ONHS Report: DARPA-SN-26-101

ERIS Shopping Notice: Distributed Decentralized Control & Estimation

Solicitation ID: DARPA-SN-26-101

Agency: DARPA/IPTO

Type: Special Notice

Deadline: 2027-07-31T17:00:00 ET

Eligibility: Maybe (Unspecified)

Funding: N/A

Doc Type: Other

Clearance: No

Program Manager: ERIS@darpa.mil

Last Updated: 2026-08-14 21:40

Analyzed File: DARPA-SN-26-101.pdf

Eligibility Reasoning

Eligibility for FFRDCs or National Labs was not mentioned.

Note: This is an AI-generated summary...

Summary

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) is seeking innovative solutions via the ERIS Marketplace for decentralized, distributed, and horizontally integrated command and control (C2). This shopping notice (DARPA-SN-26-101) targets modeling, simulation, and software-defined approaches to enable resilient autonomy for heterogeneous combat agents—such as unmanned systems, satellite constellations, and sensing grids—in contested, low-connectivity environments. Key technical interests include optimization-based controls, information theory, and edge processing techniques for managing C2 at the edge. Desired solutions must be scalable to thousands of nodes, feature lightweight algorithms for constrained hardware, and advance the state of the art in collaborative control and estimation. The scope covers both short-term efforts and a longer-term space autonomy program. Responses are to be submitted as video solutions to the ERIS marketplace between August 10, 2026, and July 31, 2027.

Overall Technical Areas

Distributed Decentralized ControlHeterogeneous Agent CollaborationModeling and SimulationSoftware-Defined SystemsResilient Autonomy FrameworksOptimization-Based ControlSystems and Control TheoryInformation Theoretic ApproachesEdge Computing and ProcessingScalable Autonomy ArchitecturesDistributed Tracking and FusionUnmanned Systems AutonomySatellite Constellation ManagementLightweight Algorithm Design

Probable LBNL Areas

BSACSAETAPSA

Focus Areas

Example Priorities:

technical approaches to support decentralized, distributed, and horizontally integrated command and control for heterogeneous combat agents
develop robust, resilient autonomy for decentralized and distributed integrated command and control for combat systems
closed-loop, open-loop, optimization-based, controls-based, systems-theoretic, information-theoretic... technical approaches for autonomy frameworks to manage decentralized control at the edge
Approaches to collaborative control and estimation should enable autonomous, distributed, decentralized operations for heterogeneous agents

Specific Technical Skills:

Control TheorySystems TheoryInformation TheoryDistributed SystemsMulti-Agent SystemsMathematical OptimizationAutonomous SystemsCollaborative ControlResilient Systems DesignHeterogeneous Agent Integration

Potential PIs for this Area:

Name	Score	Organization
Claire Tomlin	0.75	BSA \| Biological Systems & Engineering \| Department of BioEngineering and BioMedical Sciences · Control Theory
Rich Wolski	0.74	CSA \| ESNET \| Science Engagement · Distributed Systems
Costin Iancu	0.73	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Distributed Systems
Kameshwar Poolla	0.73	ETA \| ESDR \| Energy Storage & Dist Dpt · Control Theory
Pengcheng Xie	0.73	CSA \| AMCR \| Mathematics · Mathematical Optimization
Sunhee Baik	0.72	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Energy Markets & Planning · Resilient Systems Design
Anna Giannakou	0.72	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Multi-Agent Systems
Steven Hofmeyr	0.72	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Systems Theory
Alexandre Bayen	0.72	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Systems & Energy Tech Analysis · Heterogeneous Agent Integration
Michael Mahoney	0.71	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Research · Information Theory

Example Priorities:

enable trustworthy agent-to-agent collaboration in a compute, bandwidth limited environment
approaches that address scalability in the 1,000s of nodes using low overhead, lightweight algorithmic implementations
tokenization/encoding/quantization at the edge
delivering autonomy to low compute, constrained bandwidth environments
algorithmic implementations that can be adapted to disparate, varying multi-vendor hardware implementations

