DARPA’s newest “Cheetah” robot set a new land speed record for legged robots when it galloped at speeds of 18 miles per hour, besting the old record by almost 5 mph. The use of ground robots in military explosive-ordinance-disposal missions already saves many lives and prevents thousands of other casualties. If the current limitations on [...]

These new prototype robots, which were molded from paper and silicone rubber, can twist, bend, grip, and lift more than 100 times their own weight. The more astonishing fact is that they run on pneumatic actuators, which means that they basically run on air. The DARPA-funded project imagined “soft” robots for specific tasks in which [...]

To help carry gear, DARPA is continuing research into developing a highly mobile, semi-autonomous legged robot to integrate with a squad of Marines or Soldiers. As seen in the video, a recent prototype underwent a series of outdoor tests and DARPA plans to continue refinements over the next 18 months. Today’s dismounted warfighter can be [...]

DARPA’s The High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems program seeks to improve the security of embedded computer systems. To do this, researchers are looking to create new technology for the construction of systems by adopting a method-based approach to enable semi-automated code synthesis from executable, formal specifications. Embedded computer systems play a part in every aspect of [...]

As part of the SCENICC program, DARPA researchers are working on futuristic contact lenses that will offer a dual purpose. These lenses will allow users to focus on objects that are close up and far away simultaneously, while enhancing normal vision by allowing a wearer to view virtual and augmented reality images. Currently being developed [...]

DARPA is looking to further increase processing speed in their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and has set up a Proposers’ Day workshop to further awareness and to attract potential researchers. The power efficiency revolution for embedded computing technologies (PERFECT) program seeks to improve computational capability by improving power efficiency for embedded computer systems and [...]

The online community of Foldit has helped produce solutions that have evaded scientists for years. Initially funded by DARPA, this community consists of roughly 240,000 players comprised of exerts and non-experts collaborating and trying to solve protein folding puzzles. Foldit has provided researchers with the structure of a retroviral protease that causes AIDS in rhesus [...]

DARPA’s research team at Harvard University is focusing on electricity as a means to fight fire. By using a flame-suppression system based on destabilization of flame plasma with electromagnetic fields and acoustics techniques, they hope to limit collateral damage and environmental toxicity while increasing the effectiveness of fighting fires in confined spaces or behind obstacles. [...]

Current technology is limited for imaging objects in space since researchers use astronomical long-baseline interferometers and can only view objects from limited angles. DARPA is seeking to change all this by using flexible fiber optic cables to interconnect a larger number of mobile telescopes in the hope that they will be able to capture data [...]

The DoD needs stronger, lighter, and more resilient materials that can be used in any number of applications from armor, to lighter weights which allow for faster propulsion. DARPA’s Extended Solids program is currently doing research to establish a means to synthesize these materials and they hope to identify the process that will allow them [...]

DARPA researchers successfully treat previously lethal doses of radiation using bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI) and antibiotics. Furthermore, this treatment was found to be effective up to a day after exposure to toxic levels of radiation. Multiple scenarios exist where warfighters may be exposed to high levels of radiation. Countermeasures against possible high doses of radiation are [...]