DARPA Project List (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) was established 1958 in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. DARPA reports directly to the Secretary of Defense; however, it operates independently of the rest of military research and development. Its basic principles are:
Here's a listing of the DARPA-related projects presented on the Technovelgy site:
- Small and flexible, with a flat organization structure
- Autonomous organization
- World-class scientists and engineers work with representatives from industry, universities and government labs
- Project-based style; technical staff rotated every 3-5 years
- Program managers are selected to be technically outstanding and entrepreneurial.
- Fast Lightweight Autonomy Indoor Drones For DARPA
The program intends to develop novel representations and algorithms to enable small air platforms to fly fast.
- DARPA Video Highlights Fast Lightweight Autonomy Drones
DARPA has released a video showing would-be contractors exactly what they want from their Fast Lightweight Autonomy drones.
- DARPA M3 Soft Camo Robots
Take a look at the following video, which shows a soft robot going for a walk on rocks.
- EXACTO Smart Bullet From DARPA
The Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) system seeks to improve sniper effectiveness.
- 'Cortical Modem' Latest On DARPA's Wishlist
A direct neural interface that will allow for the visual display of information without the use of glasses or goggles.
- DARPA's Warrior Web
A kind of undersuit that significantly boosts endurance, carrying capacity and overall warfighter effectiveness.
- DARPA LS3 Robot Pack Animal Video
Take a look at the Legged Squad Support System (LS3) robot pack animal from Boston Dynamics.
- DARPA Wants Airborne Launch Facility For Drones
An airborne "aircraft carrier" for launching and retrieving drone aircraft.
- DARPA Seeks Science-Fictional Materials
Materials with Controlled Microstructural Architecture (MCMA) program is seeking ways to control and engineer materials at a fundamental level.
- DARPA's Upward Falling Payload Like Leinster's Wabbler
Developing deployable, unmanned, distributed systems that lie on the deep-ocean floor in special containers for years at a time.
- EXACTO Bullets Change Course In Mid-Air
Intended to greatly improve rifle accuracy and range by using what amounts to a guided bullet.
- Neuromorphic Brain-Chip Takes Flight
Chips that could make sense of video and sensor data from planes and drones right on board.
- Pet-Proto Robot Video Stops Bad Terminator Dreams
In this video, Pet-Proto, a predecessor to DARPA's Atlas robot, is confronted with obstacles similar to those robots might face in the DARPA Robotics Challenge.
- Neural Implant To Treat Memory Loss
An implantable neural device with the ability to record and stimulate neurons within the brain to help restore memory.
- Remote Control Of Brain Activity
A prototype device that does not require surgery has been created that allows for remote control of brain activity.
- 'Air Hopper' Robot Grasshopper
The intent is to create a robot that is able to handle difficult, uneven terrain with some measure of robotic aplomb.
- DARPA Avatar Program Coming, But Will Soldiers Want To?
How much of your tax money would you spend on a program to recreate Avatar, a movie in which a human is "uploaded" to a robot?
- DARPA Shredder Challenge Won!
Is it possible to reconstitute shredded documents?
- DARPA's 'Biometrics-At-A-Distance' Knows You By Heart
Demonstrate the ability to collect, localize, and evaluate physiological signals (e.g., heart rate) at distances greater than 10 meters.
- Warrior Web: Superman Underwear From DARPA
DARPA is looking for a wearable suit that can help protect warfighters.
- ACTUV Game From DARPA Seeks Ender Wiggin
Available to the public for free download.
- Robust Automatic Translation Of Speech DARPA's Universal Translator
Bring together its diverse speech translation efforts into an all-in-one package.
- DARPA Cyborg Insects With Nuclear-Powered Transponders
The goal of the radioisotope transmitter work is to power the insects that the group is developing for DARPA.
- Smart Video Cams - DARPA's Mind's Eye
A smart camera, with sufficient visual intelligence that it can report on activity in an area of observation.
- And DARPA Shall SMITE The Wicked
Dynamically forecast when deadly moles deep within government departments will likely strike.
- Pharmed Blood Is DARPA's Tru Blood
Mass-produced synthetic blood for transfusions
- Cyborg Insect Comm System Planned By DARPA
Now being designed to communicate with each other by modulating their usual calls.
