What project AB4 buys
This project encompasses three types of Centers. The first is the Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institutions (HBCU/MI) Research Centers of Excellence which support the Army's research partnerships with HBCUs/MIs. The HBCU/MI Research Centers of Excellence were established as the next phase of what was previously known as the Partnered Research Initiative (PRI) Program that ended in Fiscal Year 2020. The focus of the HBCU/MI Research Centers of Excellence Program is to advance innovative basic research leading to potential technology development in areas of strategic importance to the Army by competitively selecting HBCU and MI research teams for grants or cooperative agreements. Awards have five-year periods of performance, with all supporting the Army's goal of broadening the performer base and diversifying the research ecosystem in the areas of information sciences, engineering, and physical sciences. The second is the University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs). Army UARCs have been created to exploit opportunities to advance new capabilities through a sustained long-term multidisciplinary effort. The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies focuses on Soldier protection by emphasizing revolutionary materials research for advanced Soldier protection and survivability. The Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies focuses on enabling network centric-technologies and broadening the Army's use of biotechnology for the development of bio-inspired materials, sensors, and information processing. The Institute for Creative Technologies is a partnership with academia and the entertainment and gaming industries to leverage innovative research and concepts for training and simulation. Examples of specific research of mutual interest to the entertainment industry and the Army are technologies for realistic immersion in synthetic environments, networked simulation, standards for interoperability, and tools for creating simulated environments. The third is the Army Centers of Excellence (COEs). The COEs focus on expanding the frontiers of knowledge in research areas where the Army has enduring needs and couples state-of-the-art research programs at academic institutions with broad-based graduate education programs to increase the supply of scientists and engineers in automotive and rotary wing technology.
Project AB4 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 | 24.8 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 23.3 |
| FY2027 | Request | 5.7 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 5.7 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 6.6 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 6.7 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 6.8 |
6 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 initiate a new, five-year collaborative research and education program to explore frontier areas relevant to the Future Vertical Lift, Launched Effects, and Uncrewed Aerial Systems; the centers of excellence will develop relevant graduate education and robust experimental, computational, and analytical fundamental research in multi-disciplinary vertical lift technologies spanning aeromechanics, structures, flight dynamics and control, design and optimization, vibration and noise control, safety and survivability, and affordability; specific research tasks in areas of interest will be selected based on evaluations by a consensus of Government subject matter experts.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding increase reflects additional research in Army relevant problems relevant to the FVL, Launched Effects, and UAS.
FY2026 plans — current year Will conduct Future Vertical Lift (FVL) relevant basic research in areas including human/machine interface for aircraft maneuvering in high workload environments, experimental & computational simulation of aerodynamics of advanced configurations under rain/ice, and interactional aerodynamics & acoustics scaling; following the fourth annual review of the program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Maryland, identify Army aviation relevant fundamental research thrust areas for a broad area announcement for new research centers; solicit proposals for a new five-year program to fortify the long-term science & technology base for FVL…
FY2025 accomplishments The Centers of Excellence at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Maryland will undertake a robust experimental and analytic basic research program in close collaboration with government subject matter experts (SMEs) in areas relevant to future vertical lift such as improved structural performance through microstructure tailored materials, measurements and simulations for high speed rotors, acoustically aware autonomy, proprotor/wing interactional aero/acoustics, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) trained neural networks and machine learning (ML) for inverse design of rotorcraft components; execute the third annual review of the…
FY2027 planned work Will launch up to three Centers focusing on research in the physical sciences, life sciences, or information sciences by HBCU/MI research teams to pursue innovative basic research leading to potential technology development in areas of strategic importance to the Army and national defense.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding increase reflects additional research in Army relevant problems being conducted by HBCU/MI Centers.
FY2026 plans — current year Will determine the characteristics of acoustic and seismic background noise in urban areas in frequency bands of interest for acoustic and seismic sensors; investigate how noise changes in different urban locations; explore finite element models for evaluation of wave propagation and topological deformation induced by the vehicle and other vibration sources in the urban environment, that if successful will provide predictive tools to execute Army operations in dense urban environments; explore theory of a Stochastic Neural Network framework described by stochastic differential equations to determine identifiers by which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else's…
FY2025 accomplishments Investigate, synthesize, and characterize new high-energy density materials formed from simple molecular materials, their alloys, and organic precursor molecules; utilize time-resolved experimental techniques to map the reaction kinetics, intermediate products, and energy release of new candidate materials, that, in the long term, are expected to enable new energetic materials for the Army with multiple times the power density of materials in use today, and the development of new materials with adaptive, tailorable responses to external stress.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects the strategic reallocation of resources to support evolving priorities and objectives.
