Origin of technologies

In the late 1960s, Lawrence Roberts helpeddevelop a new kind of computer network thatdelivered information via packets. The new networkeventually matured to become the modernInternet.Much of the work on the technology was donewhen Roberts was chief scientist in the Information Processing Techniques Office at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the original name for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The new network becameARPAnet and then the Internet.In the early 1970s, Roberts founded Telnet toapply the new technology to the commercialmarket. Although DARPA has evolved in thedecades since Roberts left, the agency is still agreat place to get funding for research projectsthat will benefit both the Defense Departmentand the commercial world, he said."It was a very strong period in DARPA's historywhere they were not constrained as much asthey are today," Roberts said. "But the philosophywas pretty much the same as it is today inthat we wanted programs which had valuableimprovement potential for any particular technology.In the network case, it was equally valuableto the military and the commercial space."Although developing technology as huge as theInternet might be a long shot, work done atDARPA still has the potential to become amainstream, highly used piece of technology.When researchers at iRobot Corp. weredeveloping a portable robot designed to performdangerous missions, the concept seemedlike science fiction, said Chris Jones, a researchprogram manager at iRobot."The PackBot that today is considered aproven piece of technology and is out theredoing great work was seen as cutting-edge andadvanced just a few years ago," Jones said.Not surprisingly, the development ofPackBot began as a DARPA project."Less than 10 years ago, the PackBot conceptwas something a lot of people didn't necessarilyknow would come to fruition," he said. "Andhere we are less than 10 years later, and it is outthere in very large numbers and being utilizedin a real way."PackBot is rugged and light enough to bedeployed by a single person. Its interchangeable,modular payload capabilities can be easilyadapted to a variety of missions.Today iRobot has a new DARPA contract that researchers hope will also lead to anaccepted piece of technology. The project fallsunder DARPA's chemical robots program. Thecompany is attempting to design a softrobot capable of changing its shape tosqueeze through small openings."You might imagine a robot the size of asoda can that can move across a room butwhen it needs to, it could squeeze itselfthrough a hole in the wall the diameter of aquarter," Jones said.Researchers at the company hope to achievethat goal by using advances in chemistry andmaterials science. Previous attempts to makeflexible robots focused on mimicking biology orsimply modifying standard robot parts to besmaller and more flexible."The key part of this is to not start from whatwe know and just apply it in a different way, butto really pull in advances in basic chemistry andmaterials science," Jones said. "We want to seewhat we can do in those areas and apply it tobuilding new classes of robots."Typical for DARPA projects, iRobot is teamingwith partners in academia. In this case, thecompany is working with the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology and Harvard University.Pushing technology to its limits does haverisks. Jones said he acknowledges that manyresearch projects end up going nowhere.Finding the next big technology requirespushing the boundaries of what's knowntoday.Even though there are risks, if a project issuccessful it can lead to large rewards."You're not going to have this high payoff inthe end if you're not willing to ? at an earlystage ? invest the resources," hesaid. "The technologies DARPA invests in, ifthey prove to be successful, will be very beneficialto the Department of Defense."Relating how new technologywill help warfighters today is akey part of ensuring success atDARPA. If the way a technology will help themcannot be explained, it has little chance of gainingfunding.A former DARPA director, GeorgeHeilmeier, developed a series of questionsdesigned to evaluate proposals to the agency.The questions focus on explaining how theissue is addressed today, what difference thenew technology will make, and the estimatedcosts and risks.Mark McHenry, a former DARPA programmanager, said using the questions can helpevaluate project proposals."I would tell people, if you don't have a goodanswer for these questions, if you can't tell themexactly what you'd do with the money, if youcan't tell them exactly why you'll be able to succeedwhere others failed, they just won't fundyou," he said.The agency is flooded withgood ideas from smart people,he said."They're willing to risk, butthere is a limit," he said. "It hasto be doable."McHenry is now president of SharedSpectrum Co., which is developing new radiotechnology under a DARPA contract.Shared Spectrum won a contract in 2005for the neXt Generation Communications(XG) program. It is developing technology formilitary radios to dynamically access spectrumto establish and maintain communications.The goal is to demonstrate the ability toaccess 10 times more spectrum with near-zerosetup time. The technology also automaticallyresolves conflicts in operational spectrumusage."You put a spectrum analyzer or spectrummeasurement device in each radio," McHenrysaid. "The radio scans around and looks for achannel that's not being used and just uses ittemporarily. The advantage is you don't haveto dedicate spectrum to every radio."That leads to a hundredfold improvementin capacity and reduction in cost for the military,he said.The military is interested in the technologyin part because of the massive amounts of livevideo being delivered by unmanned groundand air systems. Real-time video uses 40 to100 times more bandwidth than voice communications.With the new technology,bandwidth would be putto better use."They can't just give every[unmanned aerial vehicle] itsown channel," McHenry said. "Byusing this technology, they cangive five channels, for example, toall the robots in Baghdad, andthen the robots themselveswould take turns using the channelswhen they need it."The technology is undergoingflight testing now, and the softwarecould be installed on existingmilitary radios in a matter ofmonths.Companies should also keep inmind that DARPA projects areoften much more focused thanstandard DOD projects, saidGeorge Stone, Alion Science andTechnology Corp.'s vice presidentfor program management, modelingand simulation."With DARPA projects, we're a lot morefocused on a specific area, whereas whenyou're supporting a customer you often havemany areas that you're required to respondto," he said.Alion partnered with other companies onDARPA's Real Time Adversarial Intelligenceand Decision Making project.Alion focused on information fusion anddata-mining techniques for that project."We use simulations of enemy insurgentactivities in urban environments and then tryto build models of how commanders mighthave a tool that would let them predict wherethe enemy is and what they're doing," Stonesaid.Like the shared spectrum technology,DARPA projects often focus on advancingexisting technology, Roberts said.Roberts' current company, Anagran Co., isdeveloping technology that optimizes the flowof data over a network. Anagran's optimizedflow-based approach to IP traffic managementimproves video downloads, voice calls andimage transfers.DOD officials are interested in the technologybecause it will help in areas wherewarfighters depend on limited bandwidth viaa satellite connection."We can now improve satellite communicationsby a 100-to-1 ratio as compared to whatis possible today," Roberts said.So DARPA likes to fund projects that havegood commercial potential."Our contract basically has a clause thatsays if we don't make it commercially availablethen the DOD gets the rights to make thathappen," Roberts said. "But for us that's not anissue because it should have some commercialvalue as well."