DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office is seeking innovative approaches to technologies to allow Command, Control, Computing, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance,
Reconnaissance and Targeting (C5ISRT) systems (applications and network services) to
function without sacrificing application or network utility, while operating under disrupted
and degraded conditions.
FLUID is an 18 month program with two phases of 9 months each.
The specific objective of FLUID is to reduce the load (consumed communication capacity) of a C5ISRT system (applications and network services), without sacrificing the overall system utility, so it can continue to operate under extreme capacity degradation: up to 30dB (ie 3 orders of magnitude) degradation compared to normal conditions.
FLUID seeks to reduce the load of C5ISRT applications and network services to operate within the bounds of the available network capacity. The challenge is doing so without changing the applications or network services, and without affecting the utility of either. In other words, FLUID will have access to messages flowing across the C5ISRT system but not application or network service instances. FLUID must be seamlessly integrated into the C5ISRT system (ie inserting or removing FLUID does not disrupt the system, require a reconfiguration, or a restart).
FLUID must apply the appropriate transformation to the right message given its data type and the constraints of the operating environment. Solutions must be able to quickly adapt to the dynamics of the operating environment.
FLUID must also cope with the challenges of operating across network segments (eg
cryptographic boundaries). The FLUID architecture should support logical and/or physical
distribution, enabling components of the transformation pipeline to be inserted at different points within a C5ISRT system.
Abstracts are due 21 April 2025.
Document
Program Solicitation – FLUID: DARPA-PS-25-14