FY2026 plans — current year Will identify the specific impacts of the different pathways involved in mosquito taste sensation and the effect of those pathways on behavior, which, if successful, will allow for entirely new methods of protection from insect-borne diseases; investigate the effects of composition, conditions, and nanoscale confinement on the structure and function of trans-membrane proteins in abiotic films to better understand how molecular-level interactions can be leveraged for biologically enabled materials and devices; explore the near- and sub-wavelength photonic structures found in nature to synthesize mesoscale, protein-enabled photonic structures that could enable dynamically-tunable colors…
FY2025 accomplishments Investigate the molecular basis of enzyme-substrate reactions in anaerobic fungi that, if successful, enable tunable binding affinity and substrate specificity of synthetic enzyme complexes for environmental sensing; examine the snake infrared (IR) sensing pathway using molecular genetic techniques to inform new designs for efficient, uncooled detectors for IR wavelengths; explore new synthetic routes based on biocatalysis to create functionalized molecular structures with high efficiency and control of stereochemistry to enable cost-effective and sustainable synthesis of military relevant materials for energy storage, remediation, and protection.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects the strategic reallocation of resources to support evolving priorities and objectives.
FY2026 plans — current year Will explore efficient vector representations of dialogue based on a novel framework architecture to better understand team dialogue between established teams as well as interaction with virtual teammates; study social dynamics in small groups to explore consensus formation that if successful will inform the creation of automated algorithms and performance analyses; identify discriminative behavioral and physiological markers of human functional states and employ those markers to develop a multimodal machine-learning system to recognize these functional states.
FY2025 accomplishments Investigate neuroscience-based models of attention to develop design aids for virtual reality environments that, if successful, build the foundations of a framework for immersive content creation capable of better engaging individuals in synthetic environments; conduct research with an artificial neural network trained with deep learning to enable more realistic versions of real-world objects for Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality; examine the combination of new optical arrays and deep learning to create hardware capable of real-time measurement and rendering.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects the strategic reallocation of resources to support evolving priorities and objectives.
FY2026 plans — current year Will explore structural hierarchy across multiple length scales (atomic, nanoscale, microstructure, and macroscopic form) to identify characteristics that influence ion diffusion and storage in silicon that if successful will enable synthesis of different mesoporous conductive materials for energy storage applications; examine the physical and chemical properties of complex emulsion droplets that enable nanoscale chemical interactions that can be optically probed on the macro-scale for biochemical sensing, pathogen detection, and imaging devices; investigate the synthesis of properties of polymers that extend covalently in two dimensions in homogeneous solution, that if successful will…
FY2025 accomplishments Study the topological physics of electrons and photons in a variety of materials (e.g., Weyl semimetals niobium phosphide and Cobalt monosilicide) that, if successful, may lead to very sensitive detection of far infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) radiation; examine fundamental process-structure-property relationships of long, crystalline, nanofiber reinforced heterogeneous ceramic matrix materials to inform the development and manufacture of lightweight materials with beyond the state of the art strength and toughness; explore versatile synthesis and processing path to generate different mesoporous materials that if successful enable rationally designed hierarchically organized material…
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects termination of this effort.
FY2026 plans — current year Will continue work towards solving the complex, multi-physics, inter-disciplinary, multiscale problems that are required to develop the advanced modeling and simulation tools needed to assess the performance of off-road autonomous mobility systems. This research will include off-road autonomy algorithm development, human-machine integrated formations and trust advancement, innovative materials and structures, intelligent power systems, and multisystem coordination; develop the required companion technologies of computation enhancement, verification and validation improvements, and the understanding of uncertainty in unstructured environments. Additional focus will be on using system data to…
FY2025 accomplishments Continue work towards solving the complex, multi-physics, inter-disciplinary, multiscale problems that are required to develop the advanced modeling and simulation tools needed to assess the performance of off-road autonomous mobility systems; research to include off-road autonomy algorithm development, human-machine trust advancement, innovative materials and structures, intelligent power systems, and multisystem coordination; develop the required companion technologies of computation enhancement, verification and validation improvements, and the understanding of uncertainty in unstructured environments. Additional focus on using system data to augment physics-based computation to predict…