DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 1958-2018 (60th Anniversary Edition)

Summary

This commemorative 60th-anniversary publication documents the history, achievements, and future directions of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from 1958 to 2018. It features reflections from former agency directors and in-depth articles exploring major breakthrough technological initiatives, including stealth aircraft, ARPANET and the internet, microelectronics and Moore’s Law, spintronics, biological technologies, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, neurotechnology, and national security space ventures.

Cover and Title Page

DARPA: DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY 1958-2018. DARPA 60 YEARS 1958-2018.

Inside Cover & Front Matter Note

DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY Cover photo: Shown with artistic flair is an injector plate of an F-1 engine, the workhorse engine that would, among other lifts, power the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo missions. From the injector plate’s holes, liquid fuel and liquid oxygen would spray out, much like water from the head of a garden hose, but under enormous pressure. This particular F-1 engine is on display in Huntsville, Alabama, at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. In August 1958, just six months after ARPA was established (later renamed as DARPA), the agency authorized a proposal by Wernher von Braun and his research team at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville to design and build a large, heavy-lift rocket vehicle. To quickly and cheaply achieve massive thrust in the first stage, ARPA suggested a design featuring a cluster of available rocket engines, the powerful F-1 developed by Rocketdyne in the mid-1950s. Also expediting the successful development of the Saturn booster was the reliance in the upper stages on liquid hydrogen technology developed earlier for the ARPA-supported CENTAUR vehicle. As DARPA enters its seventh decade, the agency remains at the forefront of rocket design, now focusing on the challenges of boosting assets to orbit quickly, with little notice, and at low cost. Photo by Lee Hutchinson

Director’s Letter

DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY 675 NORTH RANDOLPH STREET ARLINGTON, VA 22203-2114 September 5, 2018

On February 7, 1958, the day the Advanced Research Projects Agency was officially established, humanity had just entered the Space Age. In all, the United States and our Cold War rival, the USSR, had managed to place three satellites into orbit by that date, and one of those already had returned to Earth. Today, thousands of sophisticated satellites are overhead, providing us with critical intelligence, meteorological data, navigational tools, global communications, and many other technological wonders that have become necessities. Hints of the coming microelectronics age, in the form of the world’s first integrated circuits (ICs), also rolled out during ARPA’s maiden year. Sixty years later, multibillion-transistor ICs are commonplace, and the artificial intelligence they are making possible appears slated to open our roads to millions of driverless cars; to identify hidden threats amidst oceans of data; and to provide machine-assistance for diagnosing disease, making scientific discoveries, and designing new weapon systems.

We are honored to know that the agency we lead has been one of the most consequential drivers of these and other technological evolutions and revolutions over the past 60 years. The seeds of many technologies in our lives today were sown by DARPA (the acronym acquired a D for “Defense” in 1972), and the same is happening now for the technologies of the future.

It is our pleasure to share this publication with you to mark DARPA’s first 60 years. On these pages, you will encounter an eclectic mix of articles that chronicle the agency’s past and present, and that project some of the exciting and potentially world-changing directions in which DARPA is heading. Written by both insiders and outsiders, the articles collectively reveal many angles on the institutional innovation that DARPA has brought to national security and beyond.

DARPA’s storied record of accomplishment is a synergy of people, partnerships, and projects. It is our uncommonly creative and capable program managers who bring to DARPA unique expertise, knowledge, and experience in the technological territories that matter for national security. It is through partnerships with academia, industry, and warfighters within the Department of Defense that DARPA embraces the opportunity to change the world. And it is by way of the Agency’s projects (the P in DARPA) that engineering imagination and drive become hold-in-your-hand technological capability for the country.

You will read about these critical components of DARPA in these articles. But the book on DARPA is open-ended. Those chapters not yet written—and that will show up in future anniversary publications and could well include readers like you as major characters—will be informed by the constant kaleidoscope of people, partnerships, and projects that for the past 60 years has been the right stuff of DARPA.

