DARPA: Nuclear Powered Spy Insect

This week at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), in Baltimore, Md., Cornell University engineers presented research that shows progress in powering cybernetic organisms with a radioactive fuel source.

Electrical engineering associate professor Amit Lal and graduate student Steven Tin presented a prototype microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) transmitter—an RF-emitting device powered by a radioactive source with a half-life of 12 years, meaning that it could operate autonomously for decades. The researchers think the new RFID transmitter, which produces a 5-milliwatt, 10-microsecond-long, 100-megahertz radio-frequency pulse, could lead to the widespread use of radioisotope power sources.

The work is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which also funds Lal and Tin’s work on another project, called Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS), whose aim is the creation of hybrid cybernetic organisms. In his presentation, Tin said that part of the goal of the radioisotope transmitter work is to power the insects that the group is developing for DARPA. The HI-MEMS program, which is approaching its fourth year, has already grown several kinds of insects—moths and beetles—with implanted control electronics. With such controls, they can be driven by a remote operator for ”stealth applications” and disaster response. … Continue Reading

DARPA Funding Super Quick Submarine

The latest class of submarines can travel at more than 25 knots submerged.

But what if the Navy had a much smaller submarine that could travel four times as fast?

”The real reason we buy nuclear submarines instead of non-nuclear ones is that we’re not protecting the Gulf of Mexico,” said retired Navy Capt. James Patton Jr., president of Submarine Tactics and Technology in North Stonington. “We go halfway around the world, real quick. We get there and we stay there. Anything that would allow you to get a platform somewhere a long ways away pretty quickly would have great military value.”

That is why the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which commissions research for the Defense Department, has given Electric Boat millions of dollars to design a vehicle that could potentially transport high-value cargo or small groups of people at 100 knots (about 115 miles an hour) in a program known as “Underwater Express.”

The technology, if developed, could revolutionize ocean transportation if it could be adapted to cargo and passenger ships.

The vehicle would travel inside a large gas bubble created in the water, a process known as supercavitation. The bubble reduces drag, since the drag is much lower in air than in water, allowing the vehicle to travel at high speeds.

Supercavitation is not new. The technology has been applied to weapons, but never to transport vehicles, according to DARPA.

”What we’re trying to do is come up with the sweet spot where science meets practicality,” said Franz Edson, EB’s director of submarine payload integration and strategic weapon systems. “The problem with the technology, the science, was you couldn’t go very far, you didn’t have any endurance and you couldn’t maneuver very well, so it was really kind of limited practicality.

”What these guys here have come up with is a way to dramatically increase the endurance and maneuverability of a body in supercavitating flight, so now you can really start to do things with it.”

Blowing out air to create the bubble that envelops the vehicle is wasteful, and a vehicle can only carry so much compressed air, so Jack Chapman, an engineer at EB, came up with a way to “mitigate that issue,” Edson said.

Exactly how is the gas-bubble creation process managed efficiently? Well, that’s a secret.

”It’s revolutionary, but we can’t tell you what it is,” said Jennifer Panosky, program manager of advanced programs and future payloads at EB.

”It’s not something we want other people to be aware of,” Edson said. “We’ve proven it works. We’ve set records for the longest supercavitating flight in a water tunnel. This has the potential to change ocean transportation.

”Ships would be much more fuel-efficient, or could use the same amount of fuel and instead of taking two weeks to get across the Pacific, they could get across in a matter of days. It’s pretty slick.”

DARPA has given EB about $26 million so far for the project, with another $12 million expected by the end, said Panosky.

EB initially pitted its design against one from Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems in Maryland. EB was chosen to build a quarter-scale unmanned vehicle, based on the concept of a full-scale size of 8 feet in diameter and 100 feet in length, for a demonstration in spring 2010 in the waters off Rhode Island.

The demonstration will include a 10-minute run at speeds of up to 100 knots with maneuvers, including depth control, to show the controllability of the vehicle, according to a DARPA statement.

At that point, the program will conclude and the technology will be available to the Navy for use in future systems as desired, according to DARPA.

