Tactical Technology Office

The mission of the Tactical Technology Office (TTO) is to reimagine every aspect of military hardware design, development, test, manufacture, and sustainment – with a focus on rapid, affordable, and scalable deployment – in order to create and prevent technological surprise.

TTO demonstrates compelling hardware at the smallest scale that traces to disruptive capability, with designs that reduce risk and cost by managing complexity and can be manufactured responsively and affordably.

Thrust areas

We seek to enhance the nation’s ability to rapidly build, adapt, and sustain the joint force through the following focus areas. We also recognize that technology evolution is occurring at a pace unprecedented in history.  TTO is interested in any fundamental technological disruptions that could provide the foundation for future DARPA programs, including topics that fall outside of these focus areas.

• Platform Innovation
  We design, engineer, and demonstrate new and innovative platforms at credible scale, proving new enabling technologies that lead to disruptive systems concepts. This includes nontraditional systems engineering processes to increase the pace of innovation.
• Missioned Autonomy
  We apply autonomy as a force multiplier to enable the scaling of massed effects for defense applictions, focusing on trustworthiness, security, heterogenous platform cooperation, and one-to-many human-systems interfaces.
• Managing Complexity
  We seek to reduce risk and cost through new methods of design space exploration and high-capacity computing that provide more efficient and complete insight on system architectures, deliver visibility into higher-order interactions, and enable focused and efficient testing. This includes nontraditional systems engineering processes that promise to deliver faster design, engineering, and manufacturing of complex defense systems.
• Freedom’s Forge 2.0
  We are building on the legacy of public and private cooperation for national security to make manufacturing, maintainability, and testing processes portable, affordable, and responsive. Key elements are rapid evolution from concept to manufacture and designing to support surge production. This includes cost awareness and cost control of manufactured articles.
• Disruptive Emergent Technology
  We recognize that technology evolution is occurring at a pace unprecedented in history and the potential for rapid technological disruption to the tactical battlefield is significant. Of particular interest is identifying fundamental disruptions which could provide the foundation for future DARPA programs or DARPA/TTO focus areas.