Heidi Shyu, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, said the Department of Defense will soon select the first Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve experiments to be funded and deployed to the warfighter, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.
Shyu, a three-time Wash100 awardee, shared that members of the Defense Management Acquisition Group will meet in the fall to discuss and examine a list of RDER projects that are mature and ready for deployment.
Funding for the selected projects will depend on the budget appropriation for the current year and if the Pentagon has the available resources for it, Shyu said.
DOD has requested $687 million for the RDER initiative in fiscal year 2024, nearly double compared to the budget request for the prior year.
RDER was designed to facilitate prototyping and experimentation to support information advantage, joint fires, contested logistics and other joint warfighting concepts.
