Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyAbout UsOfficesDefense Sciences Office

Defense Sciences Office (DSO)

DSO Banner

DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO) identifies and pursues high-risk, high-payoff research initiatives across a broad spectrum of science and engineering disciplines and transforms them into important, new game-changing technologies for U.S. national security. Current DSO themes include accelerating scientific discovery, exploring fundamental limits, and creating strategic surprise. DSO relies on the greater scientific research community to help identify and explore ideas that could potentially revolutionize the state-of-the-art.

Useful links to work with DSO

Highlights

Nascent Light-Matter Interactions (NLM)

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 with materials. These materials have been opening up new options for controlling EM waves in many technological arenas, among them imaging, thermal control, and frequency conversion. Specific applications include night-vision, heat reflection and management in aircraft engines, and temperature regulation of electronics on satellites in the hot-and-cold extremes of space.
Young Faculty Award

Young Faculty Award 2018 Research Topics Announced

DARPA published its Young Faculty Award (YFA) 2018 Research Announcement today, seeking proposals in 26 different topic areas—the largest number of YFA research areas ever solicited.
Disruptioneering

Disruptioneering: Streamlining the Process of Scientific Discovery

DARPA’s Defense Sciences office (DSO)—whose mission is to identify and pursue high-risk, high-payoff research initiatives across a broad spectrum of science and engineering disciplines—today announced the first programs under its new Disruptioneering effort, which pushes for faster identification and exploration of bold and risky ideas with the goal of accelerating scientific discovery.

Tags

| Agency | Autonomy | Complexity | Fundamentals | Materials | Math | Sensors |

 

Opportunities

To view a selective listing of solicitations posted by this office please visit the DSO Opportunities page, where you can further sort by topic.

Programs

Collapse List     View 10 | View 50 | View All

Reactive Material Structures (RMS)

Mr. Jerome Dunn
Reactive materials are solids such as metals and metal oxides that cannot be detonated, but are capable of releasing large amounts of thermodynamic energy very rapidly. These materials can provide energy that exceeds those of traditional explosives and offer the potential of significantly increasing performance without increasing size or weight. The potential of this class of materials has not been realized because of limitations related to dynamic control of strength and energy conversion mechanisms. The Reactive Material Structures (RMS) program seeks to develop the revolutionary capability of integrating reactive and structural materials into a single material system, with a mechanism to activate that system and release energy upon command. More
| Materials | Munitions |

Revolutionary Enhancement of Visibility by Exploiting Active Light-fields (REVEAL)

Dr. Predrag Milojkovic
Conventional optical imaging systems today largely limit themselves to the measurement of light intensity, providing two-dimensional renderings of three-dimensional scenes and ignoring significant amounts of additional information that may be carried by captured light. More
| Complexity | Imagery | Photonics | Visualization |

SIGMA

Dr. Mark Wrobel
Terrorist attacks involving the use of proliferated radiological and special nuclear materials pose a potential threat to U.S. citizens and servicemembers. Early detection of such materials and devices made from them is a critical part of the U.S. strategy to prevent attacks. Lower-cost and more sensitive detectors, along with innovative deployment strategies, could significantly enhance detection and deterrence of attack. More
| CBRN | Sensors |

SIGMA+

Dr. Vincent Tang
The SIGMA+ program aims to expand SIGMA’s advance capability to detect illicit radioactive and nuclear materials by developing new sensors and networks that would alert authorities to chemical, biological, and explosives threats as well. More
| Analytics | CBRN | Chemistry | Sensors |

Simplifying Complexity in Scientific Discovery (SIMPLEX)

Dr. John S. Paschkewitz
The exponential growth of diverse science data represents an unprecedented opportunity to make substantial advances in complex science and engineering, such as discovery of novel materials or drugs. However, without tools to unify principles, results, models and other kinds of data into a single computational representation, it is difficult to relate data from any one scientific problem or area to the broader body of knowledge. More
| Complexity | Math |