What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 0000 of PE 0602235N. 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.
Quantum Information Sciences: - Continue research into efficient protocols to implement quantum information processing with atoms and photons. - Continue research into quantum approaches to solve hard decision problems with naval relevance that may outperform classical techniques. - Continue research on robust devices compatible with long distance distribution of entanglement. - Continue research on applications of distributed entanglement in a quantum network. - Initiate research on quantum computing applications in machine learning. Computational Methods for Decision Making: - Continue development of methods for large-scale coordination and aggregation of individual preferences. - Continue analysis of information flow and dynamics of influence in large networks. - Continue development of tools for structured and distributed deliberation and decision-making. - Continue development of secure and privacy-preserving tools for information sharing. - Continue development of conversational information retrieval systems. - Continue development of collective decision making with large language models. - Continue research into stochastic integer programming models and algorithms to achieve strategic and tactical superiority in a variety of contexts. - Continue development of visual sense making capabilities for distributed Navy teams to successfully run operations in increasingly contested, diverse, multi-expertise, and highly data driven decisional contexts. - Continue research into logistics planning and scheduling in contested environments. - Continue research into algorithms that coordinate and optimize the behavior of multiple heterogeneous assets and sensors in a contested environment. - Continue research into convex and combinatorial programming models and algorithms for contested logistics. - Continue development of methods for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based video surveillance along roads and rivers that are partially occluded by tree canopies using a marsupial system consisting of a large UAV capable of long-duration flight and several small quadcopters. - Continue development of robust computer vision systems inspired by human visual system. - Continue research in building reliable classifiers, based on a novel data augmentation approach, for robust object recognition. - Continue research to develop signal processing methods, together with deep learning, for automated understanding of SAR/ISAR images. - Continue work in Artificial Intelligence Technology. The goal of this effort is to develop products in Intelligent Agents, Cognitive Science, Robotics, Autonomy, Machine Learning (ML), and Multi-agent control planes/protocols intended for future distributed autonomous unmanned systems and swarms. These include reference implementations, integration of S&T products, and sufficiently mature components that, by the completion of their project work, could be demonstrated in the field or at sea with the Fleet. These should include advancements in the fields of Cognitive S&T, Coalition/Alliance compatibility, safe collaboration, multi-agent autonomous systems and control planes, cognitive modeling and machine learning, and all facets of artificial intelligence pertinent to Naval programs of record and S&T projects, to ultimately include deployed Adaptable Artificial Intelligence. Cues of the current context, including the environmental state or goals of the robot or its teammates, will modulate the execution of existing robotic skills, such as adjusting the robot's speed. (NRL) - Complete development of methods for adaptive training on individual and group levels. - Complete investigation of Radio Frequency (RF) imaging for motion detection and activity recognition behind optically opaque walls. - Complete development of visual analytics for detection, tracking, and recognition of small vessels in the maritime domain from various types of surveillance platforms. - Initiate research into models and algorithms that analyze risk and optimal decision making in contested environments. - Initiate development of imaging systems that use minimal sensing and power for application-specific tasks. Such untethered imaging systems have many applications particularly in surveillance. Nanoscale Electronics Technology: - Continue research on ultra-fast, non-volatile memory materials and devices. - Continue applied research on probabilistic bits and their integration into stochastic networks. - Initiate research on non-volatile memory designed to operate at high temperatures. - Initiate research exploring antiferromagnetic thin films for Terahertz device applications. Cyber Defense: - Continue to conduct applied research toward dependable and resilient cyber systems leveraging results from basic research program and developing and evaluating technical approaches for future naval capabilities. The program investigates technologies addressing root causes of cyber vulnerability in order to enhance efficiency, robustness and cyber resiliency for all classes of computing systems in naval warfighting systems. - Continue design and development of tools and techniques for understanding and improving security of cyber-physical systems, which are a critical area of focus for assuring mission success of naval platforms. The systematic extension of techniques in cyber fault tolerance are informing new resilience architectures for information processing systems that ingest data from the physical and spectral environments. - Continue design and development of tools and techniques to advance the automation of cyber operations, a critical need as timelines are shrinking and human expertise remains in short supply. - Continue development of prototypes for network defense technologies to protect internet facing devices from arbitrary access that exposes them to zero-day attacks through cryptographically protected overlay networks.
The funding decrease from FY 2026 to FY 2027 reflects reduced investments in Applied Information Sciences for Decision Making Research to meet higher priority Navy requirements.
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.
