Hasta La Gadget!

DARPA made some bold promises last summer when it announced its Phoenix program to harvest dead satellites for still-valuable parts, but it didn’t have much more than some concept videos to show at the time. It looks like the agency has been making some steady progress since then, though, and has today released a new video showing some of the work it’s done up through November of last year. As you can see after the break, that work is all still being doing in the lab, but it covers quite a few of the components that DARPA ultimately hopes to use in space, including robotic arms and gripping mechanisms. Those tests will remain Earth-bound for the next few years, but a demonstration mission is slated for 2016 to see how the system fares on an actual satellite in orbit.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Via: PhysOrg

Source: DARPA

Snipers are among the most valuable assets a military can deploy in battle and have become a pillar of modern US counterinsurgency tactics. While mile-and-a-half-long shots are possible, they’re not all that common. But with DARPA’s new One Shot XG scope system, any ol’ Killroy will be able to accurately fire an M24 up to a mile. More »

DARPA launches projects that sound incredibly unrealistic from time to time. However, DARPA has also created actual working items that started out as incredibly unrealistic sounding plans. That means you can never discount DARPA when it puts out brief on a plan that sounds far-fetched at first glance.

DARPA’s most recent plan is one such far-fetched sounding project that may be just crazy enough to work. The latest plan is called the Upward Falling Payloads project and is aimed at developing storage capsules for military assets that would allow devices, such as drones, to be stored at the bottom of the ocean for years at a time until needed. The idea is that capsules can be dropped at strategic locations holding drones or other items and the capsules could release their payload when needed.

The plan calls for unmanned, distributed systems to provide the military with operational support including situational awareness, disruption, deception, and rescue. One of the potential payloads for these capsules are small aerial drones that can launch to the surface in capsules, take off, and provide observation or act as decoys. DARPA is calling for input on finding ways of extending survival of capsules under extreme ocean pressure.

DARPA also wants to find methods of waking up these underwater nodes after years of inactivity. The plan also calls for input on ways to efficiently launch payloads to the surface. That last part doesn’t seem too complex since submarines have been launching payloads to the surface of the ocean for a long time. DARPA is pointing out that this is not a weapons project and that the risk of losing any single node in the system is minimal.

[via Wired]

DARPA wants to stash drones on the bottom of the ocean is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you are a submariner, then chances are you would subscribe to the idea that there are two different kinds of ships: subs and targets. The forward thinking folks over at the Pentagon intend to work on a new kind of surface ship which is capable of transforming a sub into a target. Needless to say, the submarine hunter will not have a human controlling it from within, as you can see in the video above.

This particular maritime robot is known as the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vehicle, or ACTUV for short, where its “radically different” design allows the ACTUV to keep surface ships from ending up as sitting ducks. The surface-gliding ACTUV will be designed to stay on course on a hunt for 60 to 90 days, and while it sounds scary, it has yet to be realized – making it stuck on the drawing board as at press time. Sonar pods located underneath the belly of the ACTUV will create an acoustic image of a submarine, where it will then pursue it at high speed. The moment the ACTUV figures out that it is locked on to a potential target, it will ping nearby Navy ships via through a satellite link.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Air Force Enlists ESPN’s Help For Drone Footage Analysis, Kinect Aids US Veterans With Physical Therapy,

It’s almost inevitable for a soldier to assume he may be severely injured one day during their tour of duty as danger can be found nearly anywhere. When a soldier receives internal injuries, stabilizing them for transportation is vital to their survival, but very difficult to accomplish in the middle of a battlefield.

Darpa has introduced its Wound Stasis System that uses an injectable foam to stop internal bleeding. The foam can be administered to the injured soldier by way of an injection that combines two liquids. When the liquids combine, it produces a foam that expands 30 times its original volume and solidifies to stop the internal bleeding in order to move the soldier to receive proper medical care. Once the solider is safe and can be taken care of, surgeons can remove the foam in less than a minute with very few fragments left behind.

The foam has received extensive testing and has been known to stop severe hemorrhaging for up to three hours with the survival rate at the three-hour mark increasing from eight percent to 72 percent.

We’re curious to find out what the survival rate would be if Darpa’s foam was administered into our bodies after a paper cut. If we had to guess, probably 100% to 100%. Either way, we want to be injected with this stuff ASAP!

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: US Army looks at 4G communication system for wounded soldiers, DARPA enlists gamers’ help to cure blood infection,