Science and Technology for Autonomous Teammates (STAT) | FA8650 17 S 6001

Opportunity Information: Apply for FA8650 17 S 6001

Science and Technology for Autonomous Teammates (STAT) is an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) grant opportunity focused on building and proving out autonomy that can act as a reliable teammate to human operators across real Air Force mission scenarios. The program is not just about creating standalone algorithms; it is aimed at integrating autonomy into operationally relevant demonstrations that show measurable improvements to Air Force effectiveness, especially through better human-machine teaming and faster, higher-quality decision-making. A central intended outcome is enabling the Air Force to function "inside the enemy's decision loop," meaning U.S. forces can sense, decide, and act faster and more coherently than an adversary in contested and rapidly changing environments, while also reducing risk to Airmen.

STAT research and demonstrations are organized around experimentation campaigns in three major mission areas. The first is multi-domain command and control, where autonomy helps coordinate actions and information flow across air, space, cyber, and other domains. The second is ISR Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (PED), which covers the end-to-end pipeline of turning raw sensor data into usable intelligence and getting it to the right people and systems in time to matter. The third is manned-unmanned combat teaming, where autonomy supports coordinated operations between crewed aircraft and uncrewed platforms, enabling new tactics and reducing the burden on human operators. Across these campaigns, STAT emphasizes demonstrating autonomy capabilities in ways that map to real mission constraints rather than purely lab-based performance.

A key theme in the STAT description is improving the full mission cycle, not just a single phase. The program specifically calls out mission planning, mission execution, and post-mission analysis as targets for autonomy enhancement. In practical terms, this implies technologies that can help generate and evaluate plans, adapt those plans in flight or in the middle of an operation as conditions change, and then assist with after-action data processing, interpretation, and lessons-learned generation. The emphasis on information analytics reinforces that the Air Force is looking for autonomy that can deal with complex, high-volume data and produce decision-relevant outputs that humans can trust and act on quickly.

The opportunity also spells out functional requirements for the software algorithms and the supporting system architecture. Solutions are expected to ingest and understand mission taskings and commander intent, which points to autonomy that can translate higher-level goals into executable actions and can align its behavior with what the commander is trying to accomplish. They must respond appropriately to human direction and orders, meaning the autonomy should support human control and interaction in a predictable, safe, and operationally sensible way rather than acting as a black box. They must also respond intelligently to dynamic threats and unplanned events, highlighting robustness and adaptability under uncertainty, including contested environments where adversaries and conditions can change quickly.

STAT places heavy weight on modularity and openness. The program aims to demonstrate modular, transferable, open system architectures and to deliver autonomy technologies that are applicable across a spectrum of multi-domain applications. This is essentially a requirement to avoid one-off, tightly coupled solutions that only work on a single platform or in a single demo. Instead, the Air Force wants components that are reusable, adaptable, platform-agnostic, and easier to integrate into different systems over time. The description also stresses that chosen technologies should be secure, credible, affordable, enduring, and integrable, which collectively points toward engineering discipline: cybersecurity considerations, test and evaluation rigor, cost awareness, long-term maintainability, and clear integration paths.

Another major expectation is that deliverables will support AFRL-owned modeling and simulation environments used for future capability development. STAT is positioned so that industry and AFRL-developed technologies can be integrated into technology demonstrations along with the needed software, hardware, and documentation. Because these deliverables are meant to plug into AFRL environments, all development efforts must adhere to interface designs and standards. In other words, this is not only about proving a concept; it is about delivering artifacts that can be used again and built upon, with defined interfaces that make integration and reuse feasible.

From the administrative details provided, the opportunity is listed under Funding Opportunity Title "Science and Technology for Autonomous Teammates (STAT)" with Funding Opportunity Number FA8650-17-S-6001. It is a discretionary opportunity using a Cooperative Agreement instrument type, under the science and technology research and development activity category, with CFDA number 12.800. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, indicating broad applicant eligibility (for example, companies, universities, nonprofits, or other qualified entities, depending on the full solicitation terms). The issuing agency is the Air Force Research Laboratory. The listing shows an original closing date of 2023-07-07, a creation date of 2017-07-07, an expected awards count of 1, and no award ceiling amount specified in the provided data.

Overall, STAT is best understood as an applied autonomy program aimed at operationally meaningful demonstrations: autonomy that can understand intent, collaborate with humans, adapt under pressure, and integrate cleanly into Air Force architectures. The Air Force is signaling that it values not only algorithmic performance, but also modular open architectures, secure and credible engineering, and deliverables that can be reused in AFRL simulation and future development efforts, all with the goal of improving mission effectiveness while reducing risk and workload for Airmen.

• The Air Force -- Research Lab in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Science and Technology for Autonomous Teammates (STAT)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.800.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-07-07.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-07-07. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

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