DSIP 2026 Opportunity Tracker

AFRL and SSC seek compact, space-qualified directed energy systems to overcome power limitations in orbital platforms. This technology enables efficient power beaming and dual-use applications like missile defense and debris remediation while reducing the weight penalties of traditional solar arrays and batteries.

This RFP seeks development of autonomous fall detection and mitigation systems for humanoid robots operating in Air Force maintenance and hazardous environments. The solution must enable safe, graceful falls that minimize damage and injury risk while maintaining robot agility and performance during normal operations.

This RFP seeks a humanoid robot fleet management system to optimize aircraft maintenance and sustainment operations at Air Force depots. The system must provide centralized monitoring, autonomous task allocation, and real-time coordination across multiple robots while adapting to dynamic operational demands and supporting human-robot collaboration.

This RFP seeks development and validation of Maxterial H-max nickel molybdenum plating as an environmentally safe alternative to hexavalent chromium in aerospace components like landing gear actuators. The solution must demonstrate fatigue resistance, durability, and corrosion protection while supporting DoD regulatory compliance and modernization goals.

This RFP seeks an improved hydraulic heating system for the MHU-196 Weapons Trailer to restore reliable munitions-loading operations in cold-weather environments. The solution will address performance degradation caused by thickened hydraulic fluid, reducing downtime and maintenance costs while supporting critical sortie generation timelines.

This RFP seeks development of a complementary flush air data system (FADS) for Air Force bombers to provide redundant, low-observable airspeed and altitude measurement, reducing reliance on vulnerable protruding pitot probes. The modular, subsonic/transonic-optimized system will enhance survivability and data assurance in contested environments while maintaining existing flight-control architectures.

USSOCOM and AFSOC are seeking AI-enabled technologies to enhance search, track, and target recognition capabilities for special operations aircraft like the AC-130J. The solution must automate sensor functions across EO/IR systems while maintaining open architecture compatibility across diverse platforms.

This RFP seeks a mid-wave infrared hyperspectral imager to characterize missile and thermal signatures for defense applications. The system must deliver high-resolution spatial and spectral data at rapid frame rates to support missile warning system development and hypersonic vehicle testing.

This RFP seeks development of a compact, high-efficiency CO₂ compressor for military aircraft thermal management systems. The technology must handle dynamic heat loads across diverse mission phases while reducing system weight and size compared to legacy refrigerant solutions.

AFDW seeks an AI-driven cybersecurity platform integrating post-quantum cryptographic standards to defend against quantum computing threats. The solution will automate threat detection and risk scoring across legacy Air Force networks while ensuring seamless migration to quantum-resistant encryption.

This SBIR seeks AI/ML solutions to automate the Air Force Judge Advocate's labor-intensive legal and judicial workflows. The technology will streamline case intake, document processing, and decision-making to reduce delays by 50-70% and improve legal advisory delivery across military justice and interagency operations.

This SBIR seeks a portable field device that rapidly characterizes ultrafine to coarse particulate composition—including carbonaceous, metal, and biological materials—to replace laboratory analysis and enable real-time exposure monitoring for military personnel in hazardous environments.

This SBIR seeks an affordable, ruggedized OEM ultrafine particulate sensor detecting particles as small as 10 nanometers in real-time to address a critical gap in military occupational exposure monitoring. The capability would enable service members in high-hazard environments like burn pits and flightlines to detect harmful submicron particles currently missed by standard equipment, supporting preventative health measures and informed command decisions.

DLA seeks a dynamic digital twin platform integrating real-time workforce data and synthetic scenario modeling to optimize organizational processes and boost productivity. The solution enables rapid workforce planning, surge deployment testing, and AI integration analysis to enhance mission readiness against modern competitive threats.

DLA seeks an AI-powered tool to automate vendor economic dependency analysis across thousands of suppliers. The solution will integrate with government systems to flag high-risk relationships using public financial data and supply chain metrics, replacing manual, time-intensive processes.

DLA seeks non-lithium battery technology to replace supply-chain-vulnerable lithium-ion alternatives in military field operations. The solution must deliver safer, more transportable power for extreme environments while meeting domestic sourcing requirements and core performance standards.

NAVAIR and NAVSEA seek innovative counter-UAS technologies to defend Navy assets against the proliferating drone threat. Solutions should detect, track, and neutralize single or swarming unmanned systems using AI/ML, non-kinetic defeat systems, or adaptive threat recognition across air, sea, and ground platforms.

The Marine Corps seeks an innovative portable long-range listening device capable of accurately capturing and recording sounds from 200 meters away to support intelligence collection operations. The system must weigh under 50 pounds, operate for 24 hours on battery power, and distinguish voices and environmental noise with high fidelity.

