DARPA

The current wave of artificial intelligence, driven by machine learning (ML) techniques, is all the rage, and for good reason. With sufficient training on digitized writing, spoken words, images, video streams, and other digital content, ML has become the basis of voice recognition, self-driving cars, and other previously only-imagined capabilities. As billions of phones, appliances,…

The physical sphere of computers, home appliances, vehicles, cameras, and the ever-growing menagerie of handheld devices has become increasingly intertwined—by way of wireless connections to the internet—with the digital spheres of data and information. This expanding new technology arena brings with it vast opportunities for innovation, challenging and growing demand for access to the electromagnetic…

For decades scientists have wondered whether electromagnetic waves might play a role in intra- and inter-cell signaling. Researchers have suggested since the 1960s, for example, that terahertz frequencies emanate from cell membranes, but they’ve lacked the technology and tools to conduct reproducible experiments that could prove whether electromagnetic waves constitute purposeful signals for biological function—or…

Here’s something easy to forget when you are chatting on your cell phone or flipping channels on your smart TV: although wireless communication seems nothing short of magic, it is a brilliant, reality-anchored application of physics and engineering in which radio signals travel from a transmitter to a receiver in the form of electric and…

Modern military operations are dynamic and complex—requiring, for example, that infantry squads carry out their missions simultaneously in the 3-dimensional physical world, the cyber domain, and across the electromagnetic spectrum. As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced, the future of kinetic, cyber, and electronic warfare envisions humans and intelligent machines working together as a team. A…

DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) has a proud history of making seminal investments in breakthrough technologies that ultimately became critical components in our electronics-filled world, from flash memory to radio frequency (RF) semiconductors to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). But DARPA does not develop technologies on its own. The Agency’s approach is to set extremely challenging goals…

In a vision shared by innovators, entrepreneurs, and planners in both defense and civilian contexts, the skies of the future will be busy with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Unseen but central to the realization of this vision is wireless communication within and between those future fleets of UAVs that is reliable and resistant to both unintentional…

In March, DARPA officials first publicly floated plans for the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge, an initiative designed to ensure that the exponentially growing number of military and civilian wireless devices will have full access to the increasingly crowded electromagnetic spectrum. Today, with the Agency release of detailed postings about the competition’s architecture, rules, and two participation options…

Normal radios operate in kilohertz (kHz) and megahertz (MHz) frequencies, bandwidths corresponding to electromagnetic oscillations in the thousands and millions of cycles per second ranges, respectively. Upping the ante, cell phones and radar systems operate in the billions of cycles per second range—that is, gigahertz (GHz) frequencies. But no one has managed to push radiofrequency technology…