ARMADA Marine Robotics has won the Option phase of their SBIR Phase I award to develop an external payload deployment system (EPADS) for cylindrical unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) for the Navy. This enables ARMADA to extend their development and testing of the initial prototype EPADS. The Navy also said that it intends to award ARMADA the Phase II contract for $1M over two years to design, build and test working advanced prototypes of EPADS. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a partner for the Phase I Option and the Phase II contract.