What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 627622 of PE 0602204F. 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 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 bi-static target/ground scattering phenomenology and bi-static high resolution radar data in conjunction with advanced automated target recognition algorithms to demonstrate improved accuracy and timeliness for combat identification of complex targets. - Continue investigations into synchronizing less capable radars to determine if they can achieve or exceed high value asset performance creating targeting/automatic target recognition-quality synthetic aperture radar imagery. - Continue investigations into performing automatic target recognition on moving targets. - Complete enhancements of multi-static synthetic aperture radar algorithms to support combat identification and automatic target recognition requirements on tactical timelines. - Complete data collection and analysis to assess distributed radar concepts for ground moving target indicator and synthetic aperture radar. - Complete enhancement of clutter modelling capability by incorporating sea clutter models from the Navy into the Department of the Air Force analysis tools to support performance and mission modeling including maritime targets. - Commence monostatic and bistatic data fusion for enhanced long-range detection and tracking of air and surface threats to the homeland and other theaters - Commence implementation of distributed RF algorithms for coherent and non-coherent fusion of distributed radar data to enhance detection, ID and track of moving targets
FY 2027 decreased compared to FY 2026 by $6.422 million due to a reduction in the development distributed passive sensing technology. 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: 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 enhancements of multi-static synthetic aperture radar algorithms to support combat identification and automatic target recognition requirements on tactical timelines. - Continue data collection and analysis to assess distributed radar concepts for ground moving target indicator and synthetic aperture radar. - Continue development of enhanced radio frequency modeling and simulation tools for evaluation of passive radar performance in complex environments. - Continue enhancement of clutter modelling capability by incorporating sea clutter models from the Navy into the Department of the Air Force analysis tools to support performance and mission modeling including maritime targets. - Continue integrating high-fidelity modeling and simulation with mission level modeling to demonstrate operational utility of distributed and passive radar concepts. - Continue analysis of bi-static target/ground scattering phenomenology and bi-static high resolution radar data in conjunction with advanced automated target recognition algorithms to demonstrate improved accuracy and timeliness for combat identification of complex targets. - Complete development of multi-static transmit waveforms and receive processing chains for multi-static ground moving target indicator concepts. - Complete investigation of potential platform constraints. - Complete multi- and cross-domain applications. - Commence investigations into synchronizing less capable radars to determine if they can achieve or exceed high value asset performance creating targeting/automatic target recognition-quality synthetic aperture radar imagery. - Commence investigations into performing automatic target recognition on moving targets.
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 | 13.6 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 23.2 |
| FY2027 | Request | 16.7 |
This activity is 32% of project 627622's FY2027 request and 10% of PE 0602204F'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.
5 activities in project 627622
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.