Tectonic Defense reported July 30 that Syracuse-based sensor manufacturer Hidden Level received a $100 million Other Transaction Agreement from the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering through Army Contracting Command [1].
According to the outlet, the agreement gives Pentagon customers an enterprise-style path to order Hidden Level hardware, services and software subscriptions through task orders. Hidden Level CEO Jeff Cole told Tectonic that task orders worth millions of dollars had already been placed [1].
The report identified the company’s Breaker fixed-site sensor, Surge mobile radar, BYOTx transmitter and Airspace Monitoring Service as products covered by the agreement. Tectonic also quoted Mike Tran, director of prototyping at the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Prototyping and Experimentation, who said the award gives the department a mechanism to mature, evaluate and transition advanced sensing into operations [1].
Land Offset did not identify an accompanying federal contract announcement, SAM.gov award notice or Hidden Level release for the specific OTA in its review of available public sources. The ceiling, task-order structure and product scope are therefore reported here as attributed by Tectonic and its named sources.
A separate FoCUS position
The reported OTA is separate from Hidden Level’s documented role in the Army’s Family of Counter-UAS Systems, or FoCUS. A July 27 Army sources-sought notice says FoCUS is a multi-sensor, multi-modal counter-drone system already integrated on multiple tactical ground platforms [2].
The notice seeks vendors capable of rapidly producing palletized FoCUS hardware. It says the government has a technical data package and bill of materials for the platform integrations, but it neither identifies suppliers nor announces a production award [2].
An FCC experimental-license filing by Hidden Level states that the company was tasked with developing a low-size, weight and power multistatic-radar receiver for integration into FoCUS [3]. That filing documents a design role, not a guarantee of future production sales.
The department awarded Hidden Level $10 million in 2023 through the APFIT pilot program for platform-agnostic, day-night, modular passive radar for small-drone detection and tracking [4]. Hidden Level says its Army layered passive counter-drone capability transitioned to a program of record in 2024 with a 10-year resource commitment [5].
The two pathways matter for different reasons. The reported OTA would provide a department-wide vehicle for ordering Hidden Level’s own sensing products. The FoCUS effort is an Army-owned system architecture moving toward production, with a documented Hidden Level passive-radar integration. Neither source publicly links the new OTA to the forthcoming FoCUS production competition.
AI generated
References
[1] Exclusive: Hidden Level Wins $100M Pentagon-Wide Contract
[2] Production of Palletized FoCUS System — SAM.gov
[3] Hidden Level FCC Experimental License Application Narrative
[4] DoD Announces Second Set of Projects to Receive Funding From the Pilot Program to Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT)
[5] Hidden Level Defense