What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project A45 of PE 0603345A. 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.
Will validate performance of novel optical components for increased EO/IR target detection, recognition, and identification performance and validate requirements; mature UAS/LE payload featuring novel optics to extend range performance of EO/IR sensing for military applications; complete baseline EO/IR prototype payload designs addressing requirements for Small UAS / LE cost-optimized performance; optimize integration of AiTR algorithms with UAS / LE autonomy software and Uncrewed Vehicle Controller (UVC) architecture; exploit multi-platform, multi-sensor UAS / LE advanced teaming use cases to improve AiTR performance; conduct in-flight EO/IR data collections and create surrogate imagery databases of relevant military targets to mature AiTR algorithms optimized for UAS / LE concepts of employment and image resolution at standoff; exploit Government developed automated EO/IR targeting payload scanning to apply to UAS and LE class payloads; demonstrate initial automated EO/IR targeting multi-modal processing algorithms on laboratory hardware.
Funding increase represents the initiation of developing advanced multi-band electro-optic / infrared (EO/IR) technologies for targeting payloads used for detection, tracking, precision targeting, navigation and fire control.
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) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2027 | Request | 13.4 |
This activity is 40% of project A45's FY2027 request and 40% of PE 0603345A'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.
4 activities in project A45
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 program-element page.