The IEEE RAPID conference aims to bring together government, academia and industry in a global forum to present new fundamental basic research, innovative technologies and build collaborations to solve critical security and defense challenges. This international conference will be broad in scope covering such areas as electromagnetics, device physics, optics and photonics, algorithms, and test and evaluation to name a few. With the breadth of topics covered, this conference seeks to attract diverse participation and collaboration from academia, industry, defense and government agencies that will promote security interests with opportunities to increase technical depth and breadth as well as networking with peers. In a world where technology is rapidly changing, collaborations and multidisciplinary work is the only way to solve research challenges and foster the next generation of scientific discovery.

We are currently planning an in-person conference in Miramar Beach, FL, USA. The IEEE Photonics Society and the IEEE RAPID organizers are committed to providing the safest environment possible for bringing our community back together again. We will continue to monitor the state of the pandemic and notify all participants as soon as possible should we need to revert to a virtual meeting.