What project AB2 buys
This project advances fundamental science in areas of military engineering, biosciences, geospatial, and data sciences. The project expands basic understanding of complex biological, chemical, geospatial, and material properties and processes at varying scales and time to support applied research and advanced technology development in the future. Work is performed by the United States (U.S.) Army Engineer Research and Development Center.
Project AB2 funding, FY2025–FY2031
Prior years are actuals, the budget year is the request, and the outyears are the FYDP plan. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure. Projects carry the full five-year plan; the activities inside them stop at the budget year.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 19.5 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 15.7 |
| FY2027 | Request | 14.3 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 14.6 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 14.8 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 15.0 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 15.1 |
5 accomplishments / planned programs
The R-2A exhibit — the only level of the budget that describes work that has not happened yet. Activities carry the prior, current and budget year only, no five-year plan. Coverage is partial across the corpus, so count activities, never total them.
FY2027 planned work Will continue fundamental research to understand basic principles of governing natural processes of the environment. Will compute non-stationary EDS and the production rates of excited and fragmentary species in atmospheric gases, using first-principles simulations. Will explore how this super radiant behavior is compatible with tryptophan distributed across different protein structures and to discover how it works in complex environments, such as free media and polymer matrices, and across conditions of pH and temperature. Will discover the contribution of wet silk components including peroxinectin toward wet silk adhesiveness and unnamed protein containing a proline, glutamate, valine…
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects economic adjustments.
FY2026 plans — current year Will explore how three-dimensional designed polypeptides interact with other polymer composites to promote super radiant behavior. Will examine fundamental understanding of how synthetic biology information processing could inform quantum computing architecture to transform existing computational paradigms. Will understand how arctic rusting is impacting fundamental terrain properties on Army training lands. Will investigate the fundamental structure-property relationships of novel covalent organic framework materials used for water uptake in diverse environments. Will analyze physicochemical properties of covalent organic frameworks and metallic organic frameworks with computational…
FY2025 accomplishments Continued to conduct fundamental research into novel biological mechanisms or natural and geological processes. Pursued basic research in biotechnology to understand biological approaches and mechanisms for future Army technology advancements. Investigated complex environmental, chemical, and biological processes and features to fill knowledge gaps and inform future Army applications. Investigated Lanthanide Binding Peptides (LBP) and LBP-derived visible and near infrared (VIS/NIR) materials using high-throughput genetic engineering, scanning antenna molecules for amplification across the VIS/NIR spectra. Provided fundamental knowledge on the effects of indigenous soil microbial community…
FY2027 planned work Will gain fundamental scientific knowledge of how environmental phenomena impact engineering system performance. Will investigate novel multi-scale characterization and materials modeling to inform multi-scalar understanding and predictive methodologies for comprehensive materials engineering, including fundamental energy mechanics of advanced polymers. Will pursue discovery of fundamental compositional properties of engineered materials with enhanced performance, improved function, and reduced weight for future force protection and force projection applications. Will expand understanding of surf-zone processes during delayed arctic freeze-up. Will continue exploring unique microstructures…
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects economic adjustments.
FY2026 plans — current year Will gain fundamental knowledge of environmental phenomena that impact engineering system performance. Will investigate multi-scale characterization and modeling of materials. Will pursue the discovery of fundamental compositional properties of engineered materials with enhanced performance, improved function, and reduced weight for future force protection and force projection applications. Will investigate variability in thermo-hydromechanical properties of arctic soils and how cold-region soil property relationships are sustained. Will increase understanding of surf-zone processes during delayed arctic freeze-up. Will continue to investigate adaptive acoustics in atmospheric turbulence…
FY2025 accomplishments Continued to gain fundamental scientific knowledge of the environmental phenomena that impact engineering system performance. Investigated multi-scale characterization and modeling of materials. Pursued the discovery and design properties of engineered materials with enhanced performance, improved function, and reduced weight for future force protection and force projection applications. Investigated tunability for laser protective materials via a novel class of metallic supramolecular-based materials capable of reverse saturable absorption (RSA), the mechanism responsible for the nonlinear optical (NLO) limiting effect. Explored structure-property relationships of polyurethane-based…
FY2027 planned work Will further extend fundamental understanding of the Earth surface including features, patterns, and dynamic processes. Carry out novel terrain science investigations to exploit emerging high-dimensional geospatial, remote sensing, or numerical data. Will explore innovative methods, modalities, and techniques for wide area geospatial data collection.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects economic adjustments.
FY2026 plans — current year Will extend fundamental understanding of the Earth surface including features, patterns, and dynamic processes. Carry out novel investigations to exploit emerging high-dimensional geospatial, remote sensing, or numerical data. Will explore innovative methods, modalities, and techniques for geospatial data collection over wide areas.
FY2025 accomplishments Continue to pursue fundamental research to understand Earth surface attributes and dynamic terrain processes affecting the situational understanding of military multi-domain operations from a geospatial perspective. Investigated emergent geospatial patterns or behaviors derived from complex emerging, high dimensional, numerical, semantic, or ancillary data. Performed experiments to identify physical phenomena important to model the acoustic response of very thin ice. Sought an understanding of how the physical and optical properties of man-made materials relate to light polarization. Explored the signature physics of non-stationary hydrodynamic processes in ground-based imagery of water…
FY2027 planned work Will continue fundamental research to develop a scalable solution for artificial photosynthesis of fuel by catalytic reduction of CO2, in water, using self-assembled 3D- plasmonic molecules with over 90 percent conversion efficiency.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects economic adjustments.
FY2026 plans — current year Will conduct fundamental research into understanding of processes of generating artificial photosynthesis of with three dimensional molecules with over ninety percent efficiency. Will gain fundamental scientific knowledge of the environmental phenomena that impact engineering system performance.
FY2025 accomplishments Continued to explore fundamental elements of natural or manmade processes and materials, data science, and energy science to inform future advances in Army infrastructure. Pursued fundamental research to understand the interplay between pH gradients and mineral formation using novel correlated chemical and physical probe techniques. Pursued fundamental research to computationally and empirically elucidate the effect of extreme temperature on the efficiency of spray-printed photothermal conversion co-crystals, opening a fundamental line of inquiry that may inform future solar heat harvesting. Investigated ways to use earthen materials to create a medium to transport ionic materials.
FY2027 planned work Will explore fundamental mathematical underpinnings and computational methods, investigate foundational data science and analytic methods, and identify foundational methods to improve the speed, reduce the complexity, or improve the completeness of the complex decisions required for agile military system development.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding profile reflects an increase in basic research efforts that explore foundational computational sciences to include new, innovative, faster, and more robust mathematical and/or computational methods and computational data modeling of physical, environmental, and military systems to support digital engineering processes.
FY2026 plans — current year Will explore foundational computational, data, and mathematical underpinnings to provide new innovations and knowledge to inform complex military systems. Will investigate foundational data analytic methods to improve assessment and decision-making through computational data modeling of complex physical, environmental, and military systems.
FY2025 accomplishments Explored foundational computational, data, and mathematical scientific underpinnings to provide new innovations and knowledge to inform complex military systems. Investigated foundational methods and data analytics to inform future computational modeling of physical, environmental, and military systems.