Boeing Develops Phantom Ray

The Boeing Company is reviving the X-45 unmanned aerial system to be used for testing and demonstration of advanced unmanned air system technologies, under a company funded research program code-named ‘Phantom Ray’. First flight of the Phantom Ray is expected in December 2010. The Boeing Phantom Works organization is employing rapid-prototyping techniques that facilitate the speed and agility needed to meet the 2010 flight schedule. Lab testing for the Phantom Ray air vehicle is scheduled for late 2009, followed by ground testing and first flight in 2010. The completion of the Phantom Ray demonstration tests are scheduled to complete before the beginning of carrier suitability tests of a parralel Navy program – the X-47B developed by Northrop Grumman’s. Under the Phantom Ray technology demonstration program the unmanned aircraft will conduct 10 flights over a period of approximately six months, supporting missions that may include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, suppression of enemy air defenses, electronic attack, hunter/killer, and autonomous aerial refueling.

Phantom Works’ rapid prototyping capability will have an instrumental role in the company’s ability to develop and demonstrate these capabilities over a short time and with limited resources. “We have mobilized our assets to continue the tremendous potential we developed under J-UCAS, and now will fully demonstrate that capability.

” Phantom Works President Darryl Davis said. “What is particularly exciting about Phantom Ray is that we will incorporate the latest technologies into the superb X-45C airframe design,” said Dave Koopersmith, vice president of Boeing Advanced Military Aircraft, a division of Phantom Works. “As we gradually expand the vehicle’s flight envelope, potential users will have access to a full range of unique capabilities that only this type of autonomous platform can provide.”

The original X-45C Unmanned Combat Aerial System (UCAS) developed by Boeing with funding from DARPA was competing with Northrop Grumman for the Joint UCAS program. Phantom Ray will pick up where the UCAS program left off in 2006 by further demonstrating Boeing’s unmanned systems development capabilities in a fighter-sized, state-of-the-art aerospace system. The Boeing UCAS program began with the X-45A, which successfully flew 64 times from 2002 to 2005. Those flights included a demonstration exercise with two X-45A aircraft that marked the first unmanned, autonomous multi vehicle flight under the control of a single pilot. Boeing also designed a larger UCAS aircraft, the X-45C, which will serve as the basis for the Phantom Ray demonstrator.

Picture above: Mark Witsken, a Boeing X-45A test pilot, simulates a test flight from a station console at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Witsken was the pilot on the programs graduation combat demonstration flight August 10, 2005.

Below: Boeing developed a larger unmanned combat aircraft designated X-45C, for the DARPA J-UCAS Program. All Photos on this page by Boeing

The introduction of unmanned combat aircraft with air force, and naval service, particularly on board aircraft carriers will open revolutionary new capabilities for military aviation and naval aviation capability in particular. Scott Winship, Northrop Grumman vice president and Navy UCAS-D program manager defines the new capability as ’sea change in military aviation’. Captain Martin Deppe, the U.S. Navy Unmanned Combat Aircraft System Program Manager explains the Navy’s vision “We look forward to a time when we can introduce a new long range, persistent, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) — strike capability to the carrier decks of tomorrow.”

The first Unmanned Combat Air Systems (UCAS) developed by Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Navy was unveiled December 16, 2008 at the company’s manufacturing plant at Palmdale, California. The new aircraft, designated the X-47B is the first of two aircraft Northrop Grumman will produce for the Navy to demonstrate unmanned combat aircraft operations from the deck of an aircraft carrier. The Navy awarded the demonstration contract to Northrop Grumman in 2007 and aircraft assembly was completed in just over a year.

Following the roll out, the UCAS will undergo subsystem and structural testing through 2009, leading to the first flight scheduled in fall 2009. Carrier suitability tests and demonstration will be carried out during the sea trials planned to begin in late 2011.

The X-47B UCAS is produced by Northrop Grumman and industry teammates including Dell, Eaton Aerospace, GE Aviation, GKN Aerospace, Goodrich, Hamilton Sundstrand, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Moog, Parker Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, Rockwell Collins and Wind River.

DARPA Requests Magic

US military Hi-Tech bureau DARPA has outdone itself this time, issuing a request for “intelligent” electronic components and chemicals which can “self-organise” themselves to form complex items such as routers, fuel cells, biofuel factories or medical drugs.” Indeed, reading between the lines it appears as though the our American killboffins are seeking nothing less than the creation of something that approaches magic and artificial intelligent lifeforms.

