SBIR/STTR Award attributes
The emergence of peer-competitors with advanced weapon capabilities has significantly increased the complexity of the international security environment and has challenged the notion that United States military forces will have a tactical combat advantage in all environments. To counter this disturbing trend and bolster national security, the United States Air Force (USAF) is seeking technology advancements in the area of autonomous collaboration for weapons. While industry has developed technologies in this area, industry has not focused their development efforts on enabling rapid integration of Networked, Collaborative, Autonomous (NCA) applications onto weapon sized form-factors. In order to facilitate competition, ease integration challenges, and enable rapid acquisition, the USAF requires the development of open communication subsystem standards tailored for weapons. These standards must utilize a modular open systems approach (MOSA) built within the weapons open system architecture (WOSA) framework. The objective of this Phase 2 SBIR effort is to develop and demonstrate the use of open communication standards to rapidly enable new NCA technologies into new and existing weapons. Success in this project would help to establish the first small weapon-size open communication standards optimized for NCA applications and pave the way for rapid modernization of the USAF armament portfolio.