Steven H. Walker, Director Peter Highnam, Deputy Director

Congressional Record Tribute

Congressional Record - PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 115th CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2018 Senate: DARPA’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY

Senator Jack Reed’s Congressional Record Tribute to DARPA on its 60th Anniversary: Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, on the 60th anniversary of its inception. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, President Eisenhower determined that the United States would never again be caught off guard by technological surprise. DARPA was established to anticipate new technological capabilities and pursue strategic technological surprise for our military forces.

DARPA works collaboratively with academic institutions, corporate and government R&D labs, and small business enterprise. While the primary focus is to discover fundamental new concepts that lead to breakthrough technologies for national security, many of DARPA’s advances also benefit greater society. Some well-known examples include precision-guided weapons systems with miniaturized GPS components also found on many consumer products; the internet, used initially to link DARPA with performer partners, now widely used in commerce and every aspect of our lives; advanced antenna systems enabling more efficient warfighter communications and satellite signal reception for consumers; new breakthroughs in robotic technology for national security applications and the development of advanced prosthetic arms for wounded warriors and civilians alike. The list goes on.

By not accepting the parameters of what is widely accepted as the known possible, DARPA has proven that amazing achievements can be had by stretching to reach for what was once deemed impossible. In the realm of national defense, DARPA has pursued new systems, including unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles, hypersonic flight research, and new frontiers in biomedical research. From the giant engines of the Saturn V rocket that took Americans to the Moon to the smallest microelectronics that populate our smartphones, DARPA has been ahead of the cutting edge of technological innovation.

By focusing its efforts at the boundaries of fundamental research in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, materials science, electronics, and engineering, DARPA has helped create new communities of scientists and engineers, both inside and beyond the traditional defense community. Along the way, new businesses and sometimes entire industries have sprung from DARPA-funded research, reflecting the Agency’s commitment to pursue its ideas all the way from initial concept to demonstration of practical feasibility through prototype development.

DARPA programs are led by program managers who come from universities, industry, national laboratories, and other parts of government for limited postings that typically last 3 to 5 years—a time limit that helps drive the Agency’s signature sense of urgency. Recognizing that some revolutionary goals inevitably prove unachievable, DARPA carefully manages risk by establishing appropriate milestone procedures and redirecting or discontinuing programs when further advancement stalls.

I congratulate DARPA for its many achievements over the past 60 years. The true assets that enable this kind of achievement are the men and women who work to make the visions of tomorrow become today’s reality.

As DARPA moves into the future, I encourage my colleagues to join with me in recognizing this milestone and supporting DARPA so that it can continue to keep our warfighters and citizens at the leading edge of technology and out of harm’s way.

CONTENTS 8 DARPA DIRECTORS 10 REFLECTIONS OF FORMER DIRECTORS 12 DARPA: The innovation icon at 60 (By Richard H. Van Atta) 22 DARPA TILES TOGETHER A VISION OF MOSAIC WARFARE: Banking on cost-effective complexity to overwhelm adversaries (By Stew Magnuson) 26 FURTHERMOORE: The intertwined history of DARPA and Moore’s Law (By William Chappell) 32 THE STUFF OF NATIONAL SECURITY: DARPA and the invention of new materials (By Ivan Amato and Steve Wax) 38 GIANT STEPS: DARPA’s X-planes and the quest to redefine the boundaries of flight (By Jan Tegler) 46 DARPA AT THE TACTICAL EDGE: TIGR & RAA: Information from the bottom up (By Eric Tegler) 52 SEMICONDUCTOR SAFARI: Exotic materials beyond silicon (By Dan Green) 56 JUMP-STARTING INNOVATION: DARPA’s Grand Challenges (By Ivan Amato) 62 DARPA’S QUEST FOR A BENEFICENT CYBER FUTURE: The innovations it will take to assure our cyber security (By Brian M. Pierce) 68 ENTERPRISE DISRUPTION: Shaking off entrenched ways is hard, but it is the gateway to better technology frameworks for all of the military domains (By Fred Kennedy) 74 SECURITY AND SURPRISE AT BIOLOGICAL SCALES: The evolution of defense technology (By Justin Sanchez and Jacob Jordan) 80 AUTONOMOUS TECHNOLOGY COMETH: The advent of machines that act and decide will benefit from the lessons humanity has learned from itself (By J.R. Wilson) 86 FIGHTING IN MEGACITIES: DARPA takes on the challenge of warfare in expanding urban settings (By Stew Magnuson) 90 TAKING NEUROTECHNOLOGY INTO NEW TERRITORY: With new interface technology, the human-machine relationship is deepening (By Justin Sanchez and Robbin Miranda) 96 A PROTEAN TECHNOLOGY: DARPA and the exploration of artificial intelligence (By John Everett) 103 THE NETWORK OF OUR TIMES: A DARPA perspective on the development of the internet (By Henry Kenyon) 110 SPINTRONICS: A DARPA-spurred spin on fundamental electron physics just keeps on giving (By Ivan Amato) 116 TECHNOLOGY THAT MATTERS: Ushering game-changing technology into the real world (By Craig Collins) 122 DARPA’S 60-YEAR SPACE ADVENTURE: A maker of the Space Age continues its expansive take on space technology (By Edward Goldstein) 130 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO ACCELERATE SCIENCE: How in-silico minds will open new pathways to discovery (By Paul Cohen) 134 UNIVERSITIES IN SERVICE TO NATIONAL SECURITY: DARPA’s call to academia (By William Regli)

