COAT RFI (2026-06-22) - Dist A.pdf

Technologies, Products or Services for the Development of

Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Crewstations

U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM)

Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC) 6501 E 11 Mile Rd

Attn: FCDD-GVS-MS Detroit Arsenal, Michigan 48397-5000 v1.0 (June 22, 2026)

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

OPSEC#: 10785

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Background:

Under the new US Army Warfighting Concept, the Army recently reorganized and streamlined its acquisition process to more rapidly modernize its forces to maintain multi-domain dominance over our ever-evolving adversaries. A core element is the formation of the new US Army Transformation and Training Command (T2COM) which, along with ASA(ALT), consolidates and coordinates requirements generation, research & development and materiel acquisition components with near-, mid- and long-term fielding horizons.

To more efficiently and effectively manage materiel modernization, six Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAE) were established under ASA(ALT). The former Program Executive Office (PEO) offices were reorganized and rebranded into twelve Capability Program Executives (CPE) offices underneath these six PAEs plus an additional CPE to manage enterprise services:

- PAE Fires o CPE Defensive Fires o CPE Integrated Fires o CPE Offensive Fires

- PAE Command & Control (C2) and Counter C2 o CPE Command, Control and Information Network (C2IN) o CPE Simulation, Training, Test and Threat (ST3) o CPE Intelligence and Spectrum Warfare

- PAE Maneuver Ground o CPE Ground

- PAE Maneuver Air o CPE Mission Autonomy o CPE Aviation

- PAE Agile Sustainment & Ammunition o CPE Ammunition & Energetics o CPE Combat Logistics

- PAE Layered Protection & Chemical, Biological, Radiological & Nuclear (CBRN) o CPE CBRND

- CPE Enterprise Software and Services (ES2)

In addition to the traditional pathway for product development organizations to transition technologies to these Program of Record (PoR) CPEs, there is now a more agile, complementary pathway to get mature products assessed and prioritized through the Transformation In Contact (TiC) program for rapid acquisition and fielding. The appropriate pathway will be determined by the PAEs, warfighter’s capability priorities, platform integration & logistics support complexity and acquisition funding availability.

US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (aka DEVCOM) is the Army’s organic science, technology and engineering organization dedicated to developing these combat capabilities. DEVCOM is comprised of seven commodity-focused Technology Centers and Laboratory:

- Armaments Center (AC)

- Aviation & Missile Center (AvMC)

- C5ISR Center (C5ISRC)

- Chemical Biologic Center (CBC)

- Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC)

- Soldier Center (SC)

- Army Research Laboratory (ARL)

GVSC is the science & technology (S&T) enabler for PAE Maneuver Ground and supports the following technology-focused capabilities:

- Human Machine Integration

- Reducing Logistics Burden of Ground Vehicle Fleet

- Enduring Fleet Support

- Advancing Technology Readiness Level of our Developing Technologies

- Protection

- Engineering Capabilities

- Testing Capabilities for the following technology areas:

o Survivability o Power & Energy o Vetronics, Robotics o Vehicle Software o Modeling Simulation & Prototyping (* which is where our COAT crew station modernization program resides)

COAT Program:

Our “Crew Optimization and Augmentation Technologies” (COAT) program facilitates the market research, product assessment and demonstration of industry’s disruptive, next-generation ground combat & tactical vehicle crew station technologies to the relevant acquisition decision stakeholders. This includes the near-term Transforming-In-Contact (TIC) program for mature technologies and the more traditional Program of Record (PoR) Program/Project Manager(PM) path for technologies that may require additional funded development. These technologies and products will undergo rigorous objective technical evaluations by US Army DEVCOM Subject Matter Experts (SME) and subjective operational evaluations by soldiers, first within our controlled crew station Hardware-In-The-Loop System Integration Laboratory (H-SIL) and/or Virtual Experimentation (VE) Laboratory before being integrated into a combat or tactical vehicle for evaluation by soldiers, on a military range, conducting realistic mission scenarios.

Expectations:

Through our market research, to include this RFI, we will determine which vendors’ [near] production technologies, products and/or services offers the best aligned solutions to the Army’s current prioritized capability gaps. The selected vendors will be offered an opportunity to collaborate with the Army to showcase their offering via a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) mechanism [https://arl.devcom.army.mil/collaborate-with-us/opportunity/crada/].

