The Demand Signal: AI

Procurement intelligence from OODA · Reading what government intends to buy.

Semantically-Aware ISR

Department of War · Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency · SBIR Topic · 26.BZ

posted 5 August 2026 · closed 23 September 2026

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Summary

DARPA seeks proposals to develop and demonstrate a mission-aware semantic communications capability for low‑SWaP tactical ISR platforms that dramatically reduces transmitted multimodal data while preserving mission context under degraded communications. The effort focuses on onboard, real-time, low‑power AI that can understand operator intent, perform open‑world spatiotemporal reasoning, and fuse multiple sensor modalities to transmit compact semantic packets.

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