The Air Force is asking for industry’s help developing advanced cyber and signals intelligence technologies. Specifically, the Air Force Research Lab wants technologies that can improve extraction, identification, analysis and reporting of tactical information to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; protect forces with digital systems; and support battlespace awareness.

In a notice posted online Dec. 4, the service is asking for white papers in an ongoing basis from now until 2021; from these, it will invite certain companies to issue formal proposals. The total funding for the effort is $99.9 million, which will be broken up in fiscal years 2019 to 2021.

The notice states that technology needs range from quick reaction to critical near-term shortfalls to proof-of-concept.

The request is broken into two parts. The first portion covers ISR information for signals intelligence in order to discover new and innovative methods and processing techniques to provide decision-makers with near real-time ISR.

The second portion includes research to develop methods for the detection, identification, characterization and geolocation of emerging communications; advance digital signal processing software to provide new and existing systems and waveforms; as well as provide new and innovative software and hardware architectures for standoff collection systems and software-defined radios from either airborne or ground-based platforms operating in dense signal environments, to name a few.