The Navy seeks a dual-band SAR system combining X-band with S-band or C-band to enhance maritime surveillance capabilities. This solution expands ocean coverage, improves target detection across varying conditions, and reduces operational costs compared to current search and tracking methods.

The Navy seeks a multi-vendor satellite imagery scheduling optimization platform that integrates commercial providers into a unified system to enhance maritime domain awareness. The solution must dynamically adapt to weather, prioritize time-critical tasking, and reduce reliance on single-source imagery while minimizing costs and redundant collections.

The Navy seeks modernized automated ammunition handling systems for MK 45 gun systems to replace 1960s-era technology, improving reliability, firing rates, and crew safety while maintaining compatibility with existing shipboard platforms.

The Navy seeks a compact, high-speed data transmission device capable of transferring four terabytes of Ship Self-Defense System combat data across 5,000+ nautical miles in 60 seconds. This solution addresses delays in transmitting embarked platform performance data needed for timely system improvements and warfighter training.

The Navy seeks an adaptive Zero Trust data control system that verifies every user access request in real-time to protect critical combat data from unauthorized access. The solution must integrate advanced authentication, AI/ML threat detection, and micro-segmentation to reduce authentication time and unauthorized access risk while maintaining performance in degraded environments.

The Navy seeks inter-satellite communication hardware to enable direct data sharing between commercial satellites, eliminating ground-station handoffs for improved tracking of mobile ocean targets and reducing latency in multi-satellite coordination.

The Navy seeks an AI-powered maritime tracking system to automate processing of sensor data from diverse sources and predict object movements across global waters. This solution must prioritize threats, detect pattern deviations, and scale efficiently as new sensors integrate—transforming manual, overwhelmed operations into proactive domain awareness.

The Navy seeks secure tasking technology for commercial satellites at classified levels (CUI/Secret), enabling weapons-quality targeting data while maintaining operational security. The solution must integrate encryption, secure protocols, and emerging technologies to reduce tasking time by 90% versus current 14-day cycles.

The Navy seeks an automated anomaly detection system that identifies potentially threatening maritime and air contacts hidden within congested shipping environments by analyzing pattern-of-life behaviors from AIS, ADS-B, and radar data. This capability would reduce operator workload and improve threat detection accuracy for Ship Self-Defense System platforms transiting high-traffic regions.

The Navy seeks an AI-enabled Terminal Defense Weapon System Coordinator that decouples rapid weapon system upgrades from lengthy combat system development cycles. The solution will coordinate real-time engagement management across multiple defense systems while maintaining cybersecurity and integration with ship combat systems.

The Navy seeks an adaptive algorithm that automatically optimizes sensor resource allocation across ship defense radar systems. The solution must dynamically identify which sensors contribute most to tracking threats and redirect underutilized sensor capacity to improve overall combat system situational awareness and engagement readiness.

This SBIR XL seeks integrated manufacturing solutions for compact Rydberg-based RF receivers that operate across broad frequency bands with high sensitivity. The technology addresses the gap between laboratory prototypes and deployable systems by combining photonic components with low-latency control architecture for wideband signal processing.

This RFP seeks engineering solutions to enhance cognitive performance and physiological recovery in high-demand operational environments where sleep is restricted. The capability aims to address performance degradation caused by sleep deprivation by supporting critical brain functions like waste clearance and synaptic plasticity.

DARPA seeks development of high-energy-density, air-independent rechargeable batteries for military applications where oxygen is unavailable—such as underwater, high-altitude, or space operations. Proposals must demonstrate specific energy exceeding 1 kWh/kg with electrical rechargeability over multiple charge cycles.

This RFP seeks a computational system using protein language models to rapidly characterize pathogen-host interactions from sequence data alone, enabling faster threat assessment and therapeutic response when novel pathogens emerge. The capability must predict protein interactions across pathogen classes, work on unseen pathogens, and deliver comprehensive analysis within one hour on standard hardware.

This RFP seeks biomanufactured thermal interface materials (TIMs) to improve heat dissipation in high-density electronics, drones, and battery systems. The solution must balance thermal conductivity with electrical insulation while offering cost-effective, sustainable alternatives to traditional materials.

DARPA seeks medical technologies designed to work interoperably across both humans and military working dogs, reducing equipment burden on combat medics. Priority innovations include species-compatible plasma products, adjustable medical devices, physiological sensors, and pharmaceuticals that eliminate the need for separate canine-specific supplies.

This RFP seeks a new Patient Handling System (PHS) designed specifically for UH-60M aircraft to address a critical capability gap in the Army's MEDEVAC fleet. The system must fill the void created by reductions in other helicopter variants while supporting the goal of maintaining 446 operational MEDEVAC aircraft.