Specific Technical Skills:

Edge ComputingEmbedded SystemsLightweight AlgorithmsNetwork OptimizationData CompressionResource-Constrained ComputingScalable ArchitecturesAlgorithm PortabilityLow-SWaP SystemsFirmware Development

Potential PIs for this Area:

Name	Score	Organization
Scott Beamer	0.74	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Scalable Architectures
Angelos Ioannou	0.74	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Resource-Constrained Computing
Jason Lowe-Power	0.74	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Low-SWaP Systems
Doru Adrian Thom Popovici	0.73	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Algorithm Portability
Arpit Gupta	0.72	CSA \| ESNET \| Tech Adv and Engagement · Network Optimization
Oscar Antepara	0.72	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Algorithm Portability
Jean Luca Bez	0.72	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Data Compression
Farzad Fatollahi-Fard	0.71	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Edge Computing
Abdelilah Essiari	0.70	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Lightweight Algorithms
Abhi Rajagopala	0.70	CSA \| NERSC \| HPC Technology Department · Embedded Systems

Example Priorities:

treat the first step in this action chain as “sense/act” and the second step as “incorporate feedback”
Challenges in information exchange, data incest, time dynamism, and barriers to system collaboration are of particular interest.
Experience in distributed tracking, measurement and track fusion at the edge
technologies that enable orchestration and autonomy at scale
heterogeneous combat agents for sensing grids

Specific Technical Skills:

Distributed TrackingSensor FusionData FusionState EstimationCollaborative SensingNetworked SensingTime-Dynamic SystemsInformation Exchange ProtocolsDecision TheorySignal Processing

Potential PIs for this Area:

Name	Score	Organization
Kameshwar Poolla	0.75	ETA \| ESDR \| Energy Storage & Dist Dpt · State Estimation
Prabal Dutta	0.75	ETA \| Building Tech. & Urban Sys. \| Bldg Technologies Dept · Networked Sensing
Scott Moura	0.72	ETA \| ESDR \| Energy Storage & Dist Dpt · Distributed Tracking
Victor Negut	0.72	PSA \| NSD \| ANP · Sensor Fusion
Alexandre Bayen	0.72	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Systems & Energy Tech Analysis · Time-Dynamic Systems
Dipak Ghosal	0.72	CSA \| ESNET \| Tech Adv and Engagement · Collaborative Sensing
Abdelilah Essiari	0.71	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Information Exchange Protocols
Michael Mahoney	0.70	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Research · Data Fusion
Satyarth Praveen	0.70	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Signal Processing
Marco Salathe	0.70	PSA \| NSD \| ANP · Sensor Fusion

Potential LBNL PIs (Overall)

Note on PI Matching: These suggestions are generated through an AI-driven semantic analysis of LBNL staff profiles.

Name	Score	Organization
Kameshwar Poolla	0.77	ETA \| ESDR \| Energy Storage & Dist Dpt · Systems and Control Theory
Claire Tomlin	0.76	BSA \| Biological Systems & Engineering \| Department of BioEngineering and BioMedical Sciences · Optimization-Based Control
Alexandre Bayen	0.76	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Systems & Energy Tech Analysis · Heterogeneous Agent Collaboration
Eric Pouyoul	0.75	CSA \| ESNET \| Tech Adv and Engagement · Software-Defined Systems
Zachary Needell	0.75	ETA \| Energy Analysis \| Systems & Energy Tech Analysis · Modeling and Simulation
Venkatesh Akella	0.73	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Edge Computing and Processing
Steven Hofmeyr	0.73	CSA \| AMCR \| Computer Science · Information Theoretic Approaches
Gregory Lemieux	0.73	EESA \| CESD \| Earth System Sciences · Satellite Constellation Management
Anna Giannakou	0.73	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Applications · Scalable Autonomy Architectures
Suren Byna	0.73	CSA \| SciData \| Data Science Research · Lightweight Algorithm Design

Fundamental Research Exemption (FRE)

Not Mentioned