Colophon and Publishing Information

Published by Faircount Media Group 4915 West Cypress Street, Tampa, FL 33607 Tel: 813.639.1900 | www.defensemedianetwork.com | www.faircount.com

EDITORIAL: Executive Editor: Ivan Amato Editor in Chief: Chuck Oldham Managing Editor: Ana E. Lopez Editor: Rhonda Carpenter Contributing Writers: Ivan Amato, William Chappell, Paul Cohen, Craig Collins, John Everett, Edward Goldstein, Dan Green, Jacob Jordan, Fred Kennedy, Henry Kenyon, Stew Magnuson, Robbin Miranda, Brian M. Pierce, William Regli, Justin Sanchez, Eric Tegler, Jan Tegler, Steve Wax, J.R. Wilson, Richard H. Van Atta

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION: Art Director: Robin K. McDowall Designer: Rebecca Laborde

ADVERTISING: Advertising Sales Manager: Geoffrey Weiss Representatives: Art Dubuc, Damion Harte, Bryan St. Laurent, Geoffrey Weiss

OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION: Chief Operating Officer: Lawrence Wayne Roberts VP, Business Development: Robin Jobson Business Development: Damion Harte Business Analytics Manager: Colin Davidson Accounting Manager: Joe Gonzalez FAIRCOUNT MEDIA GROUP Publisher: Ross Jobson

Six Decades of DARPA Directors

DARPA DIRECTORS (1958–2018):

Roy W. Johnson (1958-1959)
Austin W. Betts (1960-1961)
Jack P. Ruina (1961-1963)
Robert L. Sproull (1963-1965)
Charles M. Herzfeld (1965-1967)
Eberhardt Rechtin (1967-1970)
Stephen J. Lukasik (1970-1975)
George H. Heilmeier (1975-1977)
Robert R. Fossum (1977-1981)
Robert S. Cooper (1981-1985)
Robert C. Duncan (1985-1988)
Ray S. Colladay (1988-1989)
Craig I. Fields (1989-1990)
Victor H. Reis (1990-1992)
Gary L. Denman (1992-1995)
Larry Lynn (Verne L. “Larry” Lynn) (1995-1998)
Fernando L. Fernandez (1998-2001)
Anthony Tether (2001-2009)
Regina E. Dugan (2009-2012)
Arati Prabhakar (2012-2017)
Steven Walker (2017-Present)

Reflections of Former Directors

“DARPA is a place of doing. It is a place where vision is paired with execution, where doing is as powerful a force as thinking, and where it is commonplace for something once deemed impossible to become improbable and then eventually inevitable.” – Dr. Regina Dugan

“The thing that DARPA does, and DARPA does well, is show that something can be done… And once you show somebody it can be done, it’s amazing how many people suddenly are brave enough to go and try it.” – Dr. Tony Tether

“DARPA is as true to its founding mission today as it was in 1958. The DARPA brand is an icon for technological innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, and creative solutions to national defense needs.” – Dr. Raymond Colladay

