Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Creating and Preventing Strategic Surprise

Advanced Infrared Capabilities Enable Today’s Warfighter

By carrying a more accurate rifle scope, U.S. warfighters can increase their standoff distance when engaging enemies. Increased standoff distance can help protect warfighter lives. This is especially true when an infrared scope is needed for nighttime action. Technologies exist for cooled infrared imaging at greater distances, but such imaging systems are limited by size, weight and power (SWaP) to large platforms such as tanks or helicopters. News Release Program Page

News

Throughout history technical challenges have inspired generations...

DARPA TO DEVELOP MOBILE MILLIMETER-WAVE BACKHAUL NETWORKS

Providing high-bandwidth communications for troops in remote forward operating locations is not only critical but also challenging because a reliable infrastructure optimized for remote geographic areas does not exist. When you introduce additional needs, such as communication support for data feeds from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) transmitting information to troops on patrol in remote areas, you face a host of new challenges where dropped signals can create a serious threat to a warfighter's situational awareness. News Release Programs Page

DARPA SEEKS PERVASIVE COMMUNICATIONS FOR DEPLOYED TROOPS

Dropped calls are an annoyance in a major metropolitan area. But when you’re conducting military patrols in a remote forward-operating location, a loss of data signal means no connectivity between you, reachback support, firepower and valuable intelligence. DARPA’s Fixed Wireless at a Distance program seeks to enable pervasive, high-throughput military communications using a mobility backbone infrastructure that provides unlimited scalability for high-speed communication for warfighters.News Release Program Page

DARPA’S LEGGED SQUAD SUPPORT SYSTEM (LS3) TO LIGHTEN TROOPS’ LOAD

Today’s dismounted warfighter can be saddled with more than 100 pounds of gear, resulting in physical strain, fatigue and degraded performance. Reducing the load on dismounted warfighters has become a major point of emphasis for defense research and development, because the increasing weight of individual equipment has a negative impact on warfighter readiness. The Army has identified physical overburden as one of its top five science and technology challenges. To help alleviate physical weight on troops, DARPA is developing a highly mobile, semi-autonomous legged robot, the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), to integrate with a squad of Marines or Soldiers.News Release Program Page

DARPA research on electronic neural architectures cited

Computers are constrained by physical limits, as well as the requirement for humans to program how computers interact with their environments. In contrast the human brain autonomously processes information and learns from its environment. If available, neuromorphic electronic machines, computers that function more like a brain, may enable autonomous computational solutions for real-world problems with many complex variables. News Release Program Page

DARPA Seeks to Improve Security of Embedded Computer Systems

Embedded computer systems play a part in every aspect of DoD technology. The software in these systems does everything from managing large physical infrastructures, to running peripherals such as printers and routers, to controlling medical devices such as pacemakers and insulin pumps. Networking these embedded computer systems enables remote retrieval of diagnostic information, permits software updates, and provides access to innovative features, but it also introduces vulnerabilities to the system via remote attack. News Release Program Page