Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) Collaborative Research Alliance (CRA) | W911NF 17 S 0005

Opportunity Information: Apply for W911NF 17 S 0005

The Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) Collaborative Research Alliance (CRA) is a U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) effort to build the scientific foundations needed for future battlefield networks made up of vast numbers of connected "things" such as sensors, mobile devices, autonomous platforms, and other cyber-physical systems. The core motivation is that commercial Internet of Things (IoT) advances, driven by cloud computing, pervasive wireless connectivity, cheap sensing, and rapid progress in AI, are changing the character of conflict. Those same advances can empower adversaries, and the Army cannot simply adopt commercial solutions because battlefield conditions introduce unique constraints like contested communications, deception, extreme heterogeneity, rapid mobility, and the need to operate with devices the Army does not own or fully control. In that environment, the Army is aiming for an IoBT that can be understood and managed in real time, can adapt as missions and constraints evolve, and can provide predictive analytics to support intelligent command and control and battlefield services.

This opportunity is structured as a Collaborative Research Alliance, meaning it is designed as a long-term, hands-on partnership rather than a collection of loosely related standalone grants. ARL intends for private-sector and government researchers to work jointly on hard, multi-disciplinary problems, with frequent technical exchanges, site visits, and staff rotations to keep the work aligned with operational realities and to speed the transition of ideas into Army-relevant capabilities. The overall research objective is fundamental: develop a deep understanding of dynamically composable, adaptive, goal-driven IoBTs, and the mathematical and computational approaches needed to represent these systems, reason about their behavior, and generate reliable predictive analytics in complex, fast-changing environments. The Army frames this as essential to operating and winning in a "complex world" where events unfold at "internet time" and where objectives and constraints can shift unexpectedly, creating what the announcement describes as "wicked problems."

A major theme throughout the opportunity is complexity at scale. Future IoBTs are expected to be more complex than todays networked systems because of increasing heterogeneity (many device types and owners), connectivity and interdependence (systems influencing each other), dynamics (nodes and networks appearing, disappearing, moving, or being compromised), and the sheer speed of information flows and human interactions. The Army also anticipates that it will sometimes need to leverage not only friendly (blue) devices, but also adversary (red) and civilian/neutral (gray) devices and infrastructure, even when those systems are only partially observable and not trustworthy. That need drives a foundational research challenge: how to learn and build models of IoBT goals, network behaviors, information flows, and analytics pipelines that can still support decision-making when data may be incomplete, delayed, manipulated, or deliberately deceptive.

The CRA organizes the technical work into three tightly linked research areas. The first is Discovery, Composition and Adaptation of Goal-Driven Heterogeneous IoBTs, which focuses on how battlefield-connected things can be found, understood, assembled into useful task-oriented configurations, and then reconfigured as the mission changes or as devices and links fail or become contested. The second is Autonomic IoBTs to Enable Intelligent Services, emphasizing self-managing behavior: systems that can monitor themselves, make local and global adjustments, and deliver intelligent services without requiring constant human micromanagement, which is especially important when communications are unreliable and the operational tempo is high. The third is Distributed Asynchronous Processing and Analytics of Things, which targets the reality that computation and sensing will be spread across many devices and nodes with intermittent connectivity, different clocks, varying trust levels, and limited resources, requiring new approaches for resilient, low-latency analytics and decision support across the network.

Cyber-Physical Security is treated as a cross-cutting research issue that must be addressed in every part of the alliance, not as an add-on. The announcement highlights that battlefield IoBTs must function while facing advanced persistent threats, compromised nodes, spoofing and deception, and the risks that come with relying on devices and data streams outside Army control. This security dimension is embedded in the fundamental research questions: how to infer trustworthy situational understanding from untrusted or partially trusted sources, how to maintain mission effectiveness under active attack, and how to design systems that are adaptive and composable without opening unacceptable security holes.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity was issued by the Department of Defense, Department of the Army - Materiel Command, with ARL leading. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, reflecting the expectation of substantial government involvement and ongoing collaboration. The opportunity is categorized under discretionary funding for science and technology and other research and development (CFDA 12.630). Eligibility is limited to private institutions of higher education. The funding opportunity number is W911NF-17-S-0005, originally created March 3, 2017, with an original closing date of July 27, 2017. ARL anticipated making a single award, with an award ceiling of $70,000,000, consistent with the scale and long-term nature of a CRA designed to create shared research momentum across multiple disciplines and stakeholders.

• The Department of Defense, Dept of the Army -- Materiel Command in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) Collaborative Research Alliance (CRA)" 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 Mar 03, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 27, 2017. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $70,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Private institutions of higher education.

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