Quantum Information Sciences: - Continue research into efficient protocols to implement quantum information processing with atoms and photons. - Continue research into quantum approaches to solve hard decision problems with naval relevance that may outperform classical techniques. - Continue research on robust devices compatible with long distance distribution of entanglement. - Continue research on applications of distributed entanglement in a quantum network. Computational Methods for Decision Making: - Continue development of methods for large-scale coordination and aggregation of individual preferences. - Continue development of methods for adaptive training on individual and group levels. - Continue analysis of information flow and dynamics of influence in large networks. - Continue development of tools for structured and distributed deliberation and decision-making. - Continue development of secure and privacy-preserving tools for information sharing. - Continue development of conversational information retrieval systems. - Continue research into stochastic integer programming models and algorithms to achieve strategic and tactical superiority in a variety of contexts. - Continue development of visual sense making capabilities for distributed Navy teams to successfully run operations in increasingly contested, diverse, multi-expertise, and highly data driven decisional contexts. - Continue research into logistics planning and scheduling in contested environments. - Continue research into algorithms that coordinate and optimize the behavior of multiple heterogeneous assets and sensors in a contested environment. - Continue development of methods for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based video surveillance along roads and rivers that are partially occluded by tree canopies using a marsupial system consisting of a large UAV capable of long-duration flight and several small quadcopters. - Continue development of robust computer vision systems inspired by human visual system. - Continue research in building reliable classifiers, based on a novel data augmentation approach, for robust object recognition. - Continue investigation of Radio Frequency (RF) imaging for motion detection and activity recognition behind optically opaque walls. - Continue development of visual analytics for detection, tracking, and recognition of small vessels in the maritime domain from various types of surveillance platforms. - Continue work in Artificial Intelligence Technology. The goal of this effort is to develop products in Intelligent Agents, Cognitive Science, Robotics, Autonomy, Machine Learning (ML), and Multi-agent control planes/protocols intended for future distributed autonomous unmanned systems and swarms. These include reference implementations, integration of S&T products, and sufficiently mature components that, by the completion of their project work, could be demonstrated in the field or at sea with the Fleet. These should include advancements in the fields of Cognitive S&T, Coalition/Alliance compatibility, safe collaboration, multi-agent autonomous systems and control planes, cognitive modeling and machine learning, and all facets of artificial intelligence pertinent to Naval programs of record and S&T projects, to ultimately include deployed Adaptable Artificial Intelligence. Cues of the current context, including the environmental state or goals of the robot or its teammates, will modulate the execution of existing robotic skills, such as adjusting the robot's speed. (NRL) - Complete development of tools for synthesis of information, intelligence gathering and effective decision making. - Complete research into developing practical integer programming approaches to solving binary classification problems. - Initiate development of collective decision-making with large language models. - Initiate research into convex and combinatorial programming models and algorithms for contested logistics. - Initiate research to develop signal processing methods, together with deep learning, for automated understanding of SAR/ISAR images. Nanoscale Electronics Technology: - Continue research on ultra-fast, non-volatile memory materials and devices. - Complete integration of contacts and dielectrics on two-dimensional semiconductors. - Complete research for designable non-centrosymmetric superconductors. - Initiate applied research on probabilistic bits and their integration into stochastic networks. Cyber Defense: - Continue efforts in High Assurance Systems Technology. This includes but is not limited to a wide range of efforts such as Cyber, Cryptological work, deep neural networks, assured computing, autonomous SDN orchestration, automation for reverse engineering and vulnerability analysis, Game-theoretic Artificial Intelligence (AI) for defenses against cyber-attacks, adversarial threat modeling, privacy-enhancing technologies, covert and encrypted communications, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA)-based hardware assurance, and automatic generation of Correct-by-Construction code. These endeavors should lead to applied, reference implementations, or sufficient maturity of the basic S&T that are demonstrable in field testing or at sea once the work is completed. Additional areas will apply basic foundational science currently being planned or conducted in areas such as autonomous cyber maneuver, scaling and automation of algorithms for vulnerability discovery, mitigation, weaponization, cyber resilience, programmability, and reconfigurability. This is an expansion of previously mentioned development of tools and techniques to model and understand adversary motivation and intent that scale beyond traditional artifact analysis in order to achieve robust, hardened and scalable cyber defense techniques that can be employed throughout Navy networks that address nation state adversary activities.
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 | 38.5 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 40.6 |
| FY2027 | Request | 29.6 |
This activity is 73% of project 0000's FY2027 request and 73% of PE 0602235N'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.
3 activities in project 0000
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.