The Pentagon’s  wacky tech chiefs’ name for this initiative is “Physical Intelligence”, and full details were released last week. According to DARPA, humanity at present has only a dim grasp of what intelligence actually is and how it came into existence:

For the past 50 years, the dominant paradigm for intelligence supposes that the brain is the seat of intelligence and is functionally equivalent to a computer capable of executing any algorithm… the goal of true machine intelligence remains distant… our understanding of the evolution of life is rooted primarily in observations of the natural world… With some exceptions, current approaches to understanding intelligence, conciousness and evolution are disconnected and often lack grounding in fundamental physical principles.
The idea behind “physical intelligence” seems to be to achieve a much better, hard-science understanding of what intelligence and life actually is and how it evolves as a matter of physics. And now DARPA, being who they are, intend to harness this almost God like intellectual toolkit as their own.

Although the idea that life is “a struggle for entropy” (Boltzmann) has been supposed for more than a century… applications to engineered systems are scarce. The Physical Intelligence program aspires to change this situation… The objective is to demonstrate the first human-engineered open thermodynamic systems that spontaneously evolve non-trivial “intelligent” behavior…
Specifically, bidders for DARPA Physical Intelligence cash will be invited to design one of two things: electronic gizmos or “basic units that might be described variously as ‘gates’ or ‘cells’ or ‘neurons’”, or alternatively “an open chemical environment”.

The electronic “units”, which may initially exist only in a simulated environment “comparable in complexity to simple video games (eg, Tetris)” are expected to “self organise” and “evolve” into a complex configuration, presumably one demonstrating some non-trivial aspects of intelligence. As a starter for ten, the super Tetris-block electronic neurocells should be able to spontaneously form into “a continuously self-organizing router for internet traffic or similarly complex application”. One should then be able to “extract the algorithm, and map it to a conventional computer” – effectively turning that computer into an intelligent lifeform.

As for the vat full of smart-chemicals, they’re expected – without human intervention – to be able to form themselves into drugs, organic fuel cells, solar powered biofuel supercrops or “a similarly complex system”.

It won’t have escaped alert Reg readers that the Physical Intelligence DARPA wonder-ware will be quite capable of becoming intelligent life – potentially much more capable life than humanity itself. The AI algorithms which evolve from the spontaneously self-organising Tetris blocks might far outclass the human noggin: the fuel-celled, solar-powered, self-medicating lifeforms which emerged from the smartware vats would be immeasurably superior to us physically.

Full details are available here (https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=eae3b7e276226b092f17fe69359f31d4)

DARPA Looks For Ultimate Tracking Ability

Above is a sketch of  the Pentagon’s  far-out research arm Darpa’s plan to track down and tag “elusive targets” — adversaries who can move, hide and blend in with cluttered environments. And that means more than just next-generation sensors that can penetrate foliage or peer inside “urban canyons.” It means stitching together information collected by different sensors to track a moving object.

Darpa’s 2009 strategic plan offers a fascinating overview of  the different approaches the agency is taking to better track and identify these elusive targets. Some of these, like the Forester foliage- penetrating radar, tackle a specific problem: detecting enemy troops moving under the cover of dense jungle canopy. But another program, called NetTrack, would provide more persistent reconnaissance by linking together and comparing information from different sensors to track a target, even if it moves behind a solid obstruction.

The NetTrack overview on the Darpa website gives few details, but the strategic plan gives a better idea of how it might work. Using software tools, the system could stitch together information from a variety of sensors (synthetic aperture radar, optical, video, acoustic sensors, moving target indicators), and hand off to the right platform when appropriate. For instance, if a Predator lost a video feed on a vehicle that entered a forest, the networked system would cue a laser radar sensor to search for the target. Fusing or comparing sensor information can also help map out better routes for surveillance aircraft to ensure full-time coverage.

Airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance is a big focus of current operations; the Air Force, for instance, is speeding the deployment of the MC-12W aircraft — a converted Beechcraft King Air twin turboprop that captures full-motion video and signals intelligence. But finding ways to combine sensor information in more sophisticated ways would be the next step toward getting the hooks in a target — and not letting go.