Coalition Warfare

The CWP provides funding on a competitive basis to DoD organizations to conduct cooperative research, development, test, and evaluation projects with foreign partners. The goals of the CWP program are to: collaboratively address strategic technology gaps for current and future missions, develop interoperability solutions for coalition operations, and strengthen current and future defense partnerships. The CWP selects projects for funding through an annual competitive selection process in accordance with DoD and Combatant Command needs. In addition to funding newly selected projects, the program also provides funding to projects that began in earlier selection cycles (for a total of up to three years of funding for each project). Currently, the funded portfolio includes 57 active projects governed by negotiated/signed international agreements with 21 foreign partners. FY 2024 funding was used to incrementally fund executing projects selected in previous nomination cycles that are bound by government-to-government international agreements. CWP projects that were executed and received incremental funding in FY 2024 are: • Develop, test and field Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms to enhance sonar operator performance by improving situational awareness, increasing decision-making bandwidth, and reducing decision making time - Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Undersea Warfare (USW) Acoustic Applications (AI FOR USW) (US Navy) • Develop a capability to provide beyond line-of-sight wide area volume surveillance, target track and cueing over large forward areas from a sanctuary-based High Frequency Over the Horizon (OTH) radar to support microwave fire-control radars on forward stationed blue platforms hiding in contested environments, enhancing platform survivability (BIFOCAL) (US Navy) • Develop multi-modal autonomous navigation solutions for unmanned surface vessels operating in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-denied environments - Next Generation Unmanned Surface Vessel (NEXUS) (US Navy) • Develop and mature expendable Countermeasure (CM) concepts to defend against surrogate imaging seeker threats and laser protected devices during contested Air Operations - Electro-Optic Countermeasures and Protection Measures (EOCM/EOPM) Trials (THOR’S HAMMER) (US Air Force) • Develop collective cyber defense data exchange standards and deliver a prototype cyber defense message center providing North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partners Selective Access to Prepositioned Cyber Information - Selective Cyber Information Access (SCIA) (US Air Force) • Research, develop, prototype, and test wide area decontamination solutions on various terrain (ports of debarkation and embarkation, main supply routes, and forward staging areas) - Chemical Biological Wide Area Decontamination (CBWAD) (US Army) • Develop fieldable prototype sensors to identify and defeat threats to friendly coalition snipers - Development, Test and Evaluation of the Binocular Near InfraRed Optical Augmentation (NIRO) Device (BINO NIRO) (US Navy) • Develop and test launch, recovery, teaming of Hybrid Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unmanned Aerial Systems (VTUAS) with autonomous sea and ground vehicles (VTUAS) (US Navy) • Characterize the region-specific threat of Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) and initiate clinical testing of a Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) Coronavirus (CoV) vaccine candidate (SARI) (US Army) • Develop an open standards architecture to enable “plug-n-play” insertion of assistive (AI) agents into coalition Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination (PED) systems and build a new generation of AI enabled smart sensors - Collaborative AI at the Tactical Edge (CATE) (US Army) • Mature interoperable information and command and control decision support systems for threat awareness, understanding, and response in a multinational coalition computational environment - Integrated Threat Awareness – Coalition (ITAC) (US Army) • Integrate low power sensors into stealth underwater power sources - Stealth Powered Underwater Sensors (BEACONS LPS) (US Navy) • Develop a Lightweight Transparent Armor (LWTA) to defeat 7.62X39 threats using Navy Research Lab’s revolutionary energy guiding layer concept (LWTA) (US Navy) • Deliver a COMPACT solid-state scalable Gigawatt High Power Microwave (HPM) “Cannon’, exploiting state-of-the art US Blumlein technology, Sandia Lab’s Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) lasers, and Singapore high-power miniature switches, capable of neutralizing electronic devices with broad threat capabilities (COMPACT HPM) (US Air Force) • Develop new classes of acoustic processing algorithms that allow for increased detection, discrimination and tracking of strategic competitor submarine contacts in high clutter environments, yielding increased target indication for the operator - Robust Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Detection & Tracking Capability for High Clutter Environments (ROBUST ASW) (US Navy) • Develop and refine neurocognitive optimization training tools for improving Soldiers’ physical and psychological resiliency to combat operational stress - Brain-Physical Optimization Conditioning (B-POC) as a Training Tool for Improving Soldiers’ Resiliency to Combat Stress (BPOC IPCFEX) (US Army) • Develop, test, improve, and evaluate prototype cyber defensive technologies (e.g., Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems, or IDPSs) for protecting ground vehicle systems from cyber threats - Cyber Defensive Technologies for Ground Vehicle Systems within North America (CYBER GEMINI) (US Army) • Develop an airborne optical communications model terminal and interface documentation to connect distributed coalition forces through the aerial layer with secure, Interoperable Information Transport (IOT) (US Navy) • Assure Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) availability in Global Positioning System (GPS)-challenged and denied marine environments (MARINE PNT WITHOUT GPS) (US Navy) • Develop and test novel Antireflective Surfaces for Infrared Detector (ARSID) materials for the purpose of significantly reducing detectable reflections by at least 25X in operational environments (ARSID) (US Navy) • Develop Human and Electronic warfare Autonomy Teaming applications and decision aids to allow both nations’ militaries to operate smarter, quicker, and more efficiently in the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) (HEAT) (US Navy)