Scalable, Adaptive, and Resilient Autonomy (SARA) | W911NF 20 S 0005

Opportunity Information: Apply for W911NF 20 S 0005

The Scalable, Adaptive, and Resilient Autonomy (SARA) opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number W911NF-20-S-0005) is a U.S. Army research solicitation run by the Department of the Army, Materiel Command through the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), focused on advancing robotics and autonomous systems for future military operations. It is structured as a discretionary science and technology research program and uses a Cooperative Agreement as the funding instrument, which typically signals an expectation of ongoing technical interaction with the government during the period of performance rather than a hands-off grant.

At a high level, SARA is aimed at the kinds of autonomy the Army expects to need for cross-domain maneuver (CDM), where forces may have to operate distributed, semi-independently, and under degraded conditions. A central assumption in the program is that real-world combat environments will not reliably provide GPS, stable communications, or intact infrastructure. Because of that, the Army is looking for autonomy that is resilient when navigation aids are denied, when sensing is uncertain, and when communications are intermittent or contested. The desired end state is autonomous air and ground systems that can perceive and understand complex environments, learn and adapt, reason about what they are seeing, communicate and coordinate when possible, and still keep operating safely and effectively when those links are disrupted.

The SARA program emphasizes "scalable, adaptive, and resilient" intelligent systems that can do more than single-vehicle autonomy. The solicitation highlights the need for autonomy that can operate across a range of platforms and mission contexts, and that can extend from individual vehicles to teams of heterogeneous systems. In practice, that means the Army is interested in autonomy that supports both mobility and maneuverability (moving through difficult terrain and cluttered environments), as well as distributed collaboration (multiple unmanned assets coordinating with each other and with human teammates). The program also explicitly connects autonomy to operational tempo decision-making, meaning systems should be able to make timely decisions in dynamic, contested situations rather than relying on slow, centralized control.

The technical areas of interest described in the announcement cluster into several major research thrusts. One thrust is novel methods for all-terrain ground and aerial maneuver, including ways for vehicles to physically interact with complex environments and move through them. Another is scalable, heterogeneous collaborative behaviors, supporting collaborative air and ground operations and manned-unmanned teaming, where different types of vehicles and agents coordinate toward shared objectives. A third thrust is improved perception, decision-making, and adaptive behaviors that enable fully autonomous maneuver in contested environments, which implies robustness to adversarial conditions, uncertainty, and changing terrain or threats. A fourth thrust focuses on the methods and infrastructure needed to evaluate autonomy: metrics, tools, simulation approaches, and test and evaluation techniques that reflect Army-relevant constraints and environments. Finally, the program stresses experimental testbeds used to develop, validate, and refine "knowledge products" that can inform Army stakeholders and support technology transition, signaling that ARL wants results grounded in experimentation and not only theory or simulation.

This funding opportunity has been run in multiple cycles. The notice you provided references Cycle 2 (posted 8 February 2021), Cycle 3 (originally posted 21 March 2023 and later updated with a Q&A and a deadline revision to 5 May 2023 at 1700 Eastern), and Cycle 4 (originally posted 10 April 2024 and updated to include a Q&A document and to update the submission deadline to 17 May 2024 by 1700 Eastern). The announcement notes that each cycle includes attached updated announcements listing specific topics of interest and submission instructions, so the exact technical emphasis and proposal requirements can vary by cycle even though the overall SARA mission remains consistent.

Eligibility is broad. Applicants may include institutions of higher education, for-profit organizations, and non-profit organizations. Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) may also propose, as permitted by their sponsoring agency and consistent with applicable policies. Teaming is allowed, meaning proposals can include a prime organization with subawardees in any combination, but an important structural detail is that the award will be made to a single entity (the prime recipient), even if that recipient uses subawards to assemble a team.

From an applicant perspective, the key takeaway is that SARA is not looking for narrowly scoped autonomy demos that depend on ideal sensing, perfect maps, constant GPS, or uninterrupted communications. The Army is trying to accelerate research that makes autonomy dependable in messy, adversarial conditions, that scales from one platform to coordinated multi-agent teams, and that can be evaluated credibly using Army-relevant test methods, metrics, and experimental testbeds. For Cycle 4 specifically, the updated closing date listed is 17 May 2024 at 1700 Eastern Time, and the solicitation indicates that an accompanying Q&A document and cycle-specific topics and instructions are part of the updated posting materials.

• The Dept of the Army -- Materiel Command in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Scalable, Adaptive, and Resilient Autonomy (SARA)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.630.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2020-01-15.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-05-17. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for W911NF 20 S 0005

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