DARPA: LIST of projects underway and completed

DARPA Defense Sciences Office

LIST of projects underway and completed.

www.darpa.mil...

Some of these listed projects are weird... I've never seen this type of information listed before,therefore I'm posting it's links for other researchers to follow.

reply to post by Retorque
The connection was refused when attempting to link to the site on my end, did you copy anything and can you post it here?

Thanks!

reply to post by star in a jar


here, try this.. www.darpa.mil/dso/programsexp.htm

i'll watch for your reply.

reply to post by Retorque


Wow. Some cool stuff on there!

The Z-Man Program will develop climbing aids that will enable an individual soldier to scale vertical walls constructed of typical building materials without the need for ropes or ladders. The inspiration for these climbing aids is the technique by which geckos, spiders, and small animals scale vertical surfaces, that is, by using unique biological material systems that enable controllable adhesion using van der Waals forces or by hooking surface asperities. This program seeks to build synthetic versions of those material systems and then utilize them in a novel climbing aid optimized for use by humans. The overall goal of the program is to enable an individual soldier using dry adhesive climbing aides to scale a vertical surface at 0.5 m/s while carrying a combat load.

Friggin' Spiderman!!!

Yeah, kinda figured that it would be good to delve into, but I'm involved with something else right now and don't have time to get side-tracked. I take it the link worked, you might want to check out and copy the "personnel" link for future references... just a suggestion. There are some valuable researchers names there.

They are working on a technology for intelligence analysts that allows the computer to recognize areas of interest based on the brain response of the analyst looking at an image. This way they can identify areas of interest without an analyst ever consciously having identified it... Scary.

The vision for the Neurotechnology for Intelligence Analysts (NIA) Program is to revolutionize the way that analysts handle intelligence imagery, increasing both the throughput of imagery to the analyst and overall accuracy of the assessments. Current computer-based target detection capabilities cannot process vast volumes of imagery with the speed, flexibility, and precision of the human visual system. Investigations of visual neuroscience mechanisms have indicated that the human brain is capable of responding to visually salient objects significantly faster than an individual’s visual-motor, transformation-based (i.e., movement) response.

The NIA Program seeks to identify robust brain signals that are amenable to recording in an operational environment and process these in real time to select images worthy of further review. The program aims ultimately to apply these triage methods to static, broad-area, and video imagery. Successful development of a neurobiologically based image triage system will increase the speed and accuracy of image analysis in a context where the number of acquired images is expected to rise significantly. In sum, the results of the NIA Program will enable image analysts to train more effectively and process imagery with greater speed and precision.

www.darpa.mil...

Wow some of these are really neat, thanks for posting this!

The Education Dominance Program will enable students to learn at their own pace, in their own style, with their own Digital Tutor. In this way, students will not simply memorize information, but they will learn and understand the concepts upon which this information is built. They will train to a standard of competence, not rote recall, in order to demonstrate significant improvements in mastery of complex concepts. Novices trained on Digital Tutor will acquire accelerated problem-solving capabilities with the goal being to enable them to be competitive with experienced operational experts. Education Dominance focuses on several key approaches: * Replicating expert tutor behavior using knowledge engineering techniques. * Modeling intrinsic motivation and memory to optimize learning and consolidation. * Building student/tutor models based on abstractions of a wide range of student behaviors with live tutors. * Incorporating remediation strategies to enable the Digital Tutor to provide targeted reinforcement.

It's a Pip Boy! I knew those Fallout bastards knew something.

Originally posted by Magnivea


It's a Pip Boy! I knew those Fallout bastards knew something.

I saw that and thought the exact same thing.

Wow!! I urge everyone cruising through this thread to take the time and read some of the Bio's of the Program Managers under the Personnel tab on that website. Have a look at the Programs and completed Programs of these managers. Very interesting stuff; time to do a little research?!

Why would DARPA release a list like this? Wouldn't R&D for the department of defense be kind of top secret?

Originally posted by dethduck
Why would DARPA release a list like this? Wouldn't R&D for the department of defense be kind of top secret?

This is most likely technology that is either intended to impress/demoralize military opposition, or it is technology that is antiquated according to their current catalog. Perhaps both.

Found this project pretty interesting...

Focus Areas in Theoretical Mathematics

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Program Manager: Dr. Benjamin Mann

The Focus Areas in Theoretical Mathematics (FAThM) Program aims to foster major theoretical breakthroughs in pure mathematics whose potential for long-term defense implications is high. By supporting closely integrated and concentrated collaborations among small numbers of leading experts, FAThM will pioneer a new approach for conducting focused research to explore fundamental interconnections between key areas of mathematics where critical insights should lead to both new mathematics and innovative applications.