- DARPA's Restorative Injury Repair Dream
They'd like to see a device that can repair skin - as well as nerves and bones.
- Fracture Putty For Compound Fractures
Fracture Putty could rapidly restore a patient to ambulatory function while normal healing ensues, with dramatically reduced rehabilitation time.
- 'Iron Curtain' Active Protection System
When activated by an approaching projectile, the Iron Curtain takes it out. Remarkable DARPA video below.
- iRobot's ChemBot Blob: JSEL Takes Baby Steps
A robot based on jamming skin-enabled locomotion (JSEL).
- Harvesting Power From Flying Insects
The first successful mechanical energy scavenging from flying insects.
- Stealthy, Persistent Perch and Stare UAVs
The intent is to develop the company's one-pound, 29-inch wingspan battery-powered Wasp unmanned system.
- InfoChemistry And Self-Folding Origami
These machines use cutting-edge mathematical theorems to fold themselves into virtually any three-dimensional object.
- Legged Squad Support System Monster BigDog Robot
DARPA wants a new "robotic mule" to carry gear for soldiers in the field.
- Handheld Fusion Reactors Planned
Furthermore, DARPA thermal isolation techniques will enable high efficiency beam to power converters, perhaps making chipscale self-sustained fusion possible.
- Silent Talk 'Telepathy' For Soldiers
'...allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals.'
- TASC - DARPA's Psychohistory
The agency is seeking whitepapers to fuel the development of a scientific approach to predicting the actions of large masses of people.
- Guided Bullets By Exacto From DARPA
How is it possible that a bullet could redirect its own course in mid-flight?
- DARPA Seeks Self-Repairing Hunter-Killers?
Tests to date have seen small aerial robots lose large chunks of themselves to hostile fire, yet carry on with their mission.
- DARPA Gandalf Project And Philip K. Dick
A new defense department project to locate enemies precisely, and target them, by phone.
- EATR - DARPA's Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot
Project to develop a robotic platform able to perform long missions while refueling itself by foraging.
- You Can't Hide From DARPA
Harnessing Infrastructure for Building Reconnaissance (HIBR).
- Squishy SquishBot ChemBots Desired By DARPA
ChemBots are soft, flexible robots that are able to alter their shape to squeeze through small openings and then regain their full size.
- Fracture Putty For Compound Fractures - DARPA
An alternative to today's standard treatments, which often lead to further complications, and are not fully load-bearing,
- Submersible Aircraft - DARPA's Flying Sub?
The minimal required airborne tactical radius of the sub-plane is 1000 nautical miles (nm).
- MAHEM Metal Jets Like Clarke's Stiletto Beam
Create compressed magnetic flux generator (CMFG)-driven magneto hydrodynamically formed metal jets and self-forging penetrators (SFP).
- Precision Urban Hopper Robot Must 'Stick' Landings
Intended to give wheeled robots an additional edge; the ability to jump up onto or over obstacles up to nine meters high.
- Katana Mono-Wing Rotorcraft Nano Air Vehicle
The Katana Mono-Wing Rotorcraft is a coin-sized one-bladed helicopter.
- Micro Imagers For Sensing On Nano Air Vehicles
With the impetus toward micro-air and -ground vehicles for military applications, there is a compelling need for imaging micro-sensors compatible with these small platforms.
- RESURRECT High-Fidelity Computer Battlefield Simulations
Create high-fidelity computer simulations of in-theatre events for tactical, operational and strategic review
- Aqua Sciences Water From Atmospheric Moisture
The program focused on creating water from the atmosphere using low-energy systems.
- Shape-Shifting Bomber In Need Of Plowsharing
Shape-shifting supersonic bomber fans are feeling bereft this weekend.
- Automated Mammalian Training Devices
The development of an automated mammalian training device would significantly reduce the need for human involvement.
- RISE Robot: Six-Legged BIODYNOTICS Runaway
These Robots In Sensorial Environments are being developed by researchers from Carnegie Mellon.
- DARPA Vulture Five Year Flying Wing
Vulture is intended to fly for periods of up to five years unattended at 65,000 feet.
- LSTAT-lite Life Support For Trauma and Transport-lite Demoed
LSTAT has been around since 1999; however, the LSTAT-lite is considerably lighter and more affordable.