This RFP seeks distributed AI algorithms enabling a small UAS swarm to collaboratively defend an area against numerically superior enemy swarms using decentralized decision-making and inter-drone communication. The solution must operate within strict weight constraints and function in both networked and denied communications environments.

This RFP seeks distributed AI algorithms enabling small UAS swarms to collaboratively defend areas against numerically superior enemy swarms through decentralized coordination and targeting. The solution must operate under 2 lbs compute payload and function in both permissive and denied communications environments.

The Air Force seeks low-cost kinetic defeat systems to neutralize small unmanned aircraft threats at under $6,000 per engagement. Solutions must feature autonomous guidance, GPS-denied operation, and multi-target capability to address the cost-inefficiency of current interceptors against commercial drone swarms.

This RFP seeks integrated digital capabilities combining intelligent scheduling, centralized information management, and advanced search to modernize Space Launch System operational processes. The solution will reduce manual workload, improve decision quality, and enable faster access to institutional knowledge for enhanced mission readiness and operational tempo.

This RFP seeks innovative commercial sensing and analytics solutions to deliver real-time tactical surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking capabilities for military operators. The effort aims to close gaps in operational responsiveness by rapidly integrating commercially available space and ground-based insights with advanced data processing and fusion technologies.

This RFP seeks development of domestically produced plant-based carbon fiber precursors to reduce U.S. dependence on imported rayon fibers critical for hypersonic thermal protection systems. The effort requires establishing environmentally friendly production processes and proving new precursor materials meet performance standards for advanced aerospace applications.

The Navy seeks specialized waveguides designed to transmit RF signals reliably across X, Ku, K, and Ka frequency bands while withstanding extreme hypersonic temperatures exceeding 1,000°C. These high-precision components must maintain signal integrity and power transmission where traditional RF cables fail under severe thermal conditions.

This SBIR seeks to develop automatic speech recognition and forecasting models that extract geopolitical early-warning signals from multilingual radio, local news, and community audio in data-sparse regions where conventional intelligence collection is limited. The approach combines online streaming ingestion with software-defined radio receivers to improve conflict prediction accuracy from roughly 80% to 90%.

FALCON seeks to combine large language models with machine learning methods to provide domain-specific analysis of structured and unstructured data at scale. The program will develop architecture, evaluation metrics, and safeguards against hallucination while demonstrating practical application across enterprise and engineering datasets.

DARPA seeks non-volatile memory technology that reliably operates across extreme temperature ranges (-269°C to 600°C) and withstands high radiation environments. This capability addresses the "Memory Wall" bottleneck limiting high-performance computing for space, nuclear, and defense applications where current commercial memory solutions fail.

This SBIR topic seeks next-generation thermal batteries with improved energy density, power output, and miniaturization for missile defense interceptor systems. Enhanced batteries would simplify power architecture, reduce weight, and boost system performance compared to current multi-battery solutions used in platforms like the SM-3.

This RFP seeks advanced packaging techniques to combine high-performance commercial microelectronics with radiation-hardening capabilities, enabling Department of War and space systems to operate reliably in radiation-intensive environments while maintaining cutting-edge processing performance.

This RFP seeks a software-defined flight antenna enabling secure, high-speed communications between interceptor missiles in contested environments. The system must support multiple simultaneous beams, frequency hopping, and operate across S+ to Ka bands while fitting within a 10-inch diameter constraint.

The Missile Defense Agency seeks to leverage existing power infrastructure with Very Large Array (VLA) technology to detect anomalies from unknown sources. This approach adds resilient detection layers to strengthen the Missile Defense System's overall capability.

The Missile Defense Agency is seeking miniaturized photonic and quantum technologies to enhance radar and communication systems with improved resilience and performance. Proposals should demonstrate low-power transceiver designs that integrate into modern sensor platforms while advancing common building block technologies for software-defined radios.

Neuromorphic hardware processing enables the Missile Defense Agency to achieve low-latency, high-throughput distributed sensing and adaptive waveform generation for space and terrestrial defense systems. This technology supports real-time learning and autonomous adaptation in contested radio frequency environments.

This RFP seeks event-based sensing hardware and neural network algorithms to enable independent, GPS-denied navigation for military vehicles and satellites. The technology must integrate with existing inertial systems, match GPS-level accuracy, and support real-time adaptive decision-making in dynamic environments.

This RFP seeks statistical analysis of historical radiation data to develop predictive models for space system performance, enabling the Department of War to reduce costly radiation testing requirements while maintaining system survivability in space environments.

