The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is now soliciting abstracts from potential offerors for a program that aims to improve stock military and commercial drones by advancing the development of an autonomy capability without being tied to specific drone hardware.
The Rapid Experimental Missionized Autonomy program intends to build a subsystem to facilitate autonomous operations of various drones, according to a presolicitation notice published Monday.
The subsystem will be composed of a drone autonomy adapter, or DA2, and mission-specific autonomy software, or MAS, and could be delivered through rapid development spirals.
DA2 will work to detect the drone type on its own and serve as the interface to the physical drone, while MAS will use the DA2 interface to upgrade the unmanned system from remotely piloted operation to autonomous mission execution.
DARPA expects the program to result in the award of an other transaction agreement for prototype projects.
The agency will accept questions regarding the funding opportunity through Sept. 19 and abstracts until Oct. 3.
Offerors selected for oral presentations will be notified by Oct. 10 and are expected to present their proposals by the end of October.
