For decades, aircraft designers seeking to improve Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) capabilities have endured a substantial set of interrelated challenges. Dozens of attempts have been made to increase top speed without sacrificing range, efficiency or the ability to do useful work, with each effort struggling or failing in one way or another.

The U.S. military’s scientific and technological wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is essentially tasked with constructing the future. Robotic soldiers and artificial intelligence (AI) have both been in development for some time, as have instantaneous language translation systems and advanced contact lenses. 

It sounds like an engineering fantasy, or maybe an episode from Mission Impossible: A flock of small, single-use, unpowered delivery vehicles dropped from an aircraft, each of which literally vanishes after landing and delivering food or medical supplies to an isolated village during an epidemic or disaster. And it would be nothing more than a fantasy, were it not that the principle behind disappearing materials has already been proven.

Culminating a year and a half of intensive preparation by teams from around the world, nearly two dozen robots strove to prove their full-metal mettle in simulated disaster zones during the two-day DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Finals, held on the 5th and 6th June at the Fairplex in Pomona, California.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agengy (DARPA) has announced a programme aiming to unlock secrets that could lie in the as-yet-untapped source of information that is photons. Whilst we do learn a little from photons, current imaging technologies discard a whole lot of information which could help us better understand our world and how it works.

Additive manufacturing, including emerging 3D printing technologies, is booming. Last year an astronaut on the International Space Station used a 3D printer to make a socket wrench in space, hinting at a future when digital code will replace the need to launch specialised tools into orbit. Here on Earth, the Navy is considering applications for additive manufacturing aboard ships, and a commercial aircraft engine company recently announced its fi...

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has developed an innovative microchip which allows laser or LIDAR scanning in the field - but which dispenses with the need for expensive mechanical sweeping assemblies. The agency has stated that the accomplishment could open the door to a new class of miniaturised, extremely low-cost, robust laser-scanning technologies for LIDAR and other uses.