DARPA for its acronym in English according to abbreviationfinder, is an agency of the Department of Defense of the United States responsible for the development of new technologies for military use. DARPA was responsible for providing funds to develop many technologies that have had a major impact on the world, including computer networks (beginning with the ARPANET, which later developed into the Internet), as well as NLS, which was both a Hypertext and a precursor of the contemporary graphical user interface.
History
Its original name was simply Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) but it was renamed to DARPA (for Defense) on March 23, 1972, changed back to ARPA on February 22, 1993, and back to ARPA. DARPA on March 11, 1996.
DARPA was created in 1958 in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, with a mission to keep America’s technology in the military race ahead of its enemies. It is independent of more conventional R&D agencies and reports directly to the Defense Department board. DARPA has about 240 employees (140 of them are technicians), who manage a budget of 2 billion dollars. These data are only averages, since DARPA is focused on short-term projects (two to four years) carried out by small teams and constituted specifically for such projects.
DARPA Mission
DARPA is a defense agency with a unique role within the Department of Defense. DARPA is not tied to a specific operational mission: DARPA provides technology options for the entire Department, and is designed to be the technology engine in the transformation of the Department of Defense.
Immediate-time needs and requirements generally lead the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force to focus on those needs that will bring them the most benefit. Consequently, a sprawling organization like the Department of Defense needs a place like DARPA whose sole charter is radical innovation.
DARPA seems to go beyond the needs and requirements that are known today. As military historians have noted, “The early development of none of the major weapons that have transformed warfare in the 20th century – the airplane, the tank, the radar, the jet engine, the helicopter, the electronic computer, not even the atomic bomb – can be attributed to a doctrinal requirement or at the request of the military.” And DARPA could add unmanned systems, Global Positioning System (GPS) and Internet technologies to this list.
DARPA’s proposal is to imagine what capabilities a military commander might want in the future, and accelerate these capabilities in concrete ways through technology demonstrations. This not only provides the commander with options, but also changes mindsets about what is technologically possible today.
History
DARPA was created as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) by Public Law 85-325 and Department of Defense Directive 5105.41 in February 1958. Its creation was directly attributed to the launch of Sputnik and the fact that the US realized that the Soviet Union had developed the ability to rapidly exploit military technology. Additionally, the political and defense communities recognized the need for a high-level organization within the Department of Defense to formulate and execute R&D projects.that expand the frontiers of technology beyond the immediate and specific requirements of the military services and their laboratories. In pursuit of this mission, DARPA has developed and transferred technology programs that span a wide variety of scientific disciplines, addressing the full spectrum of national security needs.
From 1958 to 1965, ARPA’s emphasis was on major national problems such as aerospace research, ballistic missile defense, and nuclear test detection. In 1960, all civilian space programs were transferred to NASA, and those of a military nature were transferred to individual services. This allowed DARPA to concentrate its efforts on the DEFENDER (acronym for ballistic missile defense), the Vela Project (detection of nuclear tests), and the AGILE (R&D) Programs.anti-insurgent); and begin work in computational processing, behavioral science, and material science. The DEFENDER and AGILE programs shaped R&D at DARPA in the fields of sensing, surveillance, and directed energy; particularly in the study of radar, infrared and X -ray and gamma ray detection.
In the late 1960s, with the transfer of these mature programs to the Services, ARPA redefined its role and concentrated on a diverse set of relatively small and essentially exploratory research programs. The agency was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA ) in 1972, and in the early 1970s, it emphasized direct energy, information processing, and tactical technology programs.
In the area of information processing, DARPA made great strides, initially through the development of timesharing systems (all modern operating systems are descendants of the Multics system, which was a result of work initiated by DARPA in this area), and later through the evolution of the ARPANET (telecommunications network precursor to the Internet), and artificial intelligence research in fields such as speech recognition and signal processing. DARPA also funded the development of the NLS computing system by Douglas Engelbart and the Aspen Movie Map., which was probably the first hypermedia system and an important precursor to virtual reality.
The controversial 1973 Mansfield Amendment expressly limited defense research appropriations (through ARPA/DARPA) to projects with direct military application only. Some argued that the amendment devastated American science, since ARPA/DARPA at the time was a major source of funding for basic science projects; the National Science Foundation never addressed this shortcoming in the way that was expected. But the resulting brain drain was also attributed to the stimulus given to the development of the nascent personal computer industry. Many young computer scientists migrated from universities to newly founded private research labs like Xerox PARC.
From 1976 to 1981, air, land, sea, and space technology projects predominated, such as attack follow-on forces with remote weapons and associated Command, Control, and Communications; tactical weapons and anti-weapons programs; infrared detection for space surveillance; high-energy laser technology for space missile defense; anti-submarine warfare; advanced cruise missiles; advanced aircraft; and advanced computing applications in defense. These large-scale technology program demonstrations went hand in hand with integrated circuit research, resulting in ultrafine-scale electronic technology and electronic devices that evolved into the VLSI program and the particle beam program, the latter commissioned by the US Congress..
During the 1980s, the agency’s attention was focused on information processing and programs related to aircraft development, including the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) and the Hypersonic Research Program. The Strategic Computing Program enabled DARPA to exploit advanced processing and networking technologies, and to rebuild and strengthen relationships with universities after the Vietnam War. In addition, DARPA began to search for new concepts for small and light satellites (LIGHTSAT) and directed new programs related to defense manufacturing, submarine technology, and weapons/anti-weapons.
ARPA and DARPA in fiction
In the Metal Gear Solid video game series, both ARPA and DARPA are mentioned as part of the plot, and it references how ARPA eventually becomes DARPA in the future. Also of note is the controversial proposal for a Policy Analysis Exchange, which uses a futuristic electronic exchange to help effect futures contract trading based on possible political developments in various Middle Eastern countries.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for developing new technologies for military use. DARPA was responsible for providing funds to develop many technologies that have had a major impact on the world, including computer networks (beginning with the ARPANET, which later developed into the Internet), as well as NLS, which was both a Hypertext and a precursor of the contemporary graphical user interface.
Its original name was simply Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) but it was renamed to DARPA (for Defense) on March 23, 1972, changed back to ARPA on February 22, 1993, and back to ARPA. DARPA on March 11 , 1996.
DARPA was created in 1958 in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, with a mission to keep America’s technology in the military race ahead of its enemies. It is independent of more conventional R&D agencies and reports directly to the Defense Department board. DARPA has about 240 employees (140 of them are technicians), who manage a budget of 2 billion dollars. These data are only averages, since DARPA is focused on short-term projects (two to four years) carried out by small teams and constituted specifically for such projects.
