DARPA

Active-duty conditions may lead to sleep loss, which can impair warfighter alertness and performance. Current state-of-the-art approaches for maintaining alertness following sleep deprivation include the use of drugs such as caffeine, and for U.S. military personnel undergoing long-duration training or missions, prescription stimulants, such as dextroamphetamine, may be prescribed. These stimulants have been shown to improve performance on vigilance tasks, alertness, and cognitive performance, but they can also negatively impact mood, have the potential for addiction, and may demonstrate a long circulation time in the bloodstream, which can negatively impact sleep. Over time, a cumulative lack of restorative sleep can adversely impact not only warfighter alertness and cognition, but also metabolic, immune, and mental health.

Combining light simulation and photo-pharmaceuticals — a category of drugs that are only active in the presence of certain types of light — to target specific brain circuits, DARPA’s Alert WARfighter Enablement (AWARE) program aims to safely stimulate brain function to improve alertness for a controlled time period. The AWARE program seeks to develop a combination drug and device to non-invasively increase alertness following sleep loss in humans, without negative side effects such as anxiety, irritability, or euphoria, and with reduced addictive potential.

The Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting proposals to develop an ontology-based (sub)system that captures, stores, and makes accessible the flow of one person’s experience in and interactions with the world in order to support a broad spectrum of associates/assistants and other system capabilities. The objective of this "LifeLog" concept is to be able to trace the "threads" of an individual's life in terms of events, states, and relationships.

Functionally, the LifeLog (sub)system consists of three components: data capture and storage, representation and abstraction, and data access and user interface. LifeLog accepts as input a number of raw physical and transactional data streams. Through inference and reasoning, LifeLog generates multiple layers of representation at increasing levels of abstraction. The input data streams are abstracted into sequences of events and states, which are aggregated into threads and episodes to produce a timeline that constitutes an "episodic memory" for the individual. Patterns of events in the timeline support the identification of routines, relationships, and habits. Preferences, plans, goals, and other markers of intentionality are at the highest level.

-From the DARPA LifeLog proposal pamphlet, first crawled by the Wayback Machine in June 2003 (archive link)

The Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) program supports improved, accelerated training of military personnel in multifaceted and complex tasks. The program is investigating the use of non-invasive neurotechnology in combination with training to boost the neurochemical signaling in the brain that mediates neural plasticity and facilitates long-term retention of new cognitive skills. If successful, TNT technology would apply to a wide range of defense-relevant needs, including foreign language learning, marksmanship, cryptography, target discrimination, and intelligence analysis, improving outcomes while reducing the cost and duration of the Defense Department’s extensive training regimen.

First crawled by the Wayback Machine in November 2016 (archive link)

Biological sensors often display high sensitivity, selectivity, and low false alarm rates while being fabricated and operated in dirty, noisy natural environments. Attempts to emulate these sensors synthetically have not fully met expectations. Recent evidence suggests that some biological sensors exploit nontrivial quantum mechanical effects to produce macroscopic output signals. Examples of such sensors include the highly efficient energy transfer properties of photosynthesis in plants, bacteria, and algae; magnetic field sensing used by some birds for navigation; and the ability of some animals to detect odors at the single molecule level. The Quantum Effects in Biological Environments (QuBE) program is laying the foundation for novel sensor designs by challenging the long-held view that biological sensors utilize primarily classical physics. QuBE will verify, understand, and exploit these effects to develop new scientific foundations for sensor technologies for military applications.

Traumatic stress has caused a host of devastating effects for many military service members, including mental illness, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, family violence, and suicide. Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 30,000 active duty members and veterans have taken their own lives — a tragic toll that represents four times the number of those killed in post-911 military operations.1 Developing effective approaches to prevent suicide is a top priority within the Department of Defense.

DARPA’s STRENGTHEN program, short for Strengthening Resilient Emotions and Nimble Cognition Through Engineering Neuroplasticity, aims to build on recent advances in neuroscience and clinical practice to increase well-being and prevent or mitigate the effects of traumatic stress leading to behavioral health disorders and suicidality. The program endeavors to accomplish this through enhancing cognitive flexibility (CF) and emotional regulation (ER), key behavioral health mechanisms that act as protective buffers against traumatic stress. CF refers to the mental ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts according to the context of a situation. ER is a conscious or nonconscious strategy to start, stop, or otherwise modulate the trajectory of an emotion.

STRENGTHEN will strive to enhance the mental protective mechanisms of CF and ER through two goals: (1) Development of individualized brain network models of CF and ER and (2) design of multimodal, multidimensional interventions to induce neuroplastic change in the functional connectivity and/or structure of CF and ER brain networks to optimize an individual’s CF and ER.

The EXACTO program set out to develop custom 'smart' .50 BMG sniper ammunition and a custom optic, to be used with existing, unmodified .50 BMG sniper rifles.

In November of 2009, DARPA awarded Lockheed Martin $12.3 million and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging $9.5 million to begin work on the new weapon.

Army Captain Keith Bell, former commander of the Army sniper school at Fort Benning, Ga., can't wait to get his hands on the new rifle. "The EXACTO would be revolutionary," he says. "It will more than double our range and probably more than double our accuracy... There's no limit as far as I can see so long as the bullet's stable — I think 2,000 or 2,500 meters is very attainable," Bell says.

Source: TIME

Published April 2009

In 2015, a second round of live fire tests showcased the technology and DARPA uploaded video showing fired rounds adjusting their trajectory in mid-flight to hit moving targets.

DARPA’s Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) program, which developed a self-steering bullet to increase hit rates for difficult, long-distance shots, completed in February its most successful round of live-fire tests to date. An experienced shooter using the technology demonstration system repeatedly hit moving and evading targets. Additionally, a novice shooter using the system for the first time hit a moving target.

Source: DARPA

Published April 2015

Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXACTO