It’s true, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency does some of the coolest stuff inside and outside of government. But what programs engaged folks most? Here’s a hint: They involved everything from geckos to robotic prosthetics, to disappearing ground vehicles.
Just as we offered readers a look back at some of the most engaging stories of 2014, so did DARPA — posting a list of the stories that generated the most traffic on its own website. A couple of the top stories were ones I wrote about, showing that reporters are as wowed by what’s happening at the Pentagon’s research hub as anybody.
In fact, the story that generated the most traffic at DARPA’s website is one that I covered in June: its Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance program, known as EXACTO. The program was established to develop what essentially amounts to guided bullets, and DARPA managed to demonstrate that yes, they can actually work, through a demonstration of in-flight guidance of .50-caliber bullets.
We also wrote about the program that generated the third most traffic for DARPA: the Ground X-Vehicle Technology (GXV-T) program, which will try to develop technologies that offer an alternative to armor for improving mobility and survivability of ground vehicles. How? By helping the vehicles avoid detection, engagement and hits by adversaries. In other words, it’s seeking technologies that make vehicles stealthy like the latest generation of fighter jets.
So what else? You can check out the full list at the DARPA website. But here’s a summary of a few of the other programs that engaged readers most, in no particular order.
- The Z-Man program demonstrated the first-known human climbing a glass wall using devices inspired by geckos.
- The Revolutionizing Prosthetics program gained FDA approval for an advanced electromechanical prosthetic upper limb, with near-natural control that enhances independence and improves quality of life for amputees.
- The VTOL Experimental Plane (VTOL X-Plane) program awarded contracts to four companies to move forward with designs that meld fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, to enable radical improvements in vertical and cruise flight capabilities. Among the winners was The Boeing Co. and Aurora Flight Sciences in Manassas.
- The Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) program aims to develop and demonstrate a modular transportation system built around a vertical takeoff and landing drone. The program seeks to provide flexible, terrain-independent transportation that avoids ground-based threats, DARPA said.
And while they might not have made DARPA’s list of top traffic generators, there are other programs from the Pentagon agency that spurred FedBiz articles too — from its hunt for aircraft carriers in the sky, to an inflatable robotic arm that inspired a Disney character, to reusable, unmanned launch vehicles.