“DARPA is an expression of the quintessence of America. A place where individuals reach beyond their grasp, and where the only failure is small dreams. A home for those who yearn to expand the frontier of the possible. An enterprise imbued with an abiding belief that tomorrow can be better than today, if we make it so.” – Dr. Arati Prabhakar

“DARPA was unique in its exposure to hard, important national technical problems, in its freedom from military intervention, and most importantly in its exceptional and dedicated technical and support staff. We were not bound by short term requirements but were instead allowed to work on a number of ‘what if’ problems, some of which materialized in the future when we went to war against terrorists all over the world.” – Dr. Fernando “Frank” Fernandez

“ARPA played roles in numerous conflicts. We worked with the Air Force on strategic offense and with the Army in strategic defense. We added programs in naval technology to ensure the survivability of our sea-based forces and devoted attention to working with Combatant Commands and the Intelligence Community.” – Dr. Stephen Lukasik

“There has never been a better mechanism for accelerating the development of technology than DARPA. Why? A culture of acceptance of risk and failure in pursuit of great achievement. DARPA technology staff are irrepressible and compulsive – ‘the best and the brightest’ – and DARPA management staff are intent on removing barriers, not erecting barriers to getting things done … DARPA accelerates time, DARPA brings the future faster. It makes things happen that would otherwise take years, a decade, perhaps two decades.” – Dr. Craig Fields

“The people that I managed and worked with at DARPA were some of the brightest and most motivated people I ever had the pleasure to work with. The interactions with program managers were extremely lively as most had great ideas and most thought I had a bucket of money under my desk. Some had outrageous ideas but were passionate about them. DARPA, in my opinion, is a national treasure and is absolutely essential to maintaining our technology edge in military capabilities.” – Dr. Gary Denman

DARPA: The Innovation Icon at 60 (by Richard H. Van Atta)

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an ‘innovation icon.’ It has created many breakthrough technologies that have revolutionized defense, including stealth, unmanned aerial systems, and precision-guided munitions. Many DARPA-developed technologies have had sweeping societal and economic impacts, including portable GPS receivers, new types of computer chips, voice-recognition software, interactive and personal computers, and, most famously, the ARPANET and its successor, the internet.

DARPA’s Origins – 1958-1970: In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, sparking concerns over technological leadership. President Eisenhower established ARPA in February 1958 under DOD Directive 5105.15. Initial presidential assignments were space, ballistic missile defense (Defender), and nuclear test detection (Vela). Civilian space programs were soon transferred to NASA. In 1961, J.C.R. Licklider became director of IPTO, pioneering personal computing and ARPANET.

1970s–1980s Transformation: Under Steven Lukasik and George Heilmeier, DARPA structured itself around technical offices and long-range planning, fostering network-centric warfare, stealth aircraft (Have Blue/F-117, Tacit Blue/B-2), UAVs, and AI. This created the ‘Offset Strategy’ articulated by William Perry and Harold Brown.

1990s Post-Cold War and Dual-Use: Following the USSR’s collapse, DARPA pursued dual-use technologies with the Technology Reinvestment Program (TRP), Predator and Global Hawk UAVs, and early biotechnology.

2000s–2010s War on Terror and Globalization: Post-9/11 efforts focused on rapid field support, counter-terrorism, robotics, Grand Challenges for autonomous vehicles, cyber warfare (Plan X, Cyber Grand Challenge), and the creation of the Biological Technologies Office (BTO) in 2014.

DARPA’s Six Technical Offices today:

Biological Technologies Office (BTO)
Defense Sciences Office (DSO)
Information Innovation Office (I2O)
Microsystems Technology Office (MTO)
Strategic Technology Office (STO)
Tactical Technology Office (TTO) DARPA operates with approximately 100 program managers on term appointments with an annual budget of roughly $3 billion, driving technology transition to military services and commercial sectors.

DARPA Tiles Together a Vision of Mosaic Warfare (by Stew Magnuson)

The concept of ‘Mosaic Warfare’ envisions composing combat force packages out of many low-cost, disaggregated manned and unmanned platforms—like tiles in a mosaic—rather than relying on small numbers of monolithic, exquisite, and expensive weapon systems.

