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TITLE VIII--ACQUISITION POLICY, ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT, AND RELATED MATTERS

Subtitle G - Industrial Base Matters

P. L. 114-

House Conference Report. 114-840

(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees, concurrent with the budget for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2018, as submitted to Congress pursuant to section 1105 of title 31, United States Code, a plan to fund and carry out the pilot program in future years.

(2) ELEMENTS.—The plan submitted under paragraph (1) shall consider maximizing use of—

(A) broad agency announcements or other merit-based selection procedures;

(B) the Department of Defense Acquisition Challenge Program authorized under section 2359b of title 10, United States Code;

(C) the foreign comparative test program;

(D) projects carried out under the Rapid Innovation Program of the Department of Defense or pursuant to a Phase III agreement (as defined in section 9(r)(2) of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 638(r)(2))); and

(E) streamlined procedures for acquisition provided under section 804 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (Public Law 114–92; 10 U.S.C. 2302 note) and procedures for alternative acquisition pathways established under section 805 of such Act (10 U.S.C. 2302 note).

(d) Programs To Be Included.—As part of the pilot program, the Secretary of Defense shall allocate up to $50,000,000 on a fixed price contractual basis for fiscal year 2017 or pursuant to the plan submitted under subsection (c) for demonstrations of the following capabilities:

(1) Swarming of multiple unmanned air vehicles.

(2) Unmanned, modular fixed-wing aircraft that can be rapidly adapted to multiple missions and serve as a fifth generation weapons augmentation platform.

(3) Vertical takeoff and landing tiltrotor aircraft.

(4) Integration of a directed energy weapon on an air, sea, or ground platform.

(5) Swarming of multiple unmanned underwater vehicles.

(6) Commercial small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites with on-board machine learning for automated, real-time feature extraction and predictive analytics.

(7) Active protection system to defend against rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles.

(8) Defense against hypersonic weapons, including sensors.

(9) Other systems as designated by the Secretary.

(e) Definitions.—In this section:

(1) NONTRADITIONAL DEFENSE CONTRACTOR.—The term “nontraditional defense contractor” has the meaning given the term in section 2302(9) of title 10, United States Code.

(2) SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN.—The term “small business concern” has the meaning given the term in section 3 of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 632).

(f) Sunset.—The authority under this section expires at the close of September 30, 2026.

The Senate bill contained a provision (sec. 876) that would establish a pilot program for nontraditional contractors and small businesses to prototype disruptive solutions that demonstrate new capabilities that could provide alternatives to existing acquisition programs and assets.

The House amendment contained no similar provision.

The House recedes with an amendment that would add the Missile Defense Agency and protection against hypersonic weapons to the pilot program.