Army Agile University Tech Collaborative Alliances

Foundational Quantum Sensing: Will investigate potential advantage of enhanced imaging capabilities using quantum sensors and quantum interferometric techniques; investigate ion detection as a possible dramatic improvement to sensor readout methods and compare with spectroscopic readout techniques; investigate nonlinear coupling regime…

Adaptive Wavefront Control: Will examine the effects of surface texture on adaptive optics; investigate novel system architectures to minimize cooling requirements; analyze computing requirements necessary for design calculations. Attritable RF EW High Power (ARF-WHiP): Will investigate designs to increase carrier mobility and blocking…

FY2027 planned work Semi Conductor Consortium: Will identify physics gaps in three-dimensional (3D) technology-computer-aided design (TCAD) models in ultra-wide band gap RF and power-switching devices through experimental validation. Ultrawide Bandgap RF Center: Will examine the design and synthesis of low defect density, high carrier mobility materials; explore structure and scaling strategies for achieving enhanced device performance; investigate novel modeling tools to identify key parameters necessary for increased device reliability and function.

FY2026 to FY2027 change FY 2027 funding increase reflects the consolidation of other ongoing efforts within this project from Semi Conductor Consortium, and Ultrawide Bandgap RF Center to support the creation of Novel Materials and Architectures for High Power Applications. Funding increase supports additional research in the areas of semi conductors.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Advanced Sensing, Measurement, and Timing within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will research foundational integrated circuit physical design methods for new design tools; research digital integrated circuit design; explore materials suitable for ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET) circuits; study appropriate algorithms to integrate with circuits for computation; research circuits for edge inferencing for seismic, acoustic, and electronic warfare (EW) signals; explore non-von Neumann compute architecture for Army edge inferencing.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Control and Propagation of Electromagnetic Radiation within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will explore the signaling pathway from EMS activity to information processing and decision-making in complex EM-cyber systems; investigate new concepts of EMS payloads that could efficiently induce cyber effects with limited information; examine the generation of complex broadband waveforms within non-conventional EM; analyze new game theoretic insights for the interactions between multiple EMS-cyber agents.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Advanced Sensing, Measurement, and Timing within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will conduct research to safely exploit vast amounts of data from uncontrolled assets to reduce information uncertainty; explore intelligent network partitioning to support cooperative data communication, fusion, and processing in a distributed manner; conduct experiments with increased complexity of inference tasks to provide more robust solutions to occlusion, adversarial disruption, and degraded environments.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Control and Propagation of Electromagnetic Radiation within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will study mode superposition and turbulence effects on coherent beam combination; explore novel reflectometry techniques for object classification in controlled and ambient conditions; investigate artificial intelligence/machine learning identified concepts for high-speed inverse design of optics systems.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Advanced Sensing, Measurement, and Timing within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will examine the relationship between the Th-229 nuclear transition and host material phonon and optical behaviors; investigate computational methods to identify electronic structure coupling within the Th-229 materials; conduct experiments to characterize the effects of the external conditions on the nuclear transition.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Control and Propagation of Electromagnetic Radiation within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will study coupled photonic phenomena to examine light-matter interactions in the UV and IR; investigate structure-function relationships of different material geometries; conduct experiments to analyze the tunability of advanced three-dimensional structures for multi-functional behaviors; explore novel synthesis and fabrication techniques to coat, paint, pattern, and print structural color features onto surfaces.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Control and Propagation of Electromagnetic Radiation within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will explore widely tunable RF filters providing passive voltage amplification for electronic warfare (EW) spectrum sensing, including the reduction and limits of coupled modes and high electromechanical coupling factor resonators; study the acoustic modulation of dielectric breakdown in sub-micron features and the generated frequency content associated with capacitor discharge through the resulting ionized gas for EA relevant circuits; investigate phase and modulation detection architectures and ultra-low power draw, low-noise amplifiers that are compatible with high RF circuit impedances; investigate feed-forward and other noise mitigation techniques in nanoscale gap structures applicable…

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Novel Materials and Architectures for High Power Applications within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will investigate UWBG material performance under high power and temperature operation; explore novel design architectures to enhance UWBG material properties; validate the use of physics informed artificial intelligence/machine learning to guide discovery and design of materials and device assemblies; conduct research integrating theory, modeling, and experimentation to identify novel material properties that permit function at high power, high frequency, and high temperature in tandem.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Novel Materials and Architectures for High Power Applications within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will investigate full three-dimensional device simulation capability for ultrawide band gap devices, including electrical/thermal transport physics; utilize model to develop preliminary designs for ultrawide band gap power devices.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Novel Materials and Architectures for High Power Applications within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will identify in situ characterization methods to understand fundamental electro-mechanical microscopic degradation mechanisms for ceramic and polymeric electrolytes; investigate regenerative electrode/electrolyte materials science and mechanisms enabling self-healing solid-state interfaces; explore ceramic/conducting oxide processing and synthesis to produce stable thin-film interfaces.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Control and Propagation of Electromagnetic Radiation within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will investigate the theory behind self-accelerating beams (SABs) that impart their unique properties and propagation behaviors; conduct experiments to characterize the behavior of SABs and explore their generation, transport and detection; identify network assemblies that leverage SABs for multi-node communication array.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Advanced Sensing, Measurement, and Timing within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will explore novel multi-dimensional materials and architectures capable of seamless integration of sensors and processors within a single device for high performance sensing and computing; investigate three-dimensional adaptive structures capable of dynamic reconfiguration based on real-time stimuli input; conduct experiments to identify and leverage computational models to decode neurological decision-making to inform the design of neuromorphic circuits.

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Advanced Sensing, Measurement, and Timing within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will investigate methods for establishing and propagating shared world models, including threat assessments, within human-agent teams; examine strategies for disparate agents and humans to develop mutual understanding of strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities of adversarial communications capabilities towards the identification of opportunities to deploy electronic warfare payloads to disrupt communications; explore a layered security approach for resilient communications across human-autonomous agent teams for electronic protection; conduct research to develop frameworks for effective learning from collective experience based on data gathering and analysis of electromagnetic signals…

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Advanced Sensing, Measurement, and Timing within this project.

FY2026 plans — current year Will investigate methods for and fundamental limits of measuring angle of arrival of RF signals using quantum sensors; investigate methods to improve signal-to-noise for small size, high-spatial-resolution electromagnetic sensors; investigate methods for rapid quantum material characterization for improved quantum sensor; investigate methods using low-size, weight, and power (SWaP) resonators for ultrahigh sensitivity magnetometry; investigate fast, high-fidelity control and read out of atomic and superconducting systems for sensing and quantum information processing. These discoveries address critical Army needs, including C-C5ISRT priorities through capabilities in secure communication…