Originating under STO Director Dr. Thomas J. Burns and Deputy Director Dan Patt, Mosaic Warfare focuses on distributing sense-decide-and-act functions across vast networks of autonomous air, ground, and maritime assets. Key elements include interoperability links (‘making lightning bolts real’) and collaborative robotics like the Gremlins program (launching and recovering swarms of reusable UAVs from host aircraft).

FurtherMoore: The Intertwined History of DARPA and Moore’s Law (by William Chappell)

Gordon Moore’s 1965 prediction that transistor counts would double roughly every two years has driven microelectronics for five decades. DARPA heavily accelerated this trajectory through pioneering investments:

Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits (VLSI) program in the 1970s and 1980s, enabling Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC).
MOSIS (Metal Oxide Silicon Implementation Service) in 1981, democratizing IC prototyping.
SEMATECH consortium funding to restore U.S. semiconductor manufacturing leadership.
Advances in 248-nm and 193-nm optical lithography, and FinFET 3D transistor architectures scaling down to 7 nm.

Addressing ‘Moore’s Inflection’: As physical limits and escalating design costs slow traditional scaling, DARPA launched the $1.5 billion Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI) across three pillars: Architectures, Materials and Integration, and Design (including CRAFT and CHIPS programs).

The Stuff of National Security: DARPA and the Invention of New Materials (by Ivan Amato and Steve Wax)

Materials have historically been a primary limiting factor in defense systems. In 1960, ARPA established Interdisciplinary Laboratories (IDLs) at Cornell, UPenn, and Northwestern, effectively founding materials science and engineering as an academic discipline.

Key Programs and Advances:

High-temperature nickel-based superalloys, ceramic armor, beryllium optics, and carbon composites.
Intelligent Processing of Materials (IPM) in the 1980s, introducing in-situ sensing and digital twins.
Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF), leading to modern additive manufacturing and 3D printing.
Accelerated Insertion of Materials (AIM) and Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME).
Current programs including Atoms to Product (A2P), Fundamental Design (FUN Design), and Transformative Design (TRADES) solving the ‘inverse problem in design.‘

Giant Steps: DARPA’s X-Planes and Flight Innovation (by Jan Tegler)

DARPA’s experimental aircraft programs have pioneered radical aerodynamic concepts and flight regimes:

QT-2 and YO-3A ‘Quiet Thruster’ reconnaissance aircraft in Vietnam.
Have Blue (1977) and Tacit Blue (1982), creating first- and second-generation stealth technology that led to the F-117 Nighthawk and B-2 Spirit.
Amber UAV (1984), establishing long-endurance unmanned flight leading directly to the MQ-1 Predator; RQ-3 DarkStar and RQ-4 Global Hawk.
X-29 (1984), exploring forward-swept wings, aeroelastic tailoring, and super-maneuverability.
X-31 EFM (1990s), proving thrust vectoring and the famous post-stall ‘Herbst Maneuver’.
X-45 J-UCAS, demonstrating autonomous unmanned combat strike and multi-vehicle coordination.
Experimental Spaceplane (XSP), aiming for 10 flights in 10 days to low-Earth orbit.

DARPA at the Tactical Edge: TIGR & RAA (by Eric Tegler)

In Iraq and Afghanistan, tactical knowledge from bottom-up foot patrols was critical. DARPA developed software platforms to put intelligence directly into the hands of warfighters:

Tactical Ground Reporting (TIGR): Created under Program Manager Mari Maeda and fielded starting in 2007, TIGR provided an intuitive, map-based digital notebook for patrol planning, image sharing, and route tracking with federated offline-sync servers.
Transformative Apps (Trans Apps) & Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK): Transitioned handheld mobile applications to tactical operations.
Remote Advise and Assist (RAA): Enabled specialized coordination between U.S. advisors and Iraqi Special Operations Forces against ISIS.
Secure Handhelds on Assured Resilient networks at the tactical Edge (SHARE): Enabling multi-classification secure mobile operations.

