Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) Lakehurst, NJ in support of Webster Outlying Field (WOLF) Airborne Systems Integration (ASI) Division is soliciting white papers/proposals for research and development support in technologies that are applicable to the following: air platforms, manned and unmanned payloads, advanced computing and processing, air platform support systems, advanced air system security and protection, and improved naval air capabilities. Example focus areas include improved technologies, techniques or advanced applications of communications, Electro-Optical (EO), Infrared (IR), Radio Frequency (RF), acoustic sensors, persistent surveillance technologies, and special sensor systems for Navy Aircraft Manned and Unmanned Air Systems (UAS).

The NAWCAD WOLF ASI Division develops advanced air platforms, sensors (e.g., acoustics, EO/IR, radar, magnetics, and other special sensors), and systems. The purpose of these sensors and surveillance systems is to support a variety of aviation missions including Air Undersea Warfare (USW), airborne strike, air warfare, counter-air, close air support and interdiction, defense suppression, communications relays, digital interoperability, electronic attack, naval warfare and amphibious strike, Counter Unmanned Systems (C-UxS), and anti-surface warfare. Most of the air platforms will be small unmanned Group 1 to Group 4 UAS or modifications to existing larger manned and unmanned air platforms. Sensors could be air deployed (via manned or unmanned aircraft); ground, surface, or undersea deployable as driven by the mission needs.

This BAA not only includes sensors, sensor data processing, and sensor systems, but it also includes mathematical modeling of the sensors and air platforms, communication techniques between the sensors and/or platforms, interfaces, software development, the fusion and exploitation of multi-sensor data, studies, artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, advanced algorithms, and other techniques used to develop advanced capabilities and reduce the cost of transitioning sensors technologies to the fleet. Furthermore, this BAA shall cover development and analysis of related air, sea, and land detection models using relevant sensor data.