Office of Naval Research (ONR) Immersive Sciences for Training, Education, Mission Rehearsal, and Operations | N00014 17 S F007

Opportunity Information: Apply for N00014 17 S F007

The Office of Naval Research (ONR), through its Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism Science and Technology Department (Code 30), is seeking white papers and full proposals for basic research under the program area "Immersive Sciences for Training, Education, Mission Rehearsal, and Operations" (Funding Opportunity Number N00014-17-S-F007; CFDA 12.300). The Navy and Marine Corps interest behind the effort is practical and operational: they want augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality to better support infantry training and real-world tasks, with a particular emphasis on small unit leaders such as squad leaders. At the same time, ONR is explicit that this opportunity is not primarily about delivering near-term fielded systems or product-like capability; it is about strengthening the underlying science that would make future AR training and operational tools more effective, trustworthy, and scalable.

The opportunity is organized around three core basic-research challenge areas. The first focuses on automated generation of content and behaviors for AR and mixed reality, with an emphasis on AR. ONR is pointing to a major bottleneck in immersive training: building realistic 3D environments and populating them with relevant entities and plausible activity is often slow, expensive, and dependent on niche skills or specialized hardware like LIDAR. The research goal is to create tools and techniques that can extract and reconstruct usable 3D content from readily available sources, especially broadly accessible data like crowd-sourced photos and videos found online. The desired outputs are not limited to static geometry; they include terrain, roads, buildings, people, vehicles, and other environmental features needed to represent complex future operating environments, including dense urban and megacity settings. ONR welcomes both entirely new approaches and meaningful improvements to existing methods such as photogrammetry. They also note interest in technologies that can produce rough estimates of behavior patterns in an environment, while stopping short of full "pattern of life" modeling.

The second area targets measurement science: valid, reliable, and objective measures of presence and immersion. ONR is highlighting a gap between what practitioners commonly use today and what is needed for rigorous research and training evaluation. Many current approaches rely on subjective surveys or indirect proxies (behavioral or physiological measures) that may correlate with presence but do not directly quantify it. The intent here is to develop measurement techniques that are objective, sensitive, repeatable, and minimally invasive, so researchers and program stakeholders can quantify how much presence a person experiences in an immersive environment relative to the real world or other baselines. A key part of the motivation is to connect presence to outcomes: ONR wants to understand how varying levels of presence influence training effectiveness and learning, which implies interest in measures that can support controlled comparison across systems, scenarios, and user populations.

The third area is about human factors: developing a taxonomy (and potentially broader theory) of visualization and interaction in AR. ONR observes that AR interface prototypes are plentiful and diverse, using interaction modalities like mid-air gestures or external controllers, but that many have not been thoroughly evaluated through a human-factors lens. The research goal is to look across use cases and build evidence-based guidance on which visualization and interaction schemes work best, under what conditions, and for what tasks. In practice, this suggests work that moves beyond one-off demonstrations and instead produces structured classifications, experimentally supported design rules, and evaluation frameworks that can inform future AR systems for training and operational support.

In terms of who can apply, the FOA allows proposals from responsible sources in academia and industry, and it specifically encourages participation from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Institutions (MIs). There is no set-aside for small businesses or other socio-economic categories under this announcement. Some categories of organizations are restricted from receiving awards directly: Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), including Department of Energy national laboratories, are not eligible to receive awards as prime recipients, and Navy laboratories, military universities and warfare centers, and other DoD or civilian government laboratories also may not submit white papers or proposals directly. However, those federal entities can participate through teaming arrangements with eligible prime applicants, as long as the teaming structure is consistent with the relevant sponsoring agreements and organizational constraints. University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs) are generally eligible unless their DoD UARC contract terms prevent it. ONR also encourages team proposals, and it signals an expectation of collaboration across the broader program ecosystem, including willingness to cooperate and exchange software, data, and other information with other contractors and ONR-selected system integrators as part of an integrated effort.

Finally, the FOA flags export control compliance as a serious consideration. Applicants are responsible for ensuring compliance with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) where applicable, and ONR notes that some DoD-funded developmental items may fall under the United States Munitions List (USML). Proposals are expected to address whether ITAR restrictions apply to the proposed work, including situations where research outputs could have both civilian and military applications. Administrative details in the source listing include an original closing date of March 30, 2017, and the instrument type is a grant within a science and technology research and development activity category.

• The Office of Naval Research in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Office of Naval Research (ONR) Immersive Sciences for Training, Education, Mission Rehearsal, and Operations" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.300.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2016-12-28.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-03-30. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for N00014 17 S F007

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: