Robotic Operation for Autonomous Delivery and Sustainment (ROADS) - Prize Challenge

Problem

The Department of War manages a fleet of over 150,000 non-tactical vehicles (NTV) across its installations, supporting daily movement of personnel and logistics. Most vehicles remain idle for the majority of the day—often 22 to 23 hours—driven by limited access, analog dispatch processes, and fully human-dependent vehicle operations.

As a result, fleet utilization has remained persistently below target levels - driving excess fleet capacity, elevated cost per mile, and unnecessary accident exposure.

The private sector faces similar challenges and is rapidly adopting digitally coordinated autonomous vehicle business models to increase utilization and improve safety. At scale, these solutions are demonstrating meaningful reductions in crash rates and increasing operational efficiencies.

However, the Department currently lacks a scalable pathway to integrate these commercially proven capabilities into its fleet operations—particularly in a way that aligns autonomy, dispatch, and real-time fleet coordination to deliver measurable operational impact.

The Department is seeking scalable, commercially derived solutions that integrate modern fleet management and Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Level 2+ through Level 4 autonomous vehicle technologies to:

• Increase NTV vehicle utilization through dynamic access and tasking
• Lower overall accident exposure and improve safety outcomes
• Reduce total NTV fleet size and cost per mile
• Free service members from routine tasks so leaders can focus personnel on higher-value missions

Solutions should be capable of operating in realistic environments and demonstrate a clear path to scaling across the Department’s NTV fleet and meet a wide range of logistics missions. 

Desired Solution Attributes

The Department is specifically looking for solutions that are:

• Autonomous: Currently demonstrate, or have a credible path to achieving within 12 to 24 months on public roads, SAE J3016 Level 4 (High Automation) operation with a teleoperation fallback for edge cases and commercially demonstrate at least SAE Level 2+ at time of proposal submittal
• Scalable: Rapidly scalable at a commercially competitive cost with an ability to deliver up to 1000 vehicles within one year of the challenge ending
• Commercially-derived: Utilize any widely commercially available base vehicle – full-size sedan, sports utility vehicle, pick-up truck, or minivan-class vehicle
• Road-capable: Can operate on paved roads and well-maintained, non-paved roads (e.g., engineered gravel or dirt roads). No dedicated off-road capability is required at this time
• Safe: Adhere to established commercial automotive and autonomous vehicle safety standards. Minimize operator interventions and safety-critical disengagements per mile and increase mean miles between disengagements while reliably avoiding pedestrians, vehicles, and other obstacles.
• Easy to Maintain: Minimize maintenance, repair, and sustainment burden
• Rapidly Fieldable to New Sites: Minimize the training time on-site before reaching full system performance
• Cyber-secure: Implement robust cybersecurity measures
• Taskable: Provide a method for users and fleet operators to task, monitor, and supervise vehicle operations

Proposals must present a complete system solution and outline a credible pathway to address the full problem set. Partial solutions (e.g., autonomy software stacks not integrated onto a commercial vehicle platform) will not be considered.

Benefits of Participating

• $30,000,000 in total funding awarded across the finalists and top performing company or companies
• Significant follow-on purchases of vehicles by the DoW
• Demonstrate and validate driver-out Level 4 autonomy under real-world installation conditions, potentially preceding regulatory clearance for public roads
• Facilitate the identification and testing of edge cases

Solicitation, Competitive Process, and Iteration Overview

• Phase 1 - Proposal evaluation. 
  • Objective: Identify the most promising solutions for live demonstration.
  • Companies will submit proposals through the program solicitation. A cross-functional evaluation team will assess submissions based on problem alignment, technical feasibility, and innovativeness within the scope of the project's timeline and budget.
  • Up to 10 companies will be selected to advance.
  • Selected companies will be invited to participate in Phase 2 live demonstrations.
• Phase 2 - Live Demonstration and Capability Brief. 
  • Objective: Evaluate real-world performance and operational readiness.
  • Selected companies will host in-person demonstrations at their facilities, showcasing their integrated solution operating in real-world environments.
  • Demonstrate autonomous on-road navigation and dispatching concepts.
  • Use commercially available vehicles of your choosing.
  • Provide a capability overview and technical briefing.
  • Government evaluators and end users will assess performance, alignment to the problem statement, and overall system maturity.
  • Companies are eligible for up to $500K upon successful completion of Phase 2.
  • The Government intends to select multiple vendors to Phase 3.
• Phase 3 - Initial On-Installation Pilot 
  • Objective: Validate performance, reliability, safety, and user adoption in a real-world operational environment and assess potential scaled value.
  • A subset of companies will be selected to deploy their solution on-site at a Government installation for a 3–4+ month pilot.
  • Companies will deploy a small fleet and support team to incrementally validate expanded autonomy and dispatch capabilities as the safety case matures over the course of the pilot.
  • Selected companies are eligible for up to $10M during this phase.
• Post Prize Challenge Transition
  • Objective: Scale safe, reliable, and value-enhancing solutions.
  • Based on Phase 3 performance, system maturity, and available funding, the Government may:
    • Scale selected solutions across multiple locations, or
    • Continue to mature and refine capabilities in partnership with industry
  • The Government will leverage flexible authorities and acquisition pathways, including but not limited to Prize Challenge (10 U.S.C. § 4025) and Prototype OT (10 U.S.C. § 4022).

Note: At the conclusion of Phase 3, or any time leading up to it, the Government may issue a Request for Prototype Proposal (RPP) and award a 10 U.S.C. § 4022 Prototype Other Transaction (OT) agreement for further development.

Additional Information

The government anticipates multiple awardees within the prize challenge. 

Prime/subcontractor solutions are acceptable, and subcontractors may change in composition throughout the challenge (as long as the prime vendor remains the same).

Eligibility

Any U.S. or International Participants will be subject to a security screen before acceptance to the finals. 

Active or eligible to establish a registration in Sam.gov before final demonstrations.

Ability to demonstrate the solution’s capabilities at a Department-determined test site by July 2026.

Proposal Submission Requirements:

Teams should submit proposals that address the desired attributes above. Proposals should meet the following format requirements:

• Sized 16:9 (1920x1080 pixels)
• Horizontal presentation
• PDF file
• Maximum 15 slide pitch deck

Phase 1 proposals will be evaluated based on the relevance, technical maturity, and innovative differentiators of their solution as it relates to the problem and desired attributes of this solicitation. While companies are welcome to submit in their preferred style and format, the Government recommends addressing the following topics within the proposal:

• Company Overview
  • Headquarters, manufacturing, and operating locations
  • Funding background
• Solution Overview
  • Overview of the complete system and its logistics use cases
  • Overview of vehicle platform and autonomy-critical hardware (sensors, compute, etc.)
  • URL to a video demonstrating system operation (typed, not hyperlinked or embedded).
• Operational Concept and System Architecture
  • Operating environments supported (e.g., paved roads, unpaved roads, trails, weather and environmental conditions)
  • Approach to vehicle tasking, teleoperation functionality, and communications architecture
  • Diagram illustrating how the autonomous system operates and how vehicles are deployed in real-world scenarios
• Safety and Reliability
  • Safety architecture, including collision avoidance, redundancy, and fallback mechanisms
  • Key reliability indicators such as intervention frequency and operational uptime
• Deployment and Mapping Approach
  • Real-world deployments, pilots, or operational testing completed to date
  • Infrastructure, mapping, or setup requirements needed to achieve full system performance in a specific region (i.e., how long until operational).
• Cybersecurity and Data Protection
  • Approach and methods to protecting data, including mapping and sensing data
• Pricing, Scalability, and Product Roadmap
  • Unit pricing and available business models (purchase, leasing, or autonomy-as-a-service)
  • Manufacturing rates, capacity, and product roadmap toward achieving L4 autonomy

There is no guarantee that submissions will be selected. If selected, companies may incur costs not covered by the Prize Award and should be willing and able to do so.

Intellectual Property Considerations:

Applicants retain ownership of existing Intellectual Property (IP) submitted under this Challenge and agree that their submissions are their original work. Applicants are presumed to have sufficient rights to submit the proposal. For any submission made to the Challenge, you grant DIU a limited license to use this IP for testing and evaluation for efforts specifically related to the Challenge. DIU will negotiate with individual competitors in the event additional usage, integration, or development is contemplated. 

About the Defense Innovation Unit

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) strengthens national security by accelerating the adoption of commercial technology in the Department of War and bolstering our allied and national security innovation bases. DIU partners with organizations across the DoW to rapidly prototype and field dual-use capabilities that solve operational challenges at speed and scale. With offices in Silicon Valley, Boston, Austin, Chicago and Washington, DC, DIU is the Department’s gateway to leading technology companies across the country.

Other Transaction Authority:

This DIU Challenge public announcement is an open call to small businesses and non-traditional defense contractors seeking innovative, commercial technologies proposed to create new DoD solutions or potential new capabilities fulfilling requirements, closing capability gaps, or providing potential technological advancements, technologies fueled by commercial or strategic investment, but also concept demonstrations, pilots, and agile development activities improving commercial technologies, existing Government-owned capabilities, or concepts for broad Defense application(s). As such, the Government reserves the right to award a contract or an Other Transaction agreement for any purpose, to include a prototype or research, under this public announcement. The Federal Government is not responsible for any monies expended by the applicant before award and is under no obligation to pursue such transactions.

Satisfying Competition Requirements:

This DIU Challenge Open Call Announcement is considered to have potential for further efforts that may be accomplished via FAR-based contracting instruments, Other Transaction Authority (OTA) for Prototype Projects 10 USC 4022 and Research 10 USC 4021, Prizes for advanced technology achievements 10 USC 4025. The public open call announcement on DIU’s website is considered to satisfy the reasonable effort to obtain competition in accordance with 10 USC 4025(b), and 10 USC 4022 (b)(2). Accordingly, FAR-based actions will follow announcement procedures per FAR 5.201(b).

DIU reserves the right to cancel, suspend, and/or modify the Challenge, or any part of it, for any reason, at DIU’s sole discretion.