ROME, N.Y. – U.S. Air Force researchers are approaching industry for enabling technologies that will provide information-sharing capabilities, common operating tools, and a cyber security environment for intelligence operations.
Officials of the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate in Rome, N.Y., have released an advanced research announcement (FA8750-26-S-7001) for the Resilient Analytic Platforms for Intelligence Delivery (RAPID) program.
RAPID seeks to develop cloud computing tools, automating processing workflows, standards, and integration of existing intelligence into consolidated, cyber-resilient dashboards and analysis systems, with a goal of delivering tailored, customer-specific intelligence, analytic capabilities with cyber security.
The aim of the RAPID program is to enable access to data, knowledge-based information, and model-based inference engines using satellite imagery; open-source intelligence; cyber-generated data from network traffic, intrusion detection logs, and malware analysis; signals intelligence (SIGINT); human intelligence; measurement and signature intelligence; automatic identification; and legacy enterprise repositories.
Intelligence fusion
RAPID seeks improvements in intelligence fusion and latency reduction; geospatial-intelligence-derived information correlation; combined intelligence data management; secure system integration and interoperability; security and vulnerability management; assured and resilient cloud computing; secure edge computing for disadvantaged users; data models and ontologies, and synthetic data generation; benchmarking and validation; and organizational compliance and security governance.
Combined intelligence fusion and latency reduction involves new analytic techniques and integrate diverse sensor and intelligence data to produce sophisticated, timely, and actionable intelligence.
The focus is on reducing the time between collecting data and generating actionable intelligence, while safeguarding information flow. This will involve standardized data formats, edge processing, secure cloud computing, and advanced analytics.
Geospatial-intelligence-derived information correlation seeks to explore artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques to automate intelligence analysis tasks, improve the accuracy and efficiency of information extraction, correlation, access, visualization, and enhance cyber threat detection and response.
Managing data
Combined intelligence data management involves developing tools and secure workflows for managing, processing, and analyzing large, disparate, and often unstructured data from diverse intelligence sources.
Focus areas include data de-duplicating, normalization, and enrichment; putting information into context; scalable and secure data storage and access; and reporting tools tailored to different kinds of intelligence.
Secure system integration and interoperability will design integrated prototypes for secure information sharing across different data sources that adhere to strict security protocols.
Security and vulnerability management will identify vulnerabilities in weapon systems early in development and continuously evaluate them for previously undetected vulnerabilities.
Cloud computing
Assured and resilient cloud computing will develop information systems with security to ensure efficient system use with a high level of security. This will consider security risks, and develop approaches to fulfill confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Secure edge computing for disadvantaged users seeks to give those with limited network bandwidth and processing power access to time-sensitive decision-making by using a flexible, resilient framework with privacy.
Data models, ontologies, and synthetic data generation seeks to enable data integration, knowledge representation, and automated reasoning across different intelligence domains, with an emphasis on generating realistic and representative data.
Benchmarking and validation seeks to enable reporting mechanisms to verify the accuracy of results received from data processed through algorithms, workflows, and models.
Open-systems standards
Organizational compliance and security governance will develop new ways to secure open-systems architectures while adhering to organizational standards and security measures. The project may involve planning, field tests, and cyber exercises to demonstrate specific technologies.
The RAPID project extends through February 2031, and will spend about $237 million with several contractors. White papers are due for 2027 projects by 30 Sept. 2026; for 2028 projects by 30 Sept. 2027; for 2029 projects by 20 Sept. 2028; and for 2030 projects by 30 Sept. 2029.
Companies interested should email white papers, questions, or concerns to the Air Forces's Frank Gambino at [email protected].
Email business questions to Amber Buckley at [email protected]. More information is online at https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/d2cf687bffa040c6889c80007683fa25/view.
