4 DARPA Projects We Love
Space exploration, self-driving vehicles, advanced biometrics, and robotics are among the cool projects in the works at DARPA that are likely to have applications in the enterprise, too.
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We always count on The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to have cool, bleeding-edge projects in the works that give us a glimpse of the future.
DARPA's far-out ideas have included brain implants and self-patching networks, disaster-area robots, and self-calibrating microchips smaller than a penny.
We at InformationWeek love reporting on DARPA's latest gadgets, gizmos, and way-out ideas. On the following pages, you'll see four of our favorite recent projects that we think will have a direct impact on our businesses in the future.
As we worry ever more about information security, seek greater automation and connectivity in an age of smart devices that still aren't smart enough, and hope to one day do business from outer space, it's easy to imagine how these DARPA projects could apply at work. In choosing these DARPA projects, we want to highlight future technologies that have particular relevance to the enterprise tech reader. Each of these ultra-high-tech, military-funded projects will someday have applications for your business.
Check out the projects featured on the following pages and tell us what you think. Will DARPA's ideas do you think will someday become commonplace in the enterprise? Do these ideas scare you, or make you eager for the high-tech future that awaits? What else would you like to see DARPA invest in? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.
The idea of the private sector having a significant outer space presence is getting closer to reality. The FAA recently paved the way for companies to start claiming lunar land rights. Meanwhile, DARPA's Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program is working on getting objects into space a lot more easily and cheaply than is currently possible. The agency's ALASA artist's concept video demonstrates how a military jet would help propel 100-pound satellites into low-Earth orbit in less than 24 hours.
The method uses a (relatively) cheap and expendable launch vehicle, which itself would be launched from a jet. The jet would act "as a reusable first stage," according to a DARPA statement, and further reduce costs by allowing for the use of a typical airport runway for launch, rather than a more expensive vertical launch site. DARPA boasts in a statement that each such launch would cost less than $1 million, allowing for "more affordable, routine and reliable access to space."
The first flight test for this program is slated to occur later this year, with the first orbital launch test expected in early 2016. After that, once the technology is sufficiently mature, the agency anticipates making ALASA available for public- and private-sector partners.
Google, Apple, and Tesla have nothing on the self-driving car DARPA is designing.
As part of the agency's Ground X-Vehicle Technology (GXV-T) program, DARPA plans to develop smart road vehicles that can very rapidly change speed and direction -- so rapidly, in fact, that the vehicle's smart-reflexes will be agile enough to dodge RPG and tank fire on a battlefield. It logically follows that a domestic implementation of this technology could lead to a great reduction in traffic accidents.
Biometrics has been attracting a lot of criticism in the infosec world. Security researchers have demonstrated time and time again that your fingerprint can be easily compromised.
DARPA is taking biometrics and multifactor authentication one step further by placing emphasis on one's "cognitive fingerprint" -- that is, the way you type, move your mouse, and so on.
The agency's Active Authentication program seeks to analyze and record the unique unconscious patterns we engage in when we use our devices. Such factors would include how a mouse or other pointer device is moved, the speed and rhythm of typing, the frequency of typos, and even stylometrics -- an authentication method that looks at how people construct written text. (Stylometrics is presently one of numerous methods used to detect academic plagiarism.)
According to a recent report by Sky News, DARPA's immediate plans for Active Authentication include deployment in encrypted data communications across all military services. The technology, presently in its fourth phase at the US Military Academy at West Point, is being developed in partnership with Novetta Solutions. Active Authentication is being developed with open APIs. It will likely find its way to the private sector to improve enterprise and consumer data security.
DARPA-funded researchers at the University of Maryland have created a robot that can learn to cook by watching YouTube -- which already makes it smarter than any number of humans.
The ramifications for this technology are huge -- even beyond the idea of making restaurant kitchens more cost-efficient. Industrial robots typically adapt poorly to change because of the ways they are programmed. These new robots, being goal-oriented instead of process-oriented, and able to learn by watching ever-adaptable humans, will save costs and increase efficiency by reducing the need for additional programming or human intervention when environments change.
Enterprise Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies, in particular, will stand to benefit the most. Imagine a world in which retail video analytics can read traffic flow data in real time and direct staff accordingly -- or even deploy robot staff to help customers and prevent shoplifting.
Yiannis Aloimonos, computer science professor in charge of the University of Maryland project (pictured above, center), takes these Utopian predictions further, boasting in a statement that his technology will allow for truly "smart manufacturing" in completely automated warehouses.
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