Air Force Vanguards
This Program is a concentrated effort to accelerate transition of emerging technologies into the hands of the warfighter. Vanguard programs draw the operational, acquisition, and technology communities together into coherent teams to solve hard Science & Technology (S&T) problems based on Department of the Air Force (DAF) strategic priorities which do not have readily available emerging technology solutions. Teams follow a disciplined process to accelerate efforts as deemed necessary by the department. This process (known as WARTECH, for WARfighter / TECHnologist) utilizes discrete progress gates to deliver S&T efforts organized as Vanguard Pathfinders, Vanguard Prospects, and Vanguards. This construct organizes these multi- disciplinary, capability-focused investments based on characteristics such as effort maturity, established military utility, technical viability and transitionability. Each progress gate has built-in off-ramps to promote transition. The process is overseen by DAF TEO with support garnered throughout from the DAF general officer community that represent authority, accountability, and responsibility in the specific technology areas. Vanguard Pathfinders are focused effort areas which comprise numerous exploratory activities intended to establish military utility and technical viability of concepts under exploration. Extensive socialization occurs within these efforts to inform activities inherent to these emerging investment areas. Concept socialization activities include but are not limited to the codification of the operational champion, planning engagements with other government R&D, exploratory outreach to industry and other non- traditional partners, and the initial identification of potential transition partners. These investments seek to identify and integrate emerging applied research efforts from government labs and/or industry into integrated technology demonstrations. Vanguard pathfinder teams seek to bring appropriate communities together to answer the question "are we solving the right problem” while establishing technical viability of the concepts under consideration. This phase can be accelerated or bypassed for efforts with well understood operational requirements and concepts with established technical viability. Pathfinders serve as the pipeline for DAF's future Vanguards Prospects and Vanguards.
FY2027 planned work - Continue activities performing MS&A assessing the military utility of candidate Transformational Component investments. - Continue assessments informing decisions to promote candidate technologies into the WARTECH process. - Continue partnering and leveraging of subject matter expertise from federally funded research and development centers, university-affiliated research centers, and other government agencies to advise and support technological ideation during the WARTECH process.
FY2026 to FY2027 change FY 2027 increased compared to FY 2026 by $0.473 million due to minor programmatic adjustments to the DAF Science and Technology portfolio.
FY2026 plans — current year - Continue activities performing MS&A assessing the military utility of candidate Transformational Component investments. - Continue assessments informing decisions to promote candidate technologies into the WARTECH process. - Continue partnering and leveraging of subject matter expertise from federally funded research and development centers, university-affiliated research centers, and other government agencies to advise and support technological ideation during the WARTECH process.
FY2027 planned work - Effort completing in FY 2026, no FY 2027 plans.
FY2026 to FY2027 change FY 2027 funding decreased compared to FY 2026 by $14.538 million due to the effort completing in FY 2026.
FY2026 plans — current year - Complete assessments, development and maturation, integration, and testing of advanced sensor fusion, robust communications, and platform orchestration technologies integrated with advanced computing hardware for autonomous unmanned systems at the tactical edge. - Complete modeling, simulation, and analysis of system design trades and Model Based System Engineering activities. - Complete technology maturation of sensing systems integration, platform data fusion integration and orchestration, and advanced analytics for on-board autonomous systems, systems trades analyses, and software integration. - Complete software development and maturation of software/hardware mission management and…
FY2027 planned work - Effort completing in FY 2026, no FY 2027 plans.
FY2026 to FY2027 change FY 2027 decreased compared to FY 2026 by $1.238 million due to the completion of Area Effects Demonstration Vanguard Prospect in FY 2026.
FY2026 plans — current year - Complete post-test analysis using the flight test results, evaluate the accuracy of the pre-test simulations and inform future tool development efforts.
FY2027 planned work - Effort completed in FY 2025, no FY 2027 plans.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Not applicable
FY2026 plans — current year - Effort completed in FY 2025, no FY 2026 plans.
- Continue ARBM algorithm development, test, and evaluation based on the modeling and simulation operational utility analysis. Implement improvements to the algorithms required to improve system level performance. - Continue Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) development and collaboration with the program office to refine the system…
Read the FY2027 plan →- Continue and increase the rate of advancing the maturation of electromagnetic warfare methodologies. - Continue and increase the rate of advancing algorithm maturation and assessment supporting software integration. - Continue and increase the rate of advancing the assessment and evaluation efforts for subsystems, and algorithms to…
Read the FY2027 plan →FY2027 planned work - Effort concluded in FY26 due to higher DoW and DAF priorities
FY2026 to FY2027 change FY 2027 funding decreased compared to FY 2026 by $38.947 million due to decreased emphasis on this class of high-speed weapon system and the emergence of new activities within the Integrated Combat Effects Pathfinder that have higher priority within the DoW and DAF. To adequately fund these activities, Swift Hammer concluded at the end of FY 2026 and transitioned modeling, simulation and analysis data to relevant parties. Additionally, hardware and information gained in both the material and propulsion development will be utilized throughout the Air Force Research Laboratory to further mature these technologies.
FY2026 plans — current year - Continue and complete development of the propulsion subsystems to critical design. - Continue and complete the development of advanced modeling capabilities for long-range, high-speed weapons employment approaches with conceptual design models. - Continue and complete the assessment of advanced weapon concepts in diverse operational scenarios - Continue and complete manufacturing risk assessments of propulsion subsystem for producibility and affordability. - Continue and complete digital integration of the propulsion subsystem with conceptual vehicle models.
- Continue data interoperability and experimentation activities with Air Operations Center weapons system software. - Continue development of software to enable human oversight and modification of system generated air battle plans. - Continue development of software for measuring adversary response against an air battle plan. - Continue…
Read the FY2027 plan →- Continue modeling and simulation from material to vehicle to identify and mature EMS protection and integrate data into applicable program offices. - Continue system, subsystem, and component level testing to baseline EMS protection material performance. - Continue integration of EMS protection and survivability techniques and…
Read the FY2027 plan →- Complete studies of capsule payload environments and survivability, from spacedrop to payload delivery. - Complete analyses of re-entry communications and plasma black-out. - Commence testing to inform a quantitative S&T assessment of a multi-ton prototype capsule reentry aerodynamics, re-entry communications during hypersonic flight…
Read the FY2027 plan →- Complete Modeling & Simulation (M&S) to enhance the M&S environment for more realistic scenarios and comprehensive algorithm testing based on available data for verification. - Continue real-time algorithm implementation by developing the core real-time algorithms for EO/IR sensor processing, focusing on basic detection and tracking…
Read the FY2027 plan →- Continue advanced research and development into distributed antenna arrays (from noncoherent to fully coherent) to quantify potential benefits for the warfighter in terms of performance and cost. - Commence requirements maturation with stakeholders to include PEO. - Commence design and initiation of field test capability to explore…
Read the FY2027 plan →-Continue planning and early systems engineering for development of autonomous/AI aided software microservices that will serve as Command and Control (C2) decision aids enabling Battle Staff and Battle Managers to more rapidly process information and make decisions critical to the employment of kinetic and non-kinetic effects across…
Read the FY2027 plan →- Continue development of integrated solutions for multi-mode sensing and cueing for various platforms to include High Value Airborne Assets (HVAA). - Continue identification of current sensors and evaluate their efficacy for HVAA protect missions. - Continue integration of sensing into sense-making for cueing the effector. - Commence…
Read the FY2027 plan →