US Special Operations Command Advances Unmanned System Autonomy – Israel Defense
Collaboration with SOFWERX aims to integrate new autonomous behaviors into the FANTOM suite for the Adaptive Airborne Enterprise architecture.
An array of unmanned aerial vehicles operating in collaborative autonomy (illustrative). Photo: U.S. Department of Defense Current Photos / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
SOFWERX, in close collaboration with the Program Executive Office for Fixed Wing (PEO-FW) of the United States Special Operations Command, has announced a dedicated assessment event to identify potential industry vendors.
According to a report on Events, the Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) is an interoperable system-of-systems designed to enable robust intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities through small, attritable, autonomous unmanned aerial systems (sUAS), coupled with resilient data pathways and a unified command architecture. The event is open to U.S. citizens only, and its primary objective is to integrate existing autonomous behaviors or propose new ones into the government-owned FANTOM autonomy software, using the FANTOM Core SDK.
The initiative seeks to accelerate the deployment of operational capabilities across multi-platform and multi-payload unmanned assets operating within the Adaptive Airborne Enterprise ecosystem.
FANTOM software is the full autonomy suite deployed across the entire A2E array, with system extensions consisting of mature, high-TRL plugins integrated via the SDK.
Special Operations Command requires the implementation of new, specialized modular autonomous behaviors to expand and mature the system, supporting a distributed, collaborative autonomy architecture on Group 2-3 unmanned platforms.
The program calls for continuous innovation in areas such as mission objective adaptation, swarm coordination, sensing, navigation, task allocation, distributed decision-making, target acquisition, and tracking, alongside behavior validation and integration pathways based on simulations and flight-readiness testing.
Desired outcomes from the event include the creation of a catalog of proposed behaviors, evaluation of vendor integration capabilities with the development kit, recommendations of suitable vendors for subsequent development phases, and industry feedback to refine documentation and development tools.
The command seeks to enter into Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)-based agreements or non-FAR agreements with industry, academia, and national laboratories whose solutions are favorably evaluated based on technical merit, pursuant to statutory provisions enabling prototype and research agreements.
The event timeline is scheduled for 2026, with Phase 1 submissions opening on October 5 and closing on November 5, accompanied by a virtual Q&A session on October 20 to assist submitters in understanding command objectives.
Down-selection of the highest-potential proposals will take place between November 6 and November 20, with invitations to the assessment event issued around November 23.
The evaluation phase will take place virtually from December 15 to December 17, 2026, featuring one-on-one sessions with the command evaluation panel. Favorably assessed proposals may immediately move to negotiations toward an agreement.
Future awards may encompass business research and development agreements via SOFWERX, Other Transaction Authority (OTA) prototype agreements, procurement for experimental purposes, cooperative research and development agreements, or prize competitions for advanced technological achievements.
Follow us on Google News
source
This is a newsfeed from leading technology publications. No additional editorial review has been performed before posting.
