The rise of network-connected systems that are becoming embedded seemingly everywhere–from industrial control systems to aircraft avionics–is opening up a host of rich technical capabilities in deployed systems. Even so, as the collective technology project underlying this massive deployment of connectivity unfolds, more consumer, industrial, and military players are turning to inexpensive, commodity off-the-shelf (COTS)…
CODE Makes Headway On Collaborative Autonomy For Unmanned Aerial Systems
DARPA’s Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) program aims to extend the capability of the U.S. military’s existing unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) to conduct dynamic, long-distance engagements of highly mobile ground and maritime targets in contested or denied battlespaces. Multiple CODE-equipped unmanned aircraft would navigate to their destinations and find, track, identify, and engage targets under established…
DARPA’s Software Defined Radio (SDR) Hackfest Creates Solutions For Spectrum Challenges
The DARPA Bay Area Software Defined Radio (SDR) Hackfest came to a close on Friday, November 17 at the NASA Ames Conference Center in Moffett Field, CA. During the weeklong event, over 150 members of the SDR community came together to discuss, innovate, and ideate around the future of software radio technology and its potential…
DARPA Digging For Ideas To Revolutionize Subterranean Mapping And Navigation
Subterranean warfare—whether involving human-made tunnels, underground urban infrastructure, or natural cave networks—has been an element of U.S. military operations from World War II and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. As above-ground commercial and military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities continue to grow more capable and ubiquitous, adversaries are increasingly heading underground to circumvent detection.…
Developing “ABCs” For Exploiting New Phenomena In Light-Matter Interactions
A unique class of engineered light-manipulating materials, known as metamaterials or structured materials, makes use of patterns of strongly interacting wavelength or sub-wavelength-sized elements. Because of these intricate internal and surface structures, new properties have emerged, some exhibiting behavior that has resulted in rewriting long-understood “laws” for how light and other electromagnetic (EM) waves interact…
DARPA Software Defined Radio (SDR) Hackfest Selects Teams To Explore Cyber-Physical Intersection Of SDR And Drone Technology
The increased use of wireless and internet-enabled devices – from computers to home appliances – and the data they generate are creating opportunities and challenges for the defense and commercial sectors. To help explore and better understand the complex relationship created by the intersection of physical and cyber technology within the ever more congested electromagnetic…
CONFERS To Establish “Rules Of The Road” For On-Orbit Servicing Of Satellites
“Rules of the road”—widely accepted norms of safety-related behavior based on common understanding—have existed in various forms over the centuries, and have evolved as new technologies have revolutionized how people and vehicles travel. But how are these “rules” created when common understanding of new capabilities is not yet established? This question plays directly into why…
Building the Rules Of The Road In Space
“Rules of the road”—widely accepted norms of safety-related behavior based on common understanding—have existed in various forms over the centuries, and have evolved as new technologies have revolutionized how people and vehicles travel. But how are these “rules” created when common understanding of new capabilities is not yet established? This question plays directly into why…
Wanted: Novel Approaches for Detecting and Stopping Small Unmanned Air Systems
Dormant, Yet Always-Alert Sensor Awakes Only in the Presence of a Signal of Interest
Here’s your task. Build a tiny sensor that detects a signature of infrared (IR) wavelengths characteristic of a hot tailpipe, a wood fire, or perhaps even a human being. Design the sensor so that it can remain dormant and unattended but always alert, even for years, without drawing on battery power. And build the sensor…
DARPA’s Drive To Keep The Microelectronics Revolution At Full Speed Builds Its Own Momentum
To perpetuate the pace of innovation and progress in microelectronics technology over the past half-century, it will take an enormous village rife with innovators. This week, about 100 of those innovators throughout the broader technology ecosystem, including participants from the military, commercial, and academic sectors, gathered at DARPA headquarters at the kickoff meeting for the…
Mobile Force Protection Aims To Thwart Adversaries’ Small Unmanned Aircraft
DARPA’s Mobile Force Protection (MFP) program focuses on a challenge of increasing concern to the U.S. military: countering the proliferation of small, unmanned aircraft systems (sUASs). These systems—which include fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft and have numerous advantages such as portability, low cost, commercial availability, and easy upgradeability—pose a fast-evolving array of dangers for U.S. ground and maritime…
TALONS Tested On Commissioned U.S. Navy Vessel For First Time
DARPA’s Towed Airborne Lift of Naval Systems (TALONS) research effort recently demonstrated its prototype of a low-cost, elevated sensor mast aboard a commissioned U.S. Navy vessel for the first time. The crew of USS Zephyr, a 174-foot (53-meter) Cyclone-class patrol coastal ship, evaluated the technology demonstration system over three days near Naval Station Mayport, Florida. TALONS demonstrated…