Under the CRADA, the government COAT program will provide and coordinate, at no cost to the selected vendors, the necessary Army services that will sufficiently showcase the vendor’s offering to the relevant acquisition stakeholders (i.e. TiC unit assessors, vehicle PMs & requirements organizations). This typically includes providing access to:

(1) Army SME support to help vendors integrate their product onto an Army ground combat/tactical vehicle,

(2) Hardware-In-The-Loop System Integration Lab (HIL-SIL) to work through integration concerns & perform an initial operational assessment in a controlled environment,

(3) Access to Army ground combat/tactical vehicle(s) for system integration & functional assessment,

(4) Operational assessment by soldiers conducting representative mission scenarios on a military test/training range, and

(5) Formal Operational Assessment Report.

Under the CRADA, the vendor will provide, at no cost to the government, the necessary vendor services to successfully showcase the vendor’s offering to the relevant acquisition stakeholders. This typically includes providing:

(1) Bailment of product version that is of sufficient performance and maturity to represent the acquisition-able product,

(2) Technical support to integrate their product into HIL-SIL to work through integration concerns & perform an initial operational assessment in a controlled environment,

(3) Technical support to integrate their product into an Army ground combat/tactical vehicle(s) for system integration & functional assessment,

(4) FSR support at military test/training range to provide NET and maintain equipment throughout the assessment.

(5) Fund your own labor, travel and shipping of equipment to military installations for integration and testing/assessment. Once equipment is bailed/delivered to the government, the government will be responsible for shipping to include returning to the vendor.

Under the CRADA, the government does not typically provide any funding to the vendor for the agreed upon collaboration work, however, the vendor would be able to fund the government for additional engineering/test services under the CRADA (e.g. qualify product under MIL-STD 810 for shock and vibration or environmental chamber testing).

Although the purpose for this RFI is to solicit technologies, products and services that are desired by the Army and showcase them to acquisition stakeholders for a funded acquisition & fielding decision, there is no guarantee of being selected or if selected, prioritized for acquisition funding & fielding. Non-response to this RFI does not preclude your submission or reduce your chances to being selected for other acquisition opportunities for the same capabilities (e.g. RFQ, BAA).

Request for Information:

Therefore, the COAT program requests information of [near] production commercial technology, products or services, hereby referred to as the offering, that are preferably Mil- Spec’d, but minimally automotive/industrial quality, that can survive the operating conditions on combat/tactical vehicles. The vendor offering should address the COAT Capability Areas in one of the following four capability perspectives:

(1) Provides a new or improved crew station capabilities in terms of performance, efficiency or reliability. This is not simply looking for alternative sources of supply.

(2) Provides embedded training systems for learning how to better operate and utilize the crew station equipment inside the crew’s actual combat vehicle.

(3) Provides Virtual Experimentation modelling & simulation systems for learning how to better operate and utilize the crew station equipment in a simulated crew station (e.g. digital twin of crew station, vehicle and environment).

(4) Provides development & testing tools and engineering services that are specifically designed for the development or integration of the crew station capabilities.

Each vehicle PoR PM and TiC units will have their own budget and affordability criteria.

Therefore, there is value to offer multiple models of a capability offering especially if they adhere to Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) principles and Ground Combat Systems Common Infrastructure Architecture (GCIA) architecture as much as possible to mitigate vendor-lock and foster plug-and-play interoperability/upgradability.

COAT Capability Areas:

1. User Interface – Input/Output Devices (UI-I/O): Offerings that enables crew to interact/control vehicle and payloads (e.g. steering wheel/yolk, joystick, headset with microphone, [lit] button panels, monitors, helmet/head mounted display (HMD), haptic seats, vitality/brainwave sensors, etc). However, we are not simply looking for alternative vendor sources for existing components.

2. User Interface – Software (UI-S): Offerings for command and control software products (e.g. TAK) that receives, processes, stores, organizes (e.g. screens, tabs, dropdowns, etc) and provides data/information to the appropriate crewmen (e.g.

commander, driver, gunner, or loader) through their appropriate output devices (e.g.

monitors, HMD, headset, haptic, panel lights, etc). Ideally, SW would be built around the MOSA concept to enable other vendors to add-in controls of their products (e.g. TAK plug-ins).

