DARPA "rethinking" how it develops new tech innovations

DARPA has released its "Breakthrough Technologies for National Security" report, and in it the agency discusses its plans for the upcoming years. This time around, DARPA has laid out its plans to boost tech innovation to help it keep pace with the innovations being seen in other nations around the globe. The report claims the US is a technological leader in many areas, but that the wars it has been involved in over the last decade have required a lot of focus and during that time other nations have been moving quickly to close the gap.

DARPA, of course, stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and we've seen all sorts of notable inventions come from it. It is going to double down on its efforts, however, and increase its rate of technological innovation both in and out of the defense sector.

DARPA deputy director Steven Walkder said, "We're focused here at DARPA on rethinking how we develop new military systems. Some of our systems today are extremely capable, the most capable in the world, but they are very complex, they're costly and they take a long time to develop and field. So at DARPA we're spending a lot of time rethinking how we might develop these systems."

Among this rethinking will be its work on boosting weapons use in areas without GPS, making cheaper launch options for space-related things, more anti-terrorism tech, new types of ground vehicles, improvements to "maritime agility", so-called "dominance" in the electromagnetic spectrum, and keeping the nation's "air superiority" in places that are contested. Biological technologies, such as new types of materials for ships and vehicles, is also being looked at.

SOURCE: Defense News