SBIROpen

E-2D Large Language Model Entity (ELLMENT)

Solicitation ID26.BZ
Agency
DOD
NAVY
Deadline
Jun 3, 2026
16 days left
Posted Date
Apr 13, 2026
Classification
SBIR
Phase: BOTH

SBIR Opportunity Analysis

The Department of the Navy is seeking an SBIR solution to develop a traceable, explainable large language model for Naval Flight Officers and mission crew aboard the E-2D aircraft, with the goal of providing real-time natural language decision support from operational data. The work calls for a modular, self-contained AI/NLP system that can summarize, reason over, and extract meaning from documents, mission logs, communications, and other high-volume sources, with Phase I focused on architecture, model selection, corpus curation, and evaluation, and Phase II on lab deployment and operator-in-the-loop testing. Important context includes stand-alone operation under information assurance policies, source attribution and model transparency, future extensibility to multimodal ingestion, and the possibility that Phase II work may become classified; the contractor must be U.S. owned and operated and able to obtain and maintain secret-level clearances. The opportunity is open under DON26BZ01-NV010, with the posting opening on May 6, 2026 and applications due June 3, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. UTC.

SBIR Documents

1 Files
1776211345323.pdf
PDF88 KBMay 11, 2026
AI Summary
The DON26BZ01-NV010 “ELLMENT” project aims to develop a traceable, explainable Large Language Model (LLM) for Naval Flight Officers (NFOs) and mission crew on E-2D aircraft. This LLM will serve as an on-demand Natural Language Processing (NLP) decision-support assistant, providing rapid insights from various operational data sources. The project emphasizes a modular, self-contained AI/NLP solution for real-time summarization, reasoning, and meaning extraction, with a focus on stand-alone operation, traceability, source attribution, and model transparency. It requires U.S.-owned and operated contractors with secret-level clearances due to ITAR restrictions and potential classification of work. Phase I involves foundational architecture, LLM selection, corpus curation, and evaluation, while Phase II focuses on deployment in a laboratory environment for rigorous operator-in-the-loop evaluation and scalability assessment. Phase III seeks dual-use applications for the developed system in areas like predictive maintenance, supply chain optimization, and threat detection, highlighting its adaptability beyond the initial use case and its potential to advance AI and NLP technologies.

Related SBIR/STTR Opportunities

Opportunity Snapshot

Source SystemOfficial Link
Program Type
SBIR - BOTH
Agency
DOD / NAVY

Key Dates

Release DateApr 13, 2026
Open DateMay 6, 2026
Application DueJun 3, 2026
Close DateJun 3, 2026