3. Situational Awareness – Local (SA-Loc): Offerings that enables driver and commander to have sufficient situational awareness around vehicle to safely and comfortably perform their driving and vehicle security tasks (i.e. unity vision for reading signs). Considerations include: field of regard (i.e. overall coverage/blind spots), instantaneous field of view (i.e. current view shown on monitor or HMD), clarity (i.e.

color depth, pixels per degree), and comfort (i.e. latency and viewing system such as monitors vs HMD). Sensors and feedback mechanisms are not just limited to visual (i.e.

cameras and monitors) but can be multi-modal (i.e. surround audio, LiDAR, RADAR, haptic feedback, etc). Example visual layout can include birds eye view, see-through armor view or virtual windshield/mirrors view.

4. Situational Awareness – LOS (SA-LOS): Offerings that enables commander to observe/identify NATO vehicle sized targets that are Line-Of-Sight (LOS) at medium ranges (e.g. 5 km). This includes technologies such as PTZ color and thermal cameras.

Options include: laser range finder, laser designator, mechanical image stabilization, optical zoom, AiTDR (i.e. object detection & identification), object tracking, and target mensuration.

5. Situational Awareness – BLOS (SA-BLOS): Offering that enables commander to observe/identify targets that are Beyond-Line-Of-Sight (BLOS) either due to extreme range or occluded (e.g. > 15 km). This includes technologies such as ISR drones or fixed wing sUAS that are launched/recovered/controlled from the ground vehicle.

6. AI-enabled Technologies (AI): Offering of AI technologies to reduce crew cognitive load by assisting them in performing their crew tasks more effectively, efficiently and safely (i.e. Crewmember AI Digital Assistant). This includes crewmen specific tasks such as:

a. Driver: obstacle detection/identification, [road] sign magnification & translation (e.g. Google Lens), unit maintenance/repair guide, etc.

b. Gunner: target detection, identification & tracking (AiTDR); round recommendation; threat prioritization, etc.

c. Commander: generating & sending reports (e.g. SPOT, call for fires, call for CASEVAC), comms monitoring, task tracking & prioritization, etc.

7. Survivability – Counter Drone (Surv-Drone): Offering that enables the defeat of sUAS either via soft kill (e.g. jamming, laser, EMP) or hard/kinetic kill (e.g. nets, fragmentation rounds). Can be just a warning system or both warning & countermeasure. Focus is on vehicle mounted solutions.)

8. Lethality – Strike Drone (Lethal-Drone): Offering that enables use of Strike or Dropper drones, either individually or in swarms, to attack targets. Focus is on vehicle mounted solutions, hence, should include or be compatible with an existing drone dock to launch, recover, recharge and auto select & attach different munitions. Obviously, safety will be a critical consideration.

9. Crew Safety/Vitality: Offering that enables crew to mitigate injuries from vehicle operations (not against threat munitions). This includes sensors for detecting: operator physical fatigue (e.g. dozing off), cognitive overload (i.e. missing important information), heat exhaustion (i.e. perspiration, temperature), panic/excitement/distress/casualty (i.e.

heart rate), etc.

10. Electronic Warfare (EW): Offering that enables ability to detect, locate and/or jam enemy communication and sensors to include voice and data. Ability to deploy deception.

11. Communication (Comm): Offering that enables secure, long-range, high-bandwidth, cyber resilient communication (e.g. LPD, LPI).

12. Cyber Security (Cyber): Offering that enables detection of malicious attack either against the network (e.g. DoS) or when malicious data or code is being injected into the vehicle’s onboard computers (e.g. Vetronics, Drive-By-Wire, C2, payload, AI, etc).

13. Vetronics (Vet): Offering of a militarized/ruggedized general purpose and AI-inferencing computers to host all our additional capabilities beyond the OEM baseline (e.g. control software, AiTDR, 360 SA cameras, AI crewmen, etc). This will not replace the existing OEM computer, but rather supplement it for the new capabilities.

14. Embedded Training (ET): Offering that enables training on the actual vehicle the crew fights with. Can include: individual system familiarization/operations, intra-vehicular training among multiple crewmen, and networked of multiple vehicles, tactical operations centers (TOC) and simulated vehicles & TOCs.

15. Virtual Experimentation (VE): We have a combat vehicle simulation software tool called ProjectGL which utilizes the Unreal graphics engine to replicate and simulate the performance of legacy, prototype and concept vehicles and payloads to include UGVs and UASs. This system can be used to support vehicle design, operational assessment and training. For the most part, we have our own asset designers, but we are always on the lookout for incorporating vendor’s digital twin asset of their physical product appearance and performance behavior. We are also interested in enhancements/augmentation of the Unreal Engine’s physics model to include:

environmental conditions and their effect on platform sensors performance across the electromagnetic spectrum.

