Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Creating and Preventing Strategic Surprise

DARPA SEEKS NEW POWER DYNAMIC FOR CONTINUATION OF MOORE’S LAW

Computational capability is an enabler for nearly every military system. But computational capability is increasingly limited by power requirements and the constraints on the ability to dissipate heat. One particular military computational need is found in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems where sensors collect more information than can be processed in real time. To continue to increase processing speed, new methods for controlling power constraints are required. News Release Program Page

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Protein Folding Game Functionally Remodels Enzyme

Proteins are essential in almost all biological processes. The three-dimensional shape of the protein, which is essential to its function, is determined by protein folding. Foldit, which was initially funded by DARPA, is a game with an online community of 240,000 players that allows non-experts and experts alike to collaborate and solve protein folding puzzles. Solutions to these puzzles are sent to biochemistry researchers to analyze for advances in protein design prediction.News Release

DARPA DEVELOPING NOVEL NEW FIRE SUPPRESSION METHOD

TIME Magazine highlighted a DARPA-developed fire-suppression technology naming it among the 50 best inventions of 2011. Fire in a combat vehicle, aboard a ship or other confined space such as an airplane cockpit puts warfighters at risk. Today’s fire suppression technologies are many decades old and focus largely on disrupting the chemical reactions involved in combustion by spraying water, foams or other chemicals on the flames. The key to transformative firefighting approaches may lie in the fundamentals of fire itself.News Release Program Page

GALILEO TO IMAGE OBJECTS IN GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT FASTER

Military satellites are critical sources of communications and data for today’s operations environments. Through DARPA’s Phoenix program, useable antennas or solar arrays from retired satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO – 36,000 kilometers above earth) could be removed and potentially repurposed as components for new satellites to provide vital mission support. However, identifying cooperating satellites from which to harvest an array is a difficult and lengthy task using current ground-based satellite imaging techniques. By introducing precise fiber optic controls to ground-based telescopes, this challenge may be overcome. DARPA’s Galileo program seeks to bridge the precision fiber optic controls and long-baseline astronomical interferometry technical communities to enable imaging of objects in GEO faster than is possible today.News Release Program Page

Researchers seek high-pressure materials without high-pressure processes

Military missions place tremendous stress on the materials used for defense weapons, vehicles and other applications. As a result, the search for stronger, lighter and more resilient materials is never ending. Some materials have proven to have high pressure phases that could yield performance improvements in a variety of defense applications provided the processes could be scaled to create stable materials in the quantities needed for the defense mission. News Release

Researchers successfully treat previously lethal doses of radiation

Multiple scenarios exist where warfighters may be exposed to high levels of radiation. Countermeasures against possible high doses of radiation are an ongoing high priority for Department of Defense research and development organizations. News Release