Semiconductor Safari: Exotic Materials Beyond Silicon (by Dan Green)

Beyond traditional silicon logic, DARPA expanded into compound semiconductors and novel physics:

Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MIMIC) program (1988–1995): Transitioned gallium arsenide (GaAs) into mass production, enabling military radars and modern cellphone communications.
Wide Band Gap Semiconductor-RF (WBGS-RF): Matured gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon carbide/diamond for ultra-high-power radar applications like the Navy’s AMDR.
Technology for Efficient, Agile Microsystems (TEAM): Silicon-germanium (SiGe) integration for low-power RF and 5G.
Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) and Micro-PNT (chip-scale atomic clocks, gyroscopes, and accelerometers for GPS-denied navigation).

Jump-Starting Innovation: DARPA’s Grand Challenges (by Ivan Amato)

In response to congressional mandates to automate military ground combat vehicles, DARPA introduced prize-based challenges:

2004 & 2005 Grand Challenges: Sparked the modern autonomous vehicle industry (won in 2005 by Stanford’s ‘Stanley’).
2007 Urban Challenge: Accelerated autonomous driving in city environments.
2009 Network Challenge (Red Balloon): Crowdsourcing distributed search on the internet.
2011 Shredder Challenge: Computational reconstruction of shredded documents.
2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC): Disaster-response humanoid robotics.
2016 Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC): Fully automated machine-speed cyber reasoning and patching.
Subsequent challenges: Spectrum Collaboration Challenge, Subterranean (SubT) Challenge, and DARPA Launch Challenge.

DARPA’s Quest for a Beneficent Cyber Future (by Brian M. Pierce)

From the origins of ARPANET and early protocols to contemporary network defense, DARPA addresses growing cyber threats:

High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS): Applying mathematical formal methods to produce provably secure embedded code for vehicles and helicopters.
Plan X: A battle command system to visualize, plan, and execute cyber operations at network scale.
Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC): Automated cyber reasoning engines to detect and patch software vulnerabilities in real time.
Media Forensics (MediFor): Detecting automated image and video manipulation.
Cyber deterrence capabilities focusing on cyber resilience, situational awareness, and calibrated response.

Enterprise Disruption (by Fred Kennedy)

Addressing systemic institutional risk aversion and monolithic high-value assets across military domains:

Space: Replacing multi-billion-dollar single satellites with distributed, resilient LEO constellations (Project Blackjack) and responsive launch.
Maritime: Supplementing supercarriers with distributed, autonomous surface vessels (ACTUV/Sea Hunter).
Air: Transitioning beyond vulnerable stealth fighters to hypersonic weapons (HAWC and TBG).
Ground: Replacing close-range manned exposure with autonomous standoff networks (URSA).

Security and Surprise at Biological Scales (by Justin Sanchez and Jacob Jordan)

DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), established in 2014, harnesses biotechnology for defense:

Countermeasures to biological threats: Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) targeting rapid antibody synthesis within 60 days; gene-drive biosafety.
Environmental bio-sensors: Advanced Plant Technologies (APT) and Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors (PALS).
Bio-hybrid and neurotechnologies: ElectRx (targeted peripheral nerve stimulation for healing) and non-invasive neural interfaces.

Autonomous Technology Cometh (by J.R. Wilson)

Examining the shift from remotely piloted vehicles to true collaborative autonomy:

Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE): Enabling swarming UAVs to collaborate under minimal human supervision.
OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET): Coordinating swarms of 250+ air and ground robots in urban operations.
Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA): High-speed indoor navigation without GPS.
Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV/Sea Hunter): Long-endurance autonomous maritime operations, transitioned to the Office of Naval Research in 2018.

Fighting in Megacities (by Stew Magnuson)

Preparing for complex 3D warfare in dense urban centers exceeding 10 million residents:

Centralized Control for Commercial Drones (C3D): Automated autonomous perimeter overwatch and route reconnaissance.
Aerial Dragnet: Multi-modal optical, acoustic, and radar surveillance to track low-flying rogue UAS in urban canyons.
Mobile Force Protection (MFP): Convoy defense against hostile drone swarms.
Subterranean (SubT) Challenge: Rapid mapping and search of underground tunnels, subways, and caves.

