An effort to develop affordable, high-performance millimeter wave seeker technology for high-performance munitions recently received an additional $400,000 from the Air Force Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer program office, according to an Aug. 5 release. Millimeter wave seekers seek active radar, send and receive information, and can be used day or night, in sunny, rainy, or cloudy conditions, according to the release. The Air Force is looking for an automatic target acquisition approach that can find and track targets without human help. Under the SBIR phase II contract, L-3 Mustang Technology of Plano, Texas, will work to integrate an automatic target acquisition and tracking algorithm. The company also will look to include intelligent target clustering. Eventually, researchers plan to move the technology to the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate’s advanced development GBU-X (flexible weapons) program, which works to improve technology that can improve and enhance current weapons or lead to a new family of weapons.
The Air Force is requesting about $141 million for initial enlistment bonuses in its fiscal 2026 budget, while Space Force wants $13 million.
