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Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML) Focused Open Topic is sponsored by Department of Defense (DoD) - Office of Naval Research (ONR). This DoD open topic invites proposals on AI/ML technologies for defense applications, targeted at small businesses through SBIR/STTR. It focuses on developing the science base and efficient computational methods for building versatile intelligent agents.
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Machine Learning, Reasoning and Intelligence The Machine Learning, Reasoning and Intelligence program focuses on developing the science base and efficient computational methods for building versatile intelligent agents (cyber and physical) that can perform various tasks with minimal human supervision.
In addition, they should be able to collaborate seamlessly with teams of humans and other agents in environments that are unstructured, open, complex and dynamically changing.
Even though there is no universally accepted definition of intelligence, or artificial intelligence, there are certain capabilities an intelligent agent must possess the ability to: Understand the environment Plan to achieve its goals This requires world-scale knowledge and reasoning ability. There have been significant advances in building highly intelligent agents that can play challenging games with well-specified rules.
This program focuses on developing agents that are “street smart”, namely, agents that can make good (or optimal) decisions and survive to achieve their goals in dynamic environments where rules are not clear and other actors in the scene do not take turn.
Although the field of artificial intelligence is broad, the goal of this program is to advance the fundamentals of AI with a primary focus on understanding visual data, and perception and planning for single and teams of agents. Application-driven research in in this area is supported by the automated image understanding thrust under the Computational Methods for Decision Making program .
This program addresses naval applications that involve the use of intelligent autonomous agents. Such agents serve as force multipliers by rapidly understanding sensor data streams and turning that into decision aids. This program is basic research, therefore while direct linkages to naval problems are not necessary, the potential for future applicability should exist.
Research Concentration Areas Building blocks of machine intelligence – develop methods for: Building knowledge bases from diverse sources Learning complex concepts and tasks from annotated and unlabeled examples, instructions, and demonstrations Reasoning with uncertain and qualitative information, as well as self-assessment Planning in large-scale domains in information architectures that seamlessly integrate knowledge-bases, learning, reasoning, and planning for decision-making Teams of agents and humans: Develop computational methods for building decentralized collaborating teams of autonomous agents, in particular agents that are fairly capable in terms of sensing, communication and computational resource Develop computational models of human decision-making and behavior for use by agents Develop mathematical theories of swarm control, particularly engineered swarms with desired behaviors Visual scene understanding – develop theory and algorithms for 4D scene understanding from images/video; recognition of scene type, objects, activities, and events; and inference of intentions: For autonomous agent perception For understanding surveillance imagery For semantic search of visual databases For succinct natural language descriptions of images and video Research Challenges and Opportunities Building knowledge bases, machine learning, reasoning, planning, and architectures for seamless integration of these modules.
Decentralized perception and planning for cooperative teams of autonomous agents. Computational models of human behavior and decision-making for use by autonomous agents. Scene understanding from visual data and other modalities, object recognition, activity recognition, event recognition, inferring intensions.
For detailed application and submission information for this research topic, please refer to our broad agency announcement (BAA) No. N0001425SB001 . Contracts: All white papers and full proposals for contracts must be submitted through the ONR Submission Portal ; instructions are included in the BAA.
Grants: All white papers for grants must be submitted through the ONR Submission Portal , and full proposals for grants must be submitted through grants. gov ; instructions are included in the BAA. Artificial Intelligence Program Officer behzad.
kamgarparsi. civ@us. navy.
mil
According to the current listing, eligibility includes: Small businesses. Companies will provide a technology transition and commercialization plan for DoD and commercial markets. Confirm the full requirements in the official notice before applying.
Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML) Focused Open Topic is funded by Department of Defense (DoD) - Office of Naval Research (ONR). Verify program details on the funder's official page before applying.
Start from the official opportunity page linked in this listing — it carries the sponsor's submission instructions.
DoD Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI) is sponsored by Department of Defense (DoD) - Office of Naval Research (ONR). The Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI), administered by the Department of Defense Office of Naval Research, supports basic research in science and engineering at U. S.
Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) is sponsored by U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) - Office of Naval Research (ONR), Army Research Office (ARO), and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). DURIP provides competitive grants to U.S. universities for the acquisition of major research instrumentation, including high-performance computing clusters, essential to DoD-relevant scientific and engineering advancement. The program aims to improve the capabilities of U.S. institutions of higher education to conduct research and educate scientists and engineers in areas important to national defense.
SBIR SF254-D1206: Knowledge-Guided Test and Evaluation Frameworks for proliferated Low Earth Orbit Constellations is sponsored by U.S. Air Force. DOD SBIR topic SF254-D1206: Knowledge-Guided Test and Evaluation Frameworks for proliferated Low Earth Orbit Constellations. Component: U.S. Air Force. Command: SDA. Solicitation: DoD SBIR 2025.4. Phase(s): D2PII, II, SPII. Status: Pre-Release. Open date: 3/4/2026.
State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program (SLCGP) is a grant from the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) that funds cybersecurity improvements for state and local government entities across California. Established through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the program is part of a $1 billion nationwide initiative administered jointly by FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Eighty percent of total state allocations must support local governments, and twenty-five percent must support rural areas. Eligible subrecipients include local governments, school districts, special districts, and tribal entities. Funding is allocated in accordance with California's SLCGP Cybersecurity Plan, which was approved by FEMA and CISA in September 2023. California received $7.9 million in first-year funding. Proposals are submitted through Cal OES when Competitive Funding Opportunities are announced on the Cal OES website and State Grants Portal.
The Department's FY26 SBIR/STTR Release 3 opened June 24 with roughly 37 topics across DARPA, the Navy, the Air Force, and the defense components, all closing July 22. The compressed four-week window is unforgiving, but the bigger mistake founders make is treating every component the same. Here is how to read the release, the eligibility rules that disqualify good companies, and why the component you target matters more than the topic you pick.
Read articleDoW's 2026 SBIR Broad Agency Announcement now operates on a monthly pre-release / quarterly close cadence. The 42 topics closing June 24 are the first test of whether the new rhythm produces the steady-state deal flow defense innovators have been asking for since 2022.
Read articleThe Department of the Navy pre-released FY26 Release 3 SBIR/STTR on June 3, 2026 — 12 BAA topics and one Commercial Solutions Opening for Counter-Unmanned Air Systems. Topics span adaptive sensor management, anomalous behavior detection, satellite imagery optimization, real-time zero-trust data for combat systems, and gun weapon systems modernization. Technical questions cut off June 23. Proposals open June 24 and close July 22. NAVAIR and NAVSEA co-host a Counter-UAS webinar June 16. Phase I funding tops out at $315,000. The CSO open topic for AI-powered drone defense is the structural news: it's the first time NAVAIR has used a CSO vehicle to fund counter-drone work outside the conventional Phase I/II structure, and it changes how small businesses can engage with the Navy's most urgent capability gap.
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