Guidance Technologies

- Continue development of cruise missile behaviors for distributed, cooperative, collaborative strategies and other advanced guidance capabilities, including collaborative multi-agent maneuver algorithms development to increase battle state awareness and engagement for transition to armament program offices. - Continue improvement of constructive and virtual analysis tools for design, development, and analysis of advanced missile concepts in representative environments, focusing on hardware/software-in-the-loop technology development used for weapons experimentation and evaluation. Activities include commencing integration of virtual analysis tools for a closed-loop testbed. - Continue improvement of simulation technologies for evaluating innovative air-to-air and air-to-surface weapon engagements to include guidance and control systems evaluation, focusing on hardware/software-in-the-loop technology development used for weapons experimentation and evaluation. Activities include demonstrating initial capabilities for a cooperative multi-weapon engagement testbed using virtual analysis tools. - Continue inclusion of additional targets and improved terrain resolution to radar, millimeter wave, infrared, and ultraviolet signature generation capability for testing algorithms in real-time hardware- and software-in-the-loop environments, implementing new technologies to develop agile hardware/software-in-the-loop capabilities to meet scene generation needs of weapon demonstrations. Activities include commencing alternative computational processing methods for signature generation capabilities and real-time computations. - Continue development of high-speed hardware-in-the-loop simulation technology, including thermal environment, aerodynamic control uncertainty, seeker modeling, and alternative navigation sensor effectiveness, focusing on hardware/software-in-the-loop technology development used for weapons evaluation. Activities include demonstrating processing capabilities for inclusion of additional effects after scene generation and developing high-speed processing pipeline between signature generation and the light-emitting simulator technology for hypersonics research. - Continue development of infrared light-emitting diode target simulator technology to create higher frame rate and higher resolution target simulations and evaluations, enabling weapon seeker technologies development for next generation of precision guided munitions used to attack targets in contested environments. Activities include developing improved electronics controls over the simulator technology for higher frame rate and resolution evaluations - Continue providing weapon-oriented multi-security level, cross-domain distributed modeling and simulation within a hardware-in-the-loop environment using distributed connectivity between Eglin Air Force Base facilities with potential to connect to other geographic locations. Activities include toolset development supporting rapid hardware-in-the-loop simulation development and investigating how to leverage artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) tools for advancing hardware-in-the-loop testing capabilities. - Continue hardware-in-the-loop activities in support of international cooperative research efforts, focusing on hardware/software-in-the-loop technology development used for weapons evaluation. Activities include demonstrating integrated hardware-in-the-loop simulations of international partner technologies covered under established international partnership agreements.

FY 2027 increased compared to FY 2026 by $4.080 million for technology investment into advancing multi-weapon collaborative guidance, demonstrating a multi-weapon engagement testbed with guidance and control evaluation, integrating virtual tools with advanced missile components, developing a processing pipeline between signature generation and simulations, enabling alternative computational processing, and initiating research for using AI/ML in hardware-in-the-loop testing.