- LANdroid WiFi Robots
DARPA is soliciting proposals for intelligent autonomous radio relay nodes.
- HI-MEMS: Control Circuits Embedded In Pupal Stage Successfully
Researchers have succeeded in implanting electronic circuit probes into tobacco hornworms as early pupae.
- HI-MEMS: Cyborg Beetle Microsystem
The University of Michigan team has successfully created a cyborg unicorn beetle microsystem.
- Carnegie Mellon's Boss Wins DARPA Urban Challenge
Carnegie Mellon's Boss, an autonomous Chevy Tahoe, was declared the winner.
- 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge Videos
The teams will attempt to complete a complex 60-mile urban course with live traffic in less than six hours. Now, the videos.
- DARPA Wants Exoskeletons
DARPA thinkers are saying that maybe humans themselves need an upgrade.
- DARPA Urban Challenge For Autonomous Vehicles
Urban Challenge consists four sets of vehicle behavior requirements.
- IR Chemical Communication Graffiti Tags Wanted By DARPA
The Chemical Communications (ChemComm) program objective is to encode and transmit information in a rapid and covert manner.
- Hybrid Insect MEMS Sought By DARPA For Bug Army
HI-MEM-based bug armies? Our friends at DARPA seem to have cyborgs on the brain.
- DARPA's 'BigDog' Robot Now In Puppy Stage
Project seeks to create algorithms that help multi-legged platforms learn to walk in varied terrain.
- DARPA Urban Challenge - KITT, Put Up Or Shut Up
Autonomous ground vehicles will take to a mocked-up urban area to negotiate a 60-mile course.
- Star Wars Binoculars A Cognitive Technology Threat Warning
They've dubbed the device "Luke's Binoculars," after the device used by Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movie.
- DARPA Radar Scope Can Sense Thru Walls
Handheld radar scope can provide troops with an ability that was formerly the province of science fictional superheroes alone.
- BigDog Quadruped Robot Update
Good progress on Ray Bradbury's mechanical hound from Fahrenheit 451.
- DARPA Wants Exoskeletons
In a briefing today on GovExec.com, a variety of projects from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) demonstrate that some science fiction thinking is good.
- Shark Cyborgs On DARPA Remote control
In those Jaws movies, the shark seemed like it was out to get you. DARPA makes this dream come true.
- Bradbury's Mechanical Hound and DARPA's BigDog Robot
In his chilling 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury created the mechanical hound, a robot that accompanied the firemen and helped with their work... DARPA has made a multi-million dollar investment in the soldier of the future's best friend - BigDog.
- DARPA Seeks Metabolic Dominance
DARPA has initiated a new program called "Metabolic Dominance" to assure that soldiers have superior physiological qualities. Frank Herbert had the answer sooner, though.
- DARPA's Walrus and Griffith's War-Balloons
Not your great-grandfather's airship, the Walrus will be able to lift a fighting force.
- DARPA's Radiation Decontamination (And 'Doc' Smith's Dekon)
DARPA and a host of scientists are working on decontamination techniques for dirty bombs.
- Obtaining Unobtainium at DARPAtech 2004
DARPA searches for impossible materials - unobtainium - and is succeeding.
- Springtail EFV-4B Personal Air Vehicle From Trek Aerospace
The Springtail EFV-4B Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) is a fourth-generation vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) craft powered by a single engine.
- Trauma Pod Battlefield Medical Treatment System
DARPA has awarded a $12 million contract to develop an automated medical treatment system that can recieve, assess and stabilize wounded soldiers immediately following injury. The trauma pod is used to treat soldiers on the battlefield using advanced
- Cormorant Submarine/Sea Launched MPUAV
The Cormorant submarine and sea launched vehicle concept may remind you of science fiction glories past.
- Terminator Tether - EDT Solution To Space Debris Update
Studies have shown that low Earth orbit is not a limitless resource and should be managed more carefully. Some sort of debris-mitigation measures are needed to solve the problem of old, unusable satellites and space junk.
- HELLADS: Lightweight Laser Cannon
Ultra-light High Energy Liquid Lasers are coming.
Index of related articles:
DARPA Project List (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)