Taking Neurotechnology into New Territory (by Justin Sanchez and Robbin Miranda)

Advancing bidirectional brain-machine interfaces:

Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) & Revolutionizing Prosthetics: Providing closed-loop sensory feedback and direct motor cortical control of robotic limbs.
Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (SUBNETS): Closed-loop neuromodulation for neuropsychiatric conditions.
Restoring Active Memory (RAM) and RAM Replay: Improving memory encoding, retention, and training speed.
Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) & Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3): Noninvasive high-resolution brain-computer interfaces.

A Protean Technology: DARPA and AI (by John Everett)

The evolution of AI over three waves:

First Wave (1960s-1980s): Handcrafted knowledge and expert systems (DENDRAL, MYCIN, Mac Hack VI, Project MAC).
Second Wave (1990s-Present): Statistical machine learning and deep neural networks enabled by GPUs and big data.
Third Wave / Emerging: Contextual reasoning and Explainable AI (XAI) to produce AI systems that understand cause-and-effect, possess common sense, and explain their decisions to human operators.

The Network of Our Times: Development of the Internet (by Henry Kenyon)

Historical development of networking technologies:

1969 ARPANET: Packet switching, IMP routers, and initial nodes.
1970s: Development of TCP/IP protocol by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn; packet radio and mobile networking.
1980s-1990s: NSFNET expansion, World Wide Web, DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) and Semantic Web.
Expanding into wireless mesh networks, IoT privacy (Brandeis program), and interplanetary Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN).

Spintronics: Spin Physics Keeps on Giving (by Ivan Amato)

Harnessing electron spin for computing and memory:

1995: Stuart Wolf establishes DARPA’s Magnetic Materials and Devices program, coining ‘spintronics’.
Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) and Tunnel Magnetoresistance (TMR): Revolutionized hard drive read-heads and data storage.
Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) and Spin Torque Transfer (STT-MRAM): Rad-hard, non-volatile, instant-on memory.
Topological Excitations in Electronics (TEE): Exploring stable, low-power magnetic skyrmions for ultra-dense data storage.

Technology That Matters: Technology Transition (by Craig Collins)

Mechanisms for moving high-risk research into military and commercial reality:

Soldier protection systems: Advanced lightweight body armor and helmets.
Revolutionizing Prosthetics: Commercialization of the modular DEKA ‘LUKE’ bionic arm for amputee veterans.
Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM): Fast-track development via a specialized joint transition office (LDO), transitioning to NAVAIR in 2016.
Space Surveillance Telescope (SST): Wide-field space situational awareness system transferred to the U.S. Air Force and relocated to Australia.
Memex: Deep web search tools transitioned to law enforcement for countering human trafficking.

DARPA’s 60-Year Space Adventure (by Edward Goldstein)

DARPA’s foundational role in the Space Age:

1958: Creation of ARPA; initial oversight of national launch vehicle programs, initiating the Saturn booster and SCORE communications satellite.
Satellite breakthroughs: Transit (first satellite navigation/GPS predecessor), TIROS (first weather satellite), and Vela Hotel (nuclear test detection).
Miniaturization of GPS receivers via gallium arsenide circuitry.
Orbital Express (2007): Autonomous robotic on-orbit satellite servicing and refueling.
Current space programs: Blackjack low-cost LEO constellation, Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS), Experimental Spaceplane (XSP), Hallmark space battle management, and Planar Imager optics.

Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Science (by Paul Cohen)

Applying AI to the scientific discovery process:

Big Mechanism Program: Automated reading of scientific literature (extracting cancer cell-signaling pathways from 95,000+ papers) to build mechanistic causal models.
World Modelers Program: Assembling complex multi-model workflows to model interacting global systems, such as food security, climate, and economic migration.
Tackling foundational AI challenges in scientific ontologies, coreference resolution, semantic depth, and gritty systems engineering.

Universities in Service to National Security (by William Regli)

The vital, enduring partnership between DARPA and academic research institutions:

Historical university collaborations: Strategic Computing, Interdisciplinary Laboratories (IDLs), MOSIS, CAD/CAM, and the MADE program.
Fostering open, transdisciplinary research communities tackling high-risk, complex national security challenges.
Calling upon university scholars to address emergent 21st-century disruptions across quantum computing, gene editing, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.