The initial focus area investigates various aspects of the Langlands Programs, a conjectured series of connections or “dualities” relating diverse areas of mathematics:

•Classical (number theory and representation theory).
•Geometric (algebraic geometry, number theory and representation theory).
•Conformal (representation theory, physics, and topology).
The team seeks to extend recent results and plausible conjectures in harmonic analysis involving symmetry groups that arise in physics and their Langlands duals, leading to new mathematical connections with field theory in physics. New representation theory necessary to extend the geometric Langlands conjecture from complex curves to complex surfaces and from compact forms of symmetry groups arising in physics to other real forms is being developed. Homotopical connections to the classical conjectures are also being explored, and exploitation of these mathematical results as new tools for modeling of physical phenomena is being undertaken.

The fundamental mathematics developed in this program is expected to have broad significance in basic science and several avenues of possible long-term defense impact, including quantum algorithms and devices; cryptography; fast structured algorithms for signal/image processing and other DoD-critical applications; and high-density data coding. Additionally, this program is engaging a community of premier theoretical mathematicians and mathematical physicists in DoD-sponsored research, creating a new resource for defense science and fostering infusion of leading-edge theoretical research into national security applications.

www.darpa.mil...

As well THIS.

Interesting projects, although that stuff likely is only the very tip of the iceberg, none-the-less thanks for sharing.

Where's the Chameleon Camo project? I know for a fact, while serving in the reserves, they were working on that. Drunk Flag Grade Officer's used to clamor on about how we'd be able to sneak up and slit throats with ease.

They have had info like this public for a long time, this is nothing new. Very cool stuff in there though.

Some of the highly top secret military stuff gets a start with DARPA using programs such as the ones listed, once those programs show promise they move to corporations and contractors that take it from there and you never hear anything of them again (unless your in the "business" or are an enemy of the USA, lol) As I've been told, most of the high tech weapon systems are developed at the request of the military privately outside of any DARPA involvement, so most of this DARPA stuff is pie in the sky dreaming, but they do it because of the occasional diamond in the rough they produce.

I have only been involved in one thing that was a result of DARPA funding a program such as some of these. I only got to see a small part of it, but it blew my frigging mind for sure, I had no idea that there was technology in my field that was so far advanced...but the thing that really blew my skirt up is the mind blowing technology that must be behind the manufacturing of the stuff I was exposed to (yeah, I'm a nerd, I didn't really care about the product I was exposed to much, just how in the hell they were making it, lol).

The Human-Assisted Neural Devices (HAND) Program is developing the fundamental research that will enable the use of neural activity to provide closed loop control and restore natural function through assistive devices.

By directly harnessing the ability of neural pathways to operate natural systems, the HAND Program seeks to provide means of restoring the lives of injured warfighters.

Research conducted by HAND performers provides the basis for devices that will aid in recovery from short- and long-term memory deficits caused by traumatic injury as well as restoration of functional use of motor system. Previous work in the program has formed the basis for the Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program, which seeks to create a dramatically improved artificial arm for military amputees.

Moving forward, the HAND Program seeks to continue to develop and characterize the fundamental processes that the brain uses to perform tasks.

"ghost in the shell" world is not far

Engineered Bio-Molecular Nano-Devices/Systems Program Manager: Dr. Cindy Daniell

The Engineered Bio-Molecular Nano-Devices/Systems (MOLDICE) Program has developed and demonstrated novel hybrid (biotic-abiotic) nanoscale interface technologies that enable direct, real-time conversion of bio-molecular signals into electrical signals. Biological systems exhibit remarkable sensitivity, selectivity, and efficiency that could be exploited in engineering systems should appropriate interfaces become available. Biological systems have well-defined sensing units, signal processing units, and actuation sub-systems that determine responses to specific stimuli. While significant effort has gone into understanding the sensing systems of biology (e.g., receptor and transmembrane proteins), the intra-cellular signal processing system is still the subject of many ongoing research efforts. The objective of this program is to develop hybrid bio-molecular devices/systems that use biological units (e.g., Protein Ion Channels/Nanopores, G-Protein Coupled Receptors, etc.) for performing the sensing function but use silicon circuitry to accomplish the signal processing. Innovative ideas will be explored for the development of interfaces (to ion channels and receptors) that enable the real-time (temporal) transduction of molecular (stochastic) events into electrical signals. A critical focus of this program is the exploitation of temporal (kinetic) information for the real-time analysis and detection of molecular targets.

scary to me.

[edit on 29-12-2009 by ::.mika.::]

Maybe this is where the TV series "LOST" came up with the Dharma Initiative. - Sorry, I just couldn't resist seeing how this is way over my head.

reply to post by Retorque


oh man it's awesome. Thanks for sharing that link with us. Plenty of interesting reading.
Nice job!

and to think these are the stuff they let us know about. can you imagine the things they are doing that we don't know about? they could already have humans with 9 head and 18 arms already.

Thanks so much for posting this link. It has provided hours of entertainment! And, plenty of great ideas for stories. I really love reading all this stuff, and wonder what kinds of interesting things they are doing off the books as well.

Cool stuff. Star & Flag!