The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a $21.4 million contract to Invincea Inc., a provider of threat detection and breach prevention, to develop secure smart phone and tablet mobile platforms for military use.

The project, called “Mobile Armour,” focuses on developing security innovation for the Android OS for a government environment. Invincea will leverage its subsidiary Invincea Labs work in the creation of a secure Android-based OS for tactical mobile devices used by soldiers in forward-deployed operations in enemy territory.

U.S. Army personnel in Afghanistan are already field testing initial versions of secure phones and tablets. Based on the results of this field test, DARPA and the U.S. Army has opted to expand the scope of the project to include new security enhancements, which led to the awarding of this contract.

Invincea hopes that the mobile platforms developed for this contract will also be applicable to the commercial and consumer markets.