Unison
Updated
Solicitation from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Due Dec 4, 2026, 20 days left.
| Solicitation number | DARPA-PS-27-06 |
|---|---|
| Agency | Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) |
| Office | Def Advanced Research Projects Agcy |
| Notice type | Solicitation |
| Set-aside | None |
| Trade (NAICS) | Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology) (541715) |
| Product or service code | AC13 |
| Posted | Nov 13, 2026 |
| Response deadline | Dec 4, 2026 (20 days left) |
| Add the deadline to | Google Calendar · Apple / Outlook (.ics) |
Bid documents (3)
- Bid document 3.2 MB
- Amendment 1 3.2 MB
- Unison Q A 98 KB
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Description
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative proposals for Unison, a program to develop and evaluate collaborative-autonomy approaches that jointly adapt team decision-making and communications during mission execution. Unison will investigate approaches that enable autonomous teams to modify tactics, behaviors, coordination relationships, and information exchange as mission complexity and operational variability increase and communications become constrained and/or degraded (see Section 7, Glossary, for program-specific definitions of terms in italics).
The core hypothesis of Unison is that a unified execution-time reasoning approach to action planning and communications planning can improve the effectiveness, scalability, and resilience of collaborative autonomy in dynamic, uncertain, and resource-constrained environments. Unison seeks to preserve mission performance while reducing communication dependence and bounding the reasoning burden imposed on individual agents.
Unison frames collaborative autonomy as a multi-agent decision problem in which agents use local observations, mission context, relevance, and mission objectives to select a policy that jointly defines physical actions and communications actions. At each decision point, the team must determine what actions to take, which coordination relationships must be maintained, and what information must be exchanged to preserve the coordination required for mission success.
Unison will investigate approaches across teams of tens to hundreds of agents operating in representative collaborative, multi-domain mission scenarios.
Contracting contact
- BAA Coordinator · [email protected]
As published on the official notice. Ask questions in writing and before any questions deadline the notice sets.
Is your business small enough?
For NAICS 541715, a business counts as small if it has no more than 11 employees (SBA size standard, with exceptions in the notes). This notice is not set aside, but the size decides your small business status on it. SBA table, current as of Oct 15, 2026.
Notice history
- Nov 2, 2026: Solicitation Due Dec 4, 2026
Companies that win this kind of work
Federal contractors paid for research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences work, who also hold DARPA contracts (last 12 months): possible competitors, or partners to team with.
- The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory LLC $1.9 billion in this trade
- Raytheon Company $1.7 billion in this trade
- The Pennsylvania State University $483.0 million in this trade
- Leidos, Inc. $420.8 million in this trade
- Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation $420.0 million in this trade
About the buyer
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded $1.3 billion in contracts in the last 12 months; its biggest suppliers were Lockheed Martin Corporation, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory LLC and Securigence LLC. See what DARPA is buying now.
Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences contracts right now
There are 280 open government contract opportunities in this trade (NAICS 541715), 46 posted in the last 7 days; 30% are set aside for small businesses. The agencies buying the most are Department of the Air Force, Department of the Army and National Institutes of Health. Most of the work with a stated place is in Maryland, District of Columbia and Virginia. A notice in this trade gives a median of 46 days from posting to deadline; this one gives 21 days.
All open research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences contracts
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Planned contracts from the agencies' procurement forecasts, often months before a solicitation. Plans can change.
Recent awards in this trade
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From the award notices agencies publish.