected in the fourth quarter of 2015. The labs are expected to be ready for deployment in November or December. 2015 when the deployable capability is in place in the Netherlands and all the specific pre-deployment training has been done.
Email: jhale@defensenews.com
