What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 627757 of PE 0602202F. This is the budget justification's own description of work that has not happened yet — the one thing no other level of the budget carries.
-Continue mechanism-focused in vitro and in vivo experimental studies on laser and radio frequency applications aligned to emerging Department of War technology roadmaps for directed energy weapons. -Continue supporting directed energy weapon deployment and use by transitioning prior-year experimentation findings into modeling and simulation components for collateral hazard analysis tools. -Continue experimental studies on near-to-mid infrared exposures by parameterizing injury thresholds for high-energy and emerging ultrafast laser systems to support tactical directed energy weapon development. -Continue developing methodologies to understand vulnerabilities and vision effects, including the impact of protective devices on color vision through experimentally validating new approaches for representing color shift and eye damage in a transition-ready virtual reality system. -Continue operational exposure assessments by completing a validation study supporting new acceptance standards for eye protection that account for inherent optical distortion in the eyewear. -Continue the laboratory validation of novel radio frequency bioeffects relevant to counter-electronic technologies and potential threats providing data for the validation of advanced predictive physics-level models of physiological outcomes aligned to parameter spaces deemed highest priority through intelligence sources and the directed energy science and technology enterprise. -Complete the prototyping phase of an improved retinal imaging instrumentation for laser bioeffects research to include fabrication of a brass-board demonstration. -Complete the assessment of non-linear optical damage associated with emerging laser threats and transition results to system developers and standard setting agencies. -Complete studies on dynamic tissue characteristics by finishing the study on deep tissue burn injuries from penetrating microwaves and transitioning data suitable for probabilistic model development. -Commence an experimental campaign using new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approaches to understand directed energy damage mechanisms and address data gaps in deep tissue injury. -Commence an experimental campaign to validate a new hypothesis and feasibility for disruptive counter-personnel directed energy applications through two rapid, proof-of-concept experiments.
FY 2027 increased compared to FY 2026 by 6.732 million to commence high-priority experiments validating novel counter-personnel applications and radio frequency bioeffects, a critical effort directly aligned with intelligence-driven priorities. This increase reflects programmatic adjustments to the DAF Science and Technology portfolio for strategic realignment to optimize core research areas and improve resource efficiency.
FY2026: the year under way
Prior-year accomplishments and current-year plans from the same exhibit. Context for the FY2027 plan, not a series — an activity partitions its project exactly in the request year, but can under-cover it in earlier years.
-Continue collecting and transitioning in vivo experimental data to support modeling of high-peak-power microwave and high-energy laser near-term employment, including maturing instrumentation to evaluate realistic exposure conditions such as pulsed electric fields. -Continue studies on dynamic tissue characteristics to electromagnetic energy, informing outcomes in deep tissue burn injuries from penetrating microwave wavelengths and high energy lasers to validate risk-of-injury predictive models. -Continue in vivo investigations on near-to-mid infrared parameters to fill data gaps for mid-term laser system concepts to inform performance vs safety trade spaces. -Continue experimental characterization of high-energy pulsed laser bioeffects aligned with mid-term Department of War roadmaps for directed energy weapons development. -Continue developing methodologies to understand laser vision effects and vulnerabilities, including creating datasets from human-use experimentation to complete verification of computer models of mission performance impacts. -Continue research to enhance the assessment of battlefield directed energy exposures and update Department of War and international consensus safety standards for radio frequency and laser exposure as well as inform operational risk management. -Continue assessing non-linear optical damage from emerging laser threats by executing a critical in vivo experimental campaign to parameterize wavelengths where current exposure limits do not protect warfighters. -Continue mechanism-focused biological and behavioral investigations of novel waveforms to mitigate technological surprise, including maturing a directed energy synergistic response hypothesis and transitioning technology to the medical and counter-directed energy weapons communities. -Commence the design phase for improved retinal imaging instrumentation to increase the speed and fidelity of laser eye damage studies, with a proof of concept planned by the end of FY 2026. -Commence in-vivo experimental parameterization of novel radio frequency bioeffects providing data to validate advanced predictive models for dosimetry predictions and physiological outcomes aligned with intelligence-driven priorities.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 16.9 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 9.2 |
| FY2027 | Request | 15.9 |
This activity is 39% of project 627757's FY2027 request and 15% of PE 0602202F's. In the request year the activities under a project sum to it exactly; in the current year they under-cover it in about 9% of cases, so an activity's delta can legitimately exceed its parent's and the two must not be compared row to row.
2 activities in project 627757
Every R-2A line of this project, largest FY2027 request first. Linked where the activity has enough of its own narrative to carry a page; the rest are shown in full on the project page.