SBIR/STTR Proposal Pack

Real session, run 2026-10-04 with Claude Sonnet against a live Air Force topic. The topic, rules, Q&A, and award data are real. The company is made up for the test.

DAF26BX06-DP027: bid read for Halyard Sensing (2026-10-04)

Read: no-bid as things stand. Bid only if you can pass the cost gate below by the end of Wednesday, Oct 7.

The deciding number is cost. Your hardware fits the topic. Your price doesn't.

1. The cost math (the deciding requirement)

The topic says the

final system must cost under $100K at full-rate production. Q11 confirms this is the whole multi-node system, not one node. Q7 says it covers "every fielded component (software and hardware)." Only shore-power consumption is excluded.

The system must also cover a perimeter of at least 10 km (Q9: any polygon, not a straight line). Each node must detect out to at least 100 m horizontally.

Parts alone are 2x to 3.75x the whole-system ceiling. That is before compute at scale, comms, mounts, power, install, C2 and API software, licenses, margin, and any overlap you need for track handoff.

Production pricing will not close a gap this size. You would need roughly a 3x to 6x all-in cost cut, depending on how much node overlap you need.

Q1 is still unanswered. It asks whether installation, backbone, one-time licenses, and production quantity count toward the $100K. The answer could move the math, and probably not in your favor.

Upside you can use. Q2 allows mixed sensor payloads across nodes. A cheap single-modality node for most of the line, with thermal+acoustic only at hard spots, is a legitimate design. You would have to show it still detects non-RF drones across the whole line.

2. Fit against the topic

Four rows are gaps and three are partial or unknown. That is well over a third. The Phase I-type feasibility rows are your strongest, which is why this is a close call and not an easy no.

3. Eligibility and the feasibility gate

Size, citizenship, ownership. 11 people, all US citizens, founder-owned. That is a clean profile on the facts given. Final eligibility calls are yours and counsel's.

• No prior SBIR. Not a barrier. D2P2 does not require a Phase I.

Your field test counts if it was not federally funded. The feasibility work cannot come from or extend any SBIR/STTR work. It must have been done mainly by your company and PI. Yours was self-funded, so this fits.

Disqualification risk. The instructions say a D2P2 proposal is disqualified and not evaluated if the Phase I-equivalent documentation doesn't establish feasibility. The Government will not tell you in Q&A whether your prototype qualifies (Q8, Q11). A written test report is the whole gate. You need: test plan, targets used (make, model, weight), confirmation the radios were off, ranges, detection and false-alarm counts, track plots.

• Rules to plan around.
  • 35 pages, 11-pt font, 1-inch margins.
  • One proposal per firm for this open topic.
  • The PI must work for you more than half time.
  • FWA training must be completed before the proposal can be submitted.
  • Volume 7 foreign-affiliation disclosures are required. They are signed under penalty of perjury, and the Air Force screens for foreign ties.
  • Technical, cost, commercialization report, and supporting volumes all go in through DSIP.

Not confirmed. I have not seen SAM.gov/UEI, SBA registry, or DSIP status, or who your PI is. These take time. Check them now.

4. Who already won nearby (public sbir.gov award file, searched today)

No award shows under this topic code yet. It is a new release. Close neighbors from the last two years:

Sphere Optics: Air Force D2P2, "Optical Fence Line with Spherical UAS Detect, ID and Track," $1.8M (2025). This is the same topic family and the same fence-line framing, and the Air Force has already paid for an optical version.

PicoGrid: Army, "Low-Altitude Passive Integrated Sensors (LAPIS)," $2.0M Phase II (2025). It uses passive RF sensing and a tethered UAS, with C2 integration (TAK and others).

Physical Sciences Inc.: Army, "VIS/LWIR Event Based Sensor Suite for Passive UAS Detection," $2.0M Phase II (2025). Passive visible and thermal sensing from a 259-person firm.

• Anno.AI: Air Force, "EchoGuard passive drone detection platform," Phase I (2025).
• Hidden Level: Air Force Phase II, $1.6M (2024), for subscription airspace monitoring.

Nokomis: passive RF detection, $1.2M to $1.9M Phase IIs (2025). This is RF-based, so a different approach from yours.

Positioning. The area is crowded with larger, better-funded firms that already hold Phase IIs. A passive thermal+acoustic node with a defined cost path is a distinct pitch only if the cost holds. Without that, the evaluators have no reason to pick you over a firm with an existing award and an integrated C2 story.

5. How the proposal would be scored

• Factors A (Defense Need) and B (Technical Approach) are equal. C (Commercialization) is lower. All non-cost factors together matter significantly more than cost, but "where technical evaluations are essentially equal, cost and/or price" decides.

Defense Need. Signed letters of support from Government personnel are called out as indicators. You have none mentioned, so get at least one if you bid.

• Award. $2M over 24 months. Multiple awards are possible.

Where you are weakest. Technical Approach has to answer cost, 300 m altitude, all weather, C2 and API, and the 10 km network, all in 35 pages. Your current evidence covers only one of those.

6. What to do next

1. Today or tomorrow (Q&A closes Oct 7, 12:00 ET): submit questions in DSIP.
   • Does the $100K include installation, backbone, one-time licenses, and what production quantity does "full-rate production" assume? Q1 is still open. Add a vote or follow-up if you can.
   • Is the 100 m node range a ground range? What altitude band must each node cover at that range?

By Oct 7: cost gate. Build a bottom-up, volume-priced BOM for a node, plus software, comms, install, and C2 integration. Divide $100K by a node count that gives 10 km at your demonstrated range. If the all-in per-node figure is not near $3K, stop.
3.

Same days: evidence gate. Check whether your test data can be written up as a feasibility report. Check whether you have any Group 2/3 or fixed-wing data, any rain, wind, or clutter data, and anything above 200 m altitude.
4.

If both gates pass: register in DSIP, finish FWA training, and line up one Government letter of support. The deadline is Oct 21 at 12:00 ET, 17 days from today. Draft the feasibility report first, because it can disqualify you.
5.

If either gate fails: skip this one. Run the same check on the next DAF open topic that fits a $7,500 node better, or one that does not carry a $100K whole-system cap.

7. Assumptions I made because you didn't have time for questions

• "180 m" is horizontal range and "200 m altitude" is the highest altitude you tested, not a slant range.
• $7,500 is parts only, with no labor or margin.
• Tests used Group 1 quadcopters only.
• Nobody on staff has a Medusa or Air Force C2 integration history.

If any of these is wrong in your favor, the read improves. The cost math is the one most worth checking.