Research Area 17: Weapons Autonomy Technology Research

RWWN is interested in novel hardware, software, and algorithms to support and enable autonomous weapon concepts and capabilities especially in highly contested environments. Novel bio-inspired sensing and wide-field-of-view seeker hardware are desired to create improved situational awareness as well as improved integrated sensing-control algorithms. Test and evaluation hardware and scene generation technology are also desired for distributed aperture and wide-field sensing. Limited communication in contested environments might require decentralized, high-level cognitive functions: technologies that enable context-aware reasoning, multi-agent coordination, graceful performance degradation, and inherently flexible or reconfigurable operation are highly desired. Unified architectures or mathematical languages applicable to the control and coordination of heterogeneous information services and that enable verifiable, trusted autonomy are also sought. Network-aware capabilities, especially technology that cognitively matches machines with human oversight, would enable trusted cooperation and increased capacity for autonomous weapon deployment. Finally, science and technology that allows for fractionated weapon performance (having capability spread across multiple assets that coordinate to deliver a desired effect) and composable functions (where disparate capabilities can be combined synergistically to create multiple desired effects) are also of interest.