This RFP seeks innovative ignition systems for multi-pulse solid propellant rocket motors that can ignite multiple times using the same hardware. The technology aims to reduce reliance on pyrotechnic initiators, lowering inadvertent ignition risks while enabling more flexible propellant utilization and system design.

This RFP seeks a software-defined radio system offering multi-band operation across S, X, and Ka frequencies to replace existing interceptor communications equipment. The SDR must provide rapid frequency hopping, adaptive frequency selection, and simultaneous ground-space connectivity while operating reliably in austere flight environments.

T3CP seeks innovative commercialization of government-funded patents across microelectronics, advanced materials, energetics, munitions, critical minerals, and biomanufacturing sectors. Proposals should develop prototype products with clear commercial relevance and credible dual-use transition pathways, excluding incremental improvements without viable market applications.

This RFP seeks a room-temperature photon-number-resolution imaging sensor array capable of detecting individual photons at gigahertz rates with minimal data loss. The technology will enable advanced quantum imaging and time-correlated photon measurements across megapixel arrays while maintaining scalability and real-time on-chip data compression.

This RFP seeks development of an Asymmetric Spatial Heterodyne interferometer spectrometer that simultaneously achieves large light-gathering capacity and ultra-high spectral resolution—solving a critical instrumentation gap for quantum communication systems, quantum sensing, and advanced remote sensing applications operating across 400–1600 nm wavelengths.

This RFP seeks integrated quantum sensor components with minimal size, weight, and power requirements for vehicle and platform deployment. The effort aims to transition custom quantum sensing solutions toward standardized, commercially viable COTS components that reduce costs and expand dual-use market applications.

Adaptive AI-driven waveform design for radar systems that autonomously optimize transmit parameters to counter electronic attack and interference in contested environments. The solution uses deep reinforcement learning to enable real-time waveform adaptation on edge-computing hardware while maintaining strict power and size constraints.

This RFP seeks tunable metasurface devices that perform analog optical edge detection and image processing directly within thermal-imaging systems. The innovation reduces computational load and latency by shifting feature extraction from digital post-processing to the optical front-end using practical, scalable mid-wave infrared materials.

This RFP seeks compact, high-speed nanophotonic spatial light modulators to enable advanced wavefront control for adaptive optics applications. Current technologies like liquid crystal and MEMS devices are limited by slow response times, hindering adoption of LiDAR, free-space communications, and quantum sensing systems.

This RFP seeks development of affordable infrared lens technology using salt-based optical materials to reduce thermal camera costs for unmanned drone systems. The challenge is engineering moisture-resistant coatings for these naturally hygroscopic materials to enable field deployment while maintaining cost advantages over traditional military infrared optics.

This RFP seeks a room-temperature photon-number-resolution sensor array capable of detecting multiple simultaneous photons at GHz rates with megapixel scalability. The technology addresses quantum imaging and environmental sensing applications requiring precise photon counting while processing extreme data rates without loss.

This RFP seeks foundation-model-based systems for collaborative target recognition across multi-domain unmanned platforms. The solution must enable cross-platform target disambiguation and sensor fusion to replace manual, error-prone coordination processes in degraded operational environments.

USSOCOM seeks innovative stand-off detection technology to identify concealed threats—explosives, weapons, radiological materials—through barriers without sampling or active emissions. The feasibility study targets miniaturized, field-deployable systems for SOF missions including maritime operations, route clearance, and counter-air protection in GPS-denied environments.

This RFP seeks AI-enabled autonomy software that generates game-theoretically optimized courses of action for coordinating UAS swarms in contested, degraded environments. The system must scale to 200+ aircraft, incorporate adversarial reasoning, and support decentralized decision-making for maritime and air defense operations.

The xTech|Phantum competition seeks innovative quantum sensors, quantum clocks, and photonic technologies to enhance Army position, navigation, timing, and communications capabilities while reducing dependence on GPS and improving performance in contested environments. Winners will be eligible to submit SBIR proposals under four specialized quantum and photonics topics.

xTech|Inversion seeks innovative technology solutions that accelerate military capability advancement and address complex national security challenges. The competition focuses on transitioning Army-funded research into scalable, commercially viable solutions through partnerships with non-traditional defense contractors.

The Army seeks autonomous and minimally-manned ground and aerial systems for sustainment and recovery in contested environments where GPS and communications are degraded. Solutions must operate with minimal oversight across payload transport, power generation, refueling, and vehicle recovery to reduce soldier exposure and maintain mission continuity.

The Department of War seeks a ground-based, affordable mass (G-BAM) precision payload delivery system using commercial technologies to provide cost-effective, high-volume alternatives to expensive hypersonic systems. This initiative addresses the need for sustained "magazine depth" capability against peer adversaries while maintaining operational affordability.