The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), through the most avant-garde tools that exist on the planet and million-dollar investments, has the task of creating technologies for military use that sometimes border on the limits with what we still consider science fiction. With more than 200 different programs across the science and engineering spectrum, DARPA frequently has some of the most exciting projects.
The agency, then ARPA (the D was added later), in 1969 developed the ARPANET project, the computer network that would eventually become what is now the Internet. Obviously, it is his greatest achievement to date and one of the inventions that has changed history, but there are other projects and prototypes that are worth reviewing.
Because DARPA technology is used to protect national security and make the United States more effective militarily, it’s largely classified, so these are some of the best projects and prototypes that have come to light.
shapeshifter wheels
Within the Ground X-Vehicle (GXV-T) Program, which aims to improve the mobility, survivability, safety, and effectiveness of future combat vehicles without armor build-up, we’ve seen quite a few prototypes, but one of the even more attractive and useful in civil applications is the reconfigurable wheel (Reconfigurable Wheel-Track, RWT).
Because wheels allow fast movement on hard surfaces, while tracked technology (from tanks) works better on soft surfaces, a team from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Center for Robotics Engineering showed shape-changing wheel mechanisms and they go from a round wheel to a triangular one and vice versa.
Along with other advancements, these vehicles are capable of traversing 95% of terrain, including slopes of varying elevations while the vehicle is in motion, for instant improvements in tactical mobility and maneuverability on various terrains.
Manta Ray Drones
DARPA announced earlier this year working on Phase 2 of the Manta Ray program, which began in 2020. It is a project that is working on building underwater drones to be used for secret missions and to go unnoticed by hostile forces.
The Manta Ray program seeks to develop unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV, for its acronym in English) shaped like the real animal, to help in its camouflage, to operate for prolonged periods without the need for human logistical support or maintenance on site.
homing bullet
The Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordinance (EXACTO) project improves sniper accuracy thanks to an advanced 12.7-millimeter caliber ammunition that can be maneuvered in mid-flight.
Project EXACT Bullets
The system combines an automatic optical guidance system and aerodynamic actuators, sensors and an electronic system integrated into the bullet so that the projectile can make small corrections after firing, up to 30 per second.
The search engine that crawls the Deep Web
DARPA has developed a search engine for the Deep Web that can reach all these sites that Google, Yahoo or Bing do not reach and they have called it Memex in honor of a 1945 article in which Memex was described as a kind of electromechanical invention capable of storing all the books, recordings and all kinds of information in order to be able to retrieve them at will.
Deep Web
This search engine could index the millions of websites that go unnoticed by commercial search engines, in addition to the .onion pages of the TOR Network.
liquid robots
The agency knows that the use of robots guarantees them access to unsafe combat zones. For difficult and narrow access terrain they have developed ChemBots.
DARPA ChemBots
These liquid compound robots are easily malleable, so they can be deformed and stretched enough to pass through openings whose dimensions are much smaller than the robot itself and are not known a priori.
Jetpack 4MM to run faster
This invention consists of a propeller that is placed on the back and helps soldiers increase their speed when running, instead of the flight propulsion that we might expect from what we understand by jetpack.
DARPA 4MM Jetpack
In addition to making the possessor go faster, the goal of the 4MM is to reduce their fatigue. Specifically, it is intended that a soldier loaded with his equipment be able to run about a kilometer in four minutes, or less.
TALOS Armor
Marvel fans will be used to seeing how Iron Man became a superhero thanks to his Mark armors, without having any superpowers naturally.
Someone at DARPA must be a fan of the “House of Ideas”, since they develop the armor of the TALOS Project (Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit), the new generation of soldiers supplying them with uniforms capable of solving all adversities automatically.
Its features cited superhuman strength, increased ballistic protection, providing an exoskeleton to carry heavy equipment, liquid armor capable of stopping bullets, and night vision. This development will even be able to monitor vital signs and perform self-healing by spraying wound-sealing foam if detected.
Invisibility Camouflage
The agency has developed a compound that allows soldiers to be hidden from view as they perform on the battlefield. It is one of the so-called metamaterials, that is, materials that have properties that are not common.
The DARPA uniforms would allow the figures of the soldiers to be disguised by causing electromagnetic waves to “flow” around them, more or less like the Cloak of Invisibility in Harry Potter.