16. Development Tools (Dev): Offering of hardware or software tools that are specifically useful for developing or testing crew station products or assessing crew performance when its design or cost is impractical/not intended for a fielded on-vehicle solution.

17. Engineering Services (Serv): Offering of professional expertise for designing, testing or integrating novel technologies into combat vehicles. Business case is for vendor to hone and claim combat vehicle design and integration experience.

Capability Assessment & Timeline:

All providers will be notified via email of their status by August 28, 2026. We will schedule a meeting with those vendors that make the preliminary cut in order to fully understand your capability and discuss the extent you may be able to participate in the integration and assessment of your product. Our approach is to establish a win-win partnership with innovative capability developers to assess, demonstrate and showcase your capabilities to the senior Army military and civilian leaders. If you are willing to offer your product on bailment and support the integration and assessment of your product, we will establish a CRADA with you to protect your intellectual property and formalize expectations. We will also offer assistance in the integration and assessment of your product in our representative Crew Station Hardware-In-The-Loop System Integration Laboratory (H-SIL) and if your product continues to show promise, we will integrate it in our mobile Combat Vehicle SIL for On-The- Move assessment. In addition to technical field testing, we will have opportunities to assess the integrated capabilities with soldiers during their force-on-force training exercises under relevant mission environments and scenarios. Our end goal is to integrate all of our promising advanced crew station capabilities, from the COAT program and our various partners, into a representative Next Generation Combat Vehicle and showcase this unified capability to senior military and civilian leadership. One such opportunity is at the TiC unit’s annual National Training Center (NTC) rotation. Any technical and soldier operational assessment reports for any specific partner developed capabilities will only be shared with that partner and not with other capability partners, unless specially authorized for release by the partner. Because many of these systems will be integrated to provide a cohesive, unified capability, all partners will need to sign an NDA to protect their and our other partner’s intellectual property.

Submissions:

To be considered responsive to this RFI, the “COAT RFI Data Collection Template” and any supporting material, as well as any questions, shall be submitted via email to GVSC.IS.COAT@army.mil by midnight, August 2, 2026. Unless specially agreed upon, no submitted material will be destroyed or returned.

Do not modify the Data Collection Template, to include adding any additional fields, as data in that template will be automatically consolidated for analysis. Other supporting material can be in any digital format viewable via Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat or Windows Media Player.

This can include: marketing brochures, product specs, operations manuals, promo/demo videos (i.e. links to online accessible content is acceptable), etc. At a minimum, the attached “COAT RFI Data Collection Template.xlsx” spreadsheet, containing the below data elements, must be completely filled out for each proposed offering. Submit each offering in its own spreadsheet (i.e. one spreadsheet per offering as we will organize each offering spreadsheet and associated supporting material in their own separate subfolder). Rename the spreadsheet to, “xx – Company_Name – Offering_Title (YYYY-MM-DD).xlsx” (e.g. “xx – ACME Inc – Time Machine (2026-06-01).xlsx”):

1. COAT Capability Area

2. Offering Title

3. Is this a Technology, Product or Service mailto:GVSC.IS.COAT@army.mil

4. Company Name

5. Company Address

6. POC Name

7. POC Telephone

8. POC Email

9. Crew Role Supporting (list all that apply)

10. Describe how your offering addresses the COAT Capability Area

11. What advantage sets your capability apart from others:

12. TRL Level

13. Rationale for meeting TRL Level

14. Performance Specs

15. Computer Processing Requirements (indicate if you are providing or will be needed to host your s/w)

16. Integration Specs (i.e. size, weight, power and data interface)

17. How was performance tested/validated

18. Unit Cost (i.e. for one crew station setup

19. Low-Rate Initial Production Volume Cost (i.e. 1000 units)

20. Availability of first unit (i.e. days after purchase)

21. Acknowledge commitment to partnering with us, at your own cost, to jointly integrate, assess and showcase your capability

Vendor shall clearly mark all information that is not to be shared outside the government and their SETA contractors, as Company Proprietary. As many of these technologies may need to interact with other systems for a holistic capability, an NDA shall be signed by all parties involved before information is shared among the interacting system owners.