Request for Information: Materials for Physical Compute in Untethered Robotics

Request for Information (RFI)

This RFI seeks information on physical intelligence applied to untethered autonomous robotic technologies. DARPA is interested in disruptive concepts at the material, component, and kernel level that represent significant advances beyond current practice for fielding robust robotics, particularly for Department of War (DoW) missions in unconstrained or ill-defined environments. The focus is on materials embedded with sensing, processing, and actuation for embodied intelligence.

1. Actuation and Sensing:

   • Material-centric approaches for actuation and sensing in unconstrained environments.
   • Existing state-of-the-art applications, limitations, and performance metrics.
   • Pathways to develop foundational materials, interfaces, and assembly schemes.
   • Novel material-centric architectures integrating sensing, processing, and actuation.
   • Embedded proprioception for real-time hardware state information.
   • State-of-the-art energy harvesting, transducing, and storage technologies.
   • Scalable pathways from materials to systems.

2. Dynamic and Adaptive Closed-Loop Compute:

   • Material-centric physical computing tied to materials and dynamic, adaptive closed-loop computation.
   • Novel computing capabilities that adapt to physical state, reduce latency, or enable single-pass learning.
   • Multi-modal compute using diverse input signals without conversion.
   • Rapid online adaptation to external stimulus.
   • Physical computing promoting closed-loop linking of sensing, actuating, and computing.

• Response Due Date: May 27, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ET.

• Responses should be concise and submitted as an unprotected Microsoft Word/PowerPoint document or PDF file.

• Technical responses are limited to 4 pages per requested area (8 pages if both areas are addressed).

• Submissions are for information and program planning purposes only; they are not offers and do not form a binding contract.

• Responses are welcome from private or public companies, individuals, universities, university-affiliated research centers, not-for-profit research institutions, and U.S. Government-sponsored labs.

• A follow-up workshop is planned for June or July 2026 in Arlington, VA, to discuss current and future research. Invitations will be extended to respondents based on submission relevance.

• DARPA is not interested in incremental improvements or system-level mission concepts without enabling hardware identification. Processing or interpretation of sensor data by conventional CPU/GPU is also not of interest.

• No reimbursement for costs incurred in responding.

• DARPA is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt or provide feedback.