Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Creating and Preventing Strategic Surprise

Quantum-assisted Nano-imaging of Living Organism Is a First

Bright-field image of a magnetotactic bacterium (top) and scanning electron microscope image of the same bacterium (bottom)

In science, many of the most interesting events occur at a scale far smaller than the unaided human eye can see. Medical researchers might realize a range of breakthroughs if they could look deep inside living biological cells, but existing methods for imaging either lack the desired sensitivity and resolution or require conditions that lead to cell death, such as cryogenic temperatures. Recently, however, a team of Harvard University-led researchers working on DARPA’s Quantum-Assisted Sensing and Readout (QuASAR) program demonstrated imaging of magnetic structures inside of living cells. Using equipment operated at room temperature and pressure, the team was able to display detail down to 400 nanometers, which is roughly the size of two measles viruses. News Release Program Page

Caption: Bright-field image of a magnetotactic bacterium (top) and scanning electron microscope image of the same bacterium (bottom)

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New Method Joins Gallium Nitride and Diamond for Better Thermal Management

Many military radio frequency (RF) systems, like radar and communication systems, use a class of power amplifiers (PAs) called monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MIMIC). MMIC PAs using gallium nitride (GaN) transistors hold great promise for enhanced RF performance, but operational characteristics are strongly affected by thermal resistance. Much of this resistance comes at the thermal junction where the substrate material of the circuit connects to the GaN transistor. If the junction and substrate have poor thermal properties, temperature will rise and performance will decrease. News Release Program Page

DARPA Seeks Clean-Slate Ideas For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs)

Troops operating in forward locations without telecommunication infrastructure often rely on a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) to communicate and share data. The communication devices troops use on foot or in vehicles double as nodes on the mobile network. A constraint with current MANETs is they can only scale to around 50 nodes before network services become ineffective. For the past 20 years, researchers have unsuccessfully used Internet-based concepts in attempts to significantly scale MANETs. News Release

DARPA: Driving Critical Technological Surprise

During a recent media briefing, the DARPA Director, Arati Prabhakar, elucidated what the Agency does for our nation, how it does it, how it thinks about its mission in the context of today's realities and the future that it's building by creating the next generation of technology to give Defense leaders more options for tomorrow’s missions. Video Referenced Framework Document

DARPA Announces Winner of the First FANG Challenge

Today, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded a $1 million prize to Ground Systems, a 3-person team with members in Ohio, Texas and California, as the winner of the Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle (FANG) Mobility/Drivetrain Challenge. Team Ground Systems’ final design submission received the highest score when measured against the established requirements for system performance and manufacturability. “I’m very pleased with the quality of the submissions we received during the challenge, and we have learned a great deal throughout the process,” said Army Lt. Col. Nathan Wiedenman, DARPA program manager. “The first FANG Challenge has been a great experiment, and the submission of many viable, innovative designs has validated the Adaptive Vehicle Make design tools and provided invaluable feedback to continue their development.” News Release Program Page

Smaller Pixels, Smaller Thermal Cameras for Warfighters

The military uses long-wave infrared (LWIR) cameras as thermal imagers to detect humans at night. These cameras are usually mounted on vehicles as they are too large to be carried by a single warfighter and are too expensive for individual deployment. However, DARPA researchers recently demonstrated a new five-micron pixel LWIR camera that could make this class of camera smaller and less expensive. News Release Program Page