# Project DAT-02 — ISR AND SENSORS

**Program element:** 0603467E — DARPA Advanced Technology Development  
**Project:** DAT-02  
**Component:** Defense-Wide  
**Appropriation:** 0400 — RDT&E, Defense-Wide  
**Budget Activity:** 3 — Advanced Technology Development  
**Vintage:** President's Budget PB2027  
**Canonical URL:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603467E/DAT-02  
**Parent:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603467E

## Summary

Project DAT-02 — ISR AND SENSORS requests $127.0M in FY2027, 8.1% of the $1.57B requested for program element 0603467E, up 21% on FY2026. 6 R-2A activities decompose the request.

## Funding profile

| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 0.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 104.8 |
| FY2027 | Request | 127.0 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 251.7 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 322.0 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 339.1 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 299.1 |

> Estimate types are not summed. This project is one leaf of PE 0603467E; the PE total is the sum of its projects, never added to them.

## What project DAT-02 buys

The ISR and Sensors project develops technologies to improve surveillance and targeting systems for improved battlefield awareness, strike capability and battle damage assessment, and demonstrates these technologies and system concepts against emerging threat scenarios to support rapid technology adoption by the warfighter. Leveraging technology advancements in size, weight, power and cost and enabling with the practical application of mature machine learning and artificial intelligence, these efforts are also packaged in novel ways for rapid deployment and adoption for operational use. Capabilities are intended to overcome an adversary s intent to deny and deceive sensing and ISR systems in order to provide all-weather continuous coverage over areas of interest. This project will exploit recent advances in multispectral target phenomenology, signal processing, low-power high-performance computing, and low-cost microelectronics to develop advanced surveillance and targeting systems. Prior to FY 2026, efforts in this Project were funded in PE 0603767E, Projects SEN-01 and SEN-02.

## Activities (R-2A) — 6

| Activity | FY2025 | FY2026 | FY2027 | Move | Page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISR and Sensors Studies and Concepts | — | 35.6 | 103.1 | +190% | [a3](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603467E/DAT-02/a3) |
| Frosty | — | 14.2 | 18.2 | +28% | [a2](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603467E/DAT-02/a2) |
| Track at Big Distances with Track-Before-Detect (TBD2) | — | 11.3 | 4.0 | −65% | — |
| Cancun | — | 23.9 | 1.7 | −93% | — |
| Large Area Photocathode (LAP) | — | 11.3 | — | −100% | — |
| Dynamic Optimization for Defense of Ground bases with Electromagnetic warfare (DODGEball) | — | 8.5 | — | −100% | — |

> Activities carry the prior, current and budget year only — no five-year plan. In the request year they partition this project exactly; in earlier years they can under-cover it.

### ISR and Sensors Studies and Concepts

- Review modeling and sensor designs for a novel sensor system. - Conduct critical design review on potential sensor system design. - Validate subsystem performance through laboratory and operational testing. - Develop hardware and processing prototypes for data collection, analysis, and verification. - Generate scaled models of target…

Full year-by-year narrative: https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603467E/DAT-02/a3

### Frosty

- Complete initial algorithm development and perform independent assessment. - Develop conceptual design for a fieldable Frosty prototype. - Update algorithms and demonstrate improved performance. - Deliver prototypes of Frosty software stack.

Full year-by-year narrative: https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603467E/DAT-02/a2

### Track at Big Distances with Track-Before-Detect (TBD2)

**FY2027 planned work.** - Assess algorithms for accuracy and computational power required. - Assess payload design trade study for power consumption and revisit times.

**FY2026 to FY2027 change.** The FY 2027 decrease reflects transition from technology development to final assessment.

**FY2026 plans — current year.** - Develop low complexity algorithms for cislunar space situational awareness. - Conduct payload design trade study. - Conduct midterm assessment of algorithms.

### Cancun

**FY2027 planned work.** - Deploy equipment and test in relevant environment with transition partners. - Transition Cancun technology.

**FY2026 to FY2027 change.** The FY 2027 decrease reflects a shift from integration to final testing and transition.

**FY2026 plans — current year.** - Purchase hardware and scale node production for follow-on field tests. - Incorporate warfighter feedback for improvement of the mission planning tool. - Integrate full system for at-scale demonstration of hardware, software, and algorithmic techniques. - Deploy equipment and conduct field test and demonstration of integrated distributed system.

### Large Area Photocathode (LAP)

**FY2026 to FY2027 change.** The FY 2027 decrease reflects program completion.

**FY2026 plans — current year.** - Complete development of a curved photocathode reference design with high quantum efficiency. - Complete development of a test stand for sub-scale photocathode evaluation. - Iteratively produce and test high quantum efficiency photocathode samples. - Update and finalize a curved photocathode reference design using data from photocathode sample characterization. - Scale manufacturing of high quantum efficiency photocathodes to large areas and develop photocathode assembly techniques.

### Dynamic Optimization for Defense of Ground bases with Electromagnetic warfare (DODGEball)

**FY2026 to FY2027 change.** The FY 2027 decrease reflects program completion.

**FY2026 plans — current year.** - Incorporate countermeasure and feedback parameters into optimization algorithms. - Finalize optimization algorithms and subsystem designs. - Complete the characterization and evaluation of countermeasures and feedback systems in hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) testing. - Evaluate final HWIL-validated models in a government-provided laboratory simulation environment. - Coordinate technology transition to the Services.

## What is NOT on this page

Congressional marks, the R-2 mission description and acquisition strategy, the industry vs government split of the whole request, and related program elements are recorded at **program-element** grain — an NDAA mark lands on a PE, never on a project. They are at https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603467E.

## Source & machine access

- **Source:** FY2027 Office of the Secretary of Defense RDT&E Budget Justification, Exhibits R-2/R-2A/R-3, PE 0603467E project DAT-02 (PB PB2027).
- **MCP:** `mcp.hitchintel.com` — `budget_get_program_element(pe="0603467E")`.

*HitchAI is an independent intelligence service, not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Budget figures are requests/estimates, not obligations.*