Strategic Technology Office Outlines Vision For “Mosaic Warfare”
DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office (STO) this week unveiled its updated approach to winning or deterring future conflicts during Sync with STO Day, held in Arlington, Virginia. At the event—which attracted about 300 innovators and entrepreneurs, more than half of whom had never worked with DARPA before—STO program managers outlined new areas of interest and held…
Mobile Force Protection Aims To Thwart Adversaries’ Small Unmanned Aircraft
DARPA’s Mobile Force Protection (MFP) program focuses on a challenge of increasing concern to the U.S. military: countering the proliferation of small, unmanned aircraft systems (sUASs). These systems—which include fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft and have numerous advantages such as portability, low cost, commercial availability, and easy upgradeability—pose a fast-evolving array of dangers for U.S. ground and maritime…
Smart Quadcopters Find Their Way Without Human Help Or GPS
Phase 1 of DARPA’s Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program concluded recently following a series of obstacle-course flight tests in central Florida. Over four days, three teams of DARPA-supported researchers huddled under shade tents in the sweltering Florida sun, fine-tuning their sensor-laden quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during the intervals between increasingly difficult runs. DARPA’s FLA…
Transforming How Troops Fight In Coastal Urban Environments
As nation-state and non-state adversaries adapt and apply commercially available state-of-the-art technology in urban conflict, expeditionary U.S. forces face a shrinking operational advantage. To address this challenge, a new DARPA program is aiming to create powerful, digital tools for exploring novel expeditionary urban operations concepts—with a special emphasis on coastal cities, where future such battles…
DARPA Picks Design For Next-Generation Spaceplane
DARPA has selected The Boeing Company to complete advanced design work for the Agency’s Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program, which aims to build and fly the first of an entirely new class of hypersonic aircraft that would bolster national security by providing short-notice, low-cost access to space. The program aims to achieve a capability well out of reach…
Service Academies Swarm Challenge Pushes The Boundaries Of Autonomous Swarm Capabilities
They came, they flew, they wildly exceeded expectations. More than 40 Cadets and Midshipmen from the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy helped expand the capabilities of swarms of highly autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) last month in the Service Academies Swarm Challenge. In the skies over Camp Roberts,…
Service Academies Swarm Challenge Live-Fly Competition Begins
Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other robots have become increasingly affordable, capable, and available to both the U.S. military and adversaries alike. Enabling UAVs and similar assets to perform useful tasks under human supervision—that is, carrying out swarm tactics in concert with human teammates—holds tremendous promise to extend the advantages U.S. warfighters have in…
TTO 2017 Virtual Proposers Day Seeks Revolutionary Technology Concepts to Transform Future Military Capabilities
DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO) focuses on conceiving, designing, developing, and testing advanced technology platforms that provide U.S. forces with overwhelming tactical and strategic advantage, including vehicles, weapons, and other full-scale, potentially field-deployable systems. Whether designed to operate on the ground, at sea, in the air, in space or across domains, TTO platforms and supporting…
Baking Hack Resistance Directly into Hardware
Military and civilian technological systems, from fighter aircraft to networked household appliances, are becoming ever more dependent upon software systems inherently vulnerable to electronic intruders. To meet its mission of preventing technological surprise and increasing national security, DARPA has advanced a number of technologies to make software more secure. But what if hardware could be…
DARPA Completes Testing of Subscale Hybrid Electric VTOL X-Plane
DARPA has completed flight-testing of a sub-scale version of a novel aircraft design as part of its vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) X-Plane program, and is proceeding with work to develop a full-scale version of the groundbreaking plane. Developed and fabricated by Aurora Flight Sciences, the revolutionary aircraft includes 24 electric ducted fans—18 distributed within…
Progress Toward an Ability to Recover Unmanned Aerial Vehicles on the Fly
DARPA recently completed Phase 1 of its Gremlins program, which envisions volleys of low-cost, reusable unmanned aerial systems (UASs)—or “gremlins”—that could be launched and later retrieved in mid-air. Taking the program to its next stage, the Agency has now awarded Phase 2 contracts to two teams, one led by Dynetics, Inc. (Huntsville, Ala.) and the other by…
The Spectrum Collaboration Challenge: Let the Games Begin!
Unveiled in March 2016, DARPA’s Spectrum Collaboration Challenge has reached an early milestone by choosing 30 contenders for the first of the three-phase competition, slated to culminate at the end of 2019 with a live match of finalists who have survived the two preliminary contests. In addition to 22 teams from academia and small and…