The Department of Defense, specifically the Navy, is seeking proposals for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project titled "Holistic Inflight Variable Employment Suite (HIVES)." The objective of this initiative is to enhance existing End-User Development (EUD) based Situational Awareness (SA) tools to facilitate seamless planning and execution of missions both within the continental United States (CONUS) and outside (OCONUS), integrating capabilities from commercial aviation tools with military requirements. This project aims to streamline mission planning processes, reduce training burdens, and improve operational efficiency by merging civil and military aviation data sources into a single interface. Interested parties should note that the solicitation is set to open on April 23, 2025, with a closing date of May 21, 2025, and can find more details on the official SBIR website.

## Description

At this time, Commercial Civil Aviation tools to streamline mission plan generation, submission, and mission execution are physically separate from military SA tools used during mission execution. This results in duplication of hardware, increased training requirements, and significant workflow for training vs employment missions. Existing civil planning tools lack detailed models for military aircraft. Leveraging existing Aircraft, Weapons, and Electronics (AWE) and aircraft Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS) models may allow rapid addition of legacy military aircraft to robust flight planning tools. Layering tactical use of terrain and threat avoidance adds significant complexity to the final output of civil planning tools, tradeoffs for complexity, tactical utility, and flight safety must be explicitly addressed for phase 2 implementations. The objective of this SBIR topic is to augment existing EUD-based SA tools to support CONUS planning/training and OCONUS planning/mission execution matching existing commercial tools (ForeFlight/Aero) with minimal impact when transitioning from CONUS/training to OCONUS/employment scenarios. The tool will encompass pre-flight planning, submission/ingestion of planning data, takeoff/landing performance, mission execution, and mission modification. The resultant mission planning augmentation will combine the best capabilities of both civil and military ecosystems. Successful implementations will integrate International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) flight plan submission and JMPS AWE capabilities. Data ingestion from both Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), Traffic Information Service Broadcast (TIS-B)/Flight Information Service Broadcast (FIS-B), and military data links to provide SA in all scenarios will enhance common functionality across the spectrum of employment. The ability to submit flight plans to civil and military authorities as well as tactical threat warnings will highlight the power of a single tool supporting CONUS and OCONUS implementation. Leveraging FIS-B and DoD GRIB2 weather data will minimize the disparity in environmental SA between deployed and garrison missions. DoD GRIB2 is a standard format for sharing gridded binary data used by the department of defense. The ability to import commercially available approach plates and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) sourced data seamlessly in a single interface will approach the goal of a single carry-on device for both training and operational environments. Blending DoD and civil data sources will provide robust and timely data for aircraft personnel. While commercial repositories of approach plates may surpass the fidelity of NGA sources, emergent, contingency airfields will only be available through DoD sources. Providing a single, common interface to both sources will streamline all aspects of aircraft employment.Work produced in Phase II may become classified. Note: The prospective contractor(s) must be U.S. owned and operated with no foreign influence as defined by 32 U.S.C. &sect; 2004.20 et seq., National Industrial Security Program Executive Agent and Operating Manual, unless acceptable mitigating procedures can and have been implemented and approved by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) formerly Defense Security Service (DSS). The selected contractor must be able to acquire and maintain a secret level facility and Personnel Security Clearances. This will allow contractor personnel to perform on advanced phases of this project as set forth by DCSA and NAVAIR in order to gain access to classified information pertaining to the national defense of the United States and its allies; this will be an inherent requirement. The selected company will be required to safeguard classified material during the advanced phases of this contract IAW the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM), which can be found at Title 32, Part 2004.20 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

## Objective

Augment existing End-User Development (EUD) based Situational Awareness (SA) tools to support continental United States (CONUS) planning/training and outside the continental United States (OCONUS) planning/mission execution matching existing commercial tools (ForeFlight/Aero) with minimal impact when transitioning from both employment scenarios.

## Phase I

Identify minimum common civil capabilities to integrate into selected SA systems. Identify current DoD processes matching mission plan generation/submission in civil environments. Identify mission data sets available from civil and DoD sources with pathways to integration for each required data set in both peacetime and wartime employment. Develop a consensus for required functionality across disparate aircraft to gauge the difficulty of the overall effort as well as additional &ldquo;per minimum data set&rdquo; workload to support disparate aircraft across the fleet. Integration points on both Civil aviation and DoD. The Phase I effort will include prototype plans to be developed under Phase II.

## Phase II

Augment selected SA systems to meet the minimum requirements identified in the Phase I effort.Work in Phase II may become classified. Please see note in Description paragraph.

## Phase III: Dual Use Applications

Focus on the deployment, sustainment, operational readiness, and long-term support for the capability/product developed in Phase II.This project is a more holistic approach to flight/mission planning in a hybrid environment/battlefield.

Holistic Inflight Variable Employment Suite (HIVES)

SBIR Opportunity Analysis

SBIR Documents

Related SBIR/STTR Opportunities

Opportunity Snapshot

Key Dates