Rapid Prototyping, Experimentation & Dem

Abstract

To facilitate rapid modernization of the force, the RDER initiative was established in the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Year 2023-2027, to encourage multi-component experimentation through a campaign of learning. Services, Agencies, and other participating organizations are to identify "best of breed" capabilities developed among the DoD prototyping programs, and execute approved projects through large-scale experiments in order to refine and/or validate the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC). Organizations are to nominate proposals to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) that are multi-component involving Joint Services, International partners and/or other government agencies and link to one or more of the four key supporting concepts ("functional battles") of the Joint Warfighting Concept: Joint Concept for Fires, Joint Concept for Command and Control, Joint Concept for Contested Logistics, and Joint Concept for Information Advantage. The Department will implement multiple RDER experimentation series through Service nominated projects with execution timelines ranging from one to two years. The USD (R&E) will review project progress, and recommend new projects at least annually with the goal of quickly incorporating the most promising innovative prototypes into experiments, and promptly terminating projects that fail to achieve expectations. To incentivize a disciplined approach to rapidly identify, incorporate, and execute projects largely through the Military Services, the Department will fund approved Service projects for the upcoming fiscal year out of the Department reserves. Funding decisions on additional funds in follow-on years for new projects, and funding decrements for project terminations will be incorporated in budgets annually based on emerging requirements and periodic assessments of project viability. Services will execute these funds under oversight of the OSD in a manner consistent with the experimentation scenario for which individual projects were selected. Service experimentation outcomes will be designed to validate required capabilities enabling the JWC by evaluating and integrating prototyped technologies in operationally relevant, multi-domain environments. Experimentation results will facilitate Joint Staff analysis in the evaluation of the Joint Warfighting Concept, assist the Joint Requirements Oversight Counsel in requirements determination, and inform the Deputy's Management Action Group to make budget decisions that effect changes throughout the Department. Advanced Component Development and Prototypes (ACD&P) efforts necessary to evaluate integrated technologies, representative modes or prototype systems in a high fidelity and realistic operating environment are funded in this Program Element (PE). Most of the work in this PE can be classified between Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 (system/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment) and TRL 7 (system prototype demonstration in an operational environment).

Document Details

• Document Type: R2 Budgetary Justification
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2025
• Source ID: 0604030N_4_1319_PB_2025
• Change Summary Explanation: FY23 funding reduced by $-1.962M due to SBIR assessment.
• Service Agency Name: Navy

Entities

Organizations

• United States Navy

Tags

Readers

• Defense Technology Research and Development.
• Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.
• Military Science and Technology Research and Modernization.

Technology Areas

• Fully Networked C3
• Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control