What project 627622 buys
This project develops and assesses affordable, reliable all weather radio frequency sensing and countermeasure concepts for aerospace applications covering the range of radio frequency sensors including communications, navigation, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and radar, both active and passive, across multiple domains. This project also develops and evaluates technology for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sensors, fire control radars, electromagnetic warfare, integrated radar and electromagnetic warfare systems, and offensive information operations systems. It emphasizes the detection and tracking of surface and airborne targets with radio frequency signatures that are difficult to detect due to reduced radar cross sections, concealment and camouflage measures, severe clutter, or heavy jamming. Techniques exploited include the use of multiple radio frequency phenomenologies, multi-dimensional adaptive processing, advanced waveforms and knowledge-aided processing techniques. It also develops advanced electro-optical aerospace sensor technologies for a variety of offensive and defensive applications. The sensor technologies under development cover the ultraviolet through the infrared portion of the spectrum. Technical efforts include improvements in system integration, digital processing, analysis tools, and sensor architectures. One of the project's goals is to improve electro-optical and related technologies for the detection, tracking, and identification of noncooperative and difficult targets, such as those obscured by camouflage or operating at significant range. This project also develops the passive and active sensors and algorithms needed to enable precision targeting in challenging operating environments as well as advanced electro-optical threat warning and countermeasures technologies. The project also explores technologies to maintain a military advantage in positioning, navigation and timing integrity, accuracy, and resiliency. This project also develops concepts to counter threats to our aerospace systems. It develops and evaluates technology for electromagnetic warfare, integrated radar and electromagnetic warfare systems, and electro-optical/infrared seeker defeat.
Project 627622 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 | 41.6 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 66.1 |
| FY2027 | Request | 52.5 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 60.1 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 67.0 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 77.0 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 78.5 |
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. 3 of them describe FY2027 work in enough detail to have their own page; the rest are shown here in full. Coverage is partial across the corpus, so count activities, never total them.
- Continue deployment of passive sensing techniques for detecting, geolocating, and characterizing signals of interest onto advanced multifunction systems targeted to small and large platforms - Continue development of multifunction, wideband radio frequency sensor payloads using scalable, open system architectures and commercially…
Read the FY2027 plan →- Continue development of enhanced radio frequency modeling and simulation tools for evaluation of passive radar performance in complex environments. - Continue integrating high-fidelity modeling and simulation with mission level modeling to demonstrate operational utility of distributed and passive radar concepts. - Continue analysis of…
Read the FY2027 plan →- Continue development of processing software for multi-mode laser radar with a focus on processing efficiency. - Continue effort to reduce size, weight, power, and cost of laser radar systems and subsystems. - Continue efforts to improve the performance and capabilities of laser radar components, including: transmitters, detectors, and…
Read the FY2027 plan →FY2027 planned work - Complete testing of large format, long wave infrared detector array for infrared search and track, to include flight testing on an air platform. - Continue development of low cost, size, weight, and power infrared search and track technology enabling air surveillance on resource-constrained platforms. - Continue development of low size, weight and power processing for infrared search and track. - Continue development of infrared modeling, simulation, processing and exploitation to enable detection and tracking of small targets. - Continue development of thermal infrared hyperspectral technologies to enable day/night detection and identification of challenging targets. - Commence infrared…
FY2026 to FY2027 change FY 2027 decreased compared to FY 2026 by $2.947 million due to a reduction in the development of passive optical sensing technologies. This reduction is the result of a strategic realignment of the Department of the Air Force's Science and Technology (DAF S&T) portfolio, which aims to optimize core research areas and improve resource efficiency.
FY2026 plans — current year - Continue testing of large format, long wave infrared detector array for infrared search and track, to include flight testing on an air platform. - Continue development of low size, weight and power processing for infrared search and track. - Continue low cost, size, weight, and power optimized electro-optical/infrared payload and algorithm development for day/night detection and tracking capabilities addressing Moving Target Engagement at Scale. - Continue infrared event-based sensor chip research and development towards mission-level format arrays and supporting algorithms - Commence development of low cost, size, weight, and power optimized smaller pitch, large format long wave infrared…
FY2027 planned work Not Applicable
FY2026 to FY2027 change Not Applicable
FY2026 plans — current year In FY 2026 the funding and technical activities from this effort were realigned to Program 0602204F, Aerospace Sensors; Project 627622, Multispectral Sensing & Countermeasures Technology ; Distributed Radio Frequency Sensing effort.