New military technologies are cropping up all over – the new, one-sided arms race has hit center stage for public awareness, at this point it’s not asking for our consent.
The more bizarre inventions coming from the unusually high 500+ billion dollar sector of the US economy are slowly being leaked onto the internet, if you think these developments will end at ‘fighting terrorists’ and the world hooligans that the UN happens to oppose, you have some re-evaluation to do of not only history, but the nature of man.
Let’s have a look at the latest, compellingly worrying inductions to the arsenal…
4. TALOS (Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit)
…is the name given to a robotic exoskeleton, currently being developed. The brief for TALOS states that it must be bulletproof, weaponized, have the ability to monitor vitals and give the wearer superhuman strength and perception.
- Reduced impact of load by intelligent weight distribution throughout the body.
- Low power requirement.
- Low suit profile to fit under the existing uniform comfortably.
- Provide sensor cues to soldiers to reduce injuries.
- Integrated components to provide joint support where user needs it most.
- Reapply energy to enhance the efficiency of motion and improve overall metabolics.
- Remain compliant and flexible, stiffening only when needed.[9]
- Have the suit weigh less than 400 lb (180 kg) and generate 12 kW of power for 12 hours.
2. Super Soldiers, Genetically Engineered – full article here
…It is speculated that the soldiers of ‘tomorrow’ will be genetically engineered, which relegates human rights completely and births people into lives tailored towards servicing a military state.
- DARPA is working on triggering genes that will make soldiers’ bodies able to convert fat into energy more efficiently so they are able to go days without eating while in the warzone.
- ‘Soldiers would be able to run at Olympic speeds, carry large weights and go without sleep and without food.’
- Contact lens-mounted displays that can focus information from drones and satellites directly into soldiers’ eyeballs, and helmets that could enable troops to communicate telepathically.
- They hope to be able to trigger the cells of injured soldiers’ bodies to rebuild lost limbs
3. Invisibility Suits, allegedly billed to make soldiers disappear on the battlefield.
…If true, this lightweight ‘suit’ could change the dynamics of camouflage on the battlefield completely, invisibility grants full immunity to the common eye and permits new found capacity in espionage and strategic out-maneuvers.
It is described as:
‘A chameleon-like or adaptive camouflage system would continuously update the colour and pattern, concealing the Soldier in the current environment.’
What the Army wants from this:
- Has 360-degree coverage and ‘can actively respond to various land environments under changing light conditions.’
- Can be integrated with soldier’s equipment.
- Ideally, will not require a power supply. If it does require a power supply, it ‘should last a minimum of four hours and weigh no more than two pounds’ including batteries and connections.
- Reflects infrared light the same way as other army uniforms
- Works in a range of terrain, including desert, forest, urban areas, jungle, and mountains.
- Works below freezing and at temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit, in high wind, in stormy weather, and in smoke, dust, or fog
In 2006, John Pendry, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College London, showed that it should be possible to bend light around an object and hide it using metamaterials – which channel electromagnetic waves.
However, many only work in the lab with specific wavelengths or from certain angles.
Work with TV-like LEDs were hampered by power and computing requirements.
But although they can bend light, metamaterials cannot make things disappear completely.
4. The ‘Vampire’ Drone
…Drones can drop supplies to hidden Special Forces or essential medical kit in warzones, but there’s the risk that their presence may give away the recipient’s location, or that the technology ends up in enemy hands.
To solve this problem, the Pentagon is calling for designs for ‘vampire’ drones that disappear in daylight.
The project is called Inbound, Controlled, Air-Releasable, Unrecoverable Systems (Icarus), after the boy in the Greek myth whose feather and wax wings melted when he flew too close to the sun.
- The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is funding this project to develop aircraft that can ‘fully vanish within four hours of payload delivery or within 30 minutes of morning civil twilight (assuming a night drop), whichever is earlier’.
- The aim is to come up with a drone that can drop deliveries to personnel in hard-to-reach regions without it needing clearing away and hiding, which can be time consuming.
- It must be able to travel 93 miles (150km) and able to drop a package weighing less than three lbs ( 1.4kg) onto a target measuring no more than 33 feet (10 metres).
- There’s a possibility that a final design may disappear in a puff of smoke, because another Darpa project, named the Vanishing Programmable Resources (Vapr) programme is focused on turning polymers from a solid state to a gas, DefenseOne reported.
- Darpa says that pieces of the craft after it has disappeared must not be visible to the naked eye and not exceed 100 µm in length, which is approximately the same size as a grain of sand.
5. ‘BRAIN’ Implants
…Up next we have possibly the most worrying of this list. Brain Implants that allow ‘monitored’ neurology and telepathy on the field for soldiers, but I see it going further than just that unfortunately.
Earlier this year, DARPA became a key participant in a new federal initiative called Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN), to better understand and map the human brain. The White House is contributing $100 million in funding in the first year of the program, half of which will come from DARPA. Building on that effort, DARPA announced plans in October to spend more than $70 million over five years to develop implants that could monitor the human brain, and created a program called Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (SUBNETS).
SUBNETS will investigate therapies that use near real-time recording, analysis, and stimulation in next-generation devices inspired by current deep brain stimulation (DBS), which involves implanting electrodes within specific areas of the brain.
“SUBNETS is a push toward innovative, informed and precise neurotechnological therapy to produce major improvements in quality of life for service members and veterans who have very few options with existing therapies,”
DARPA program manager Justin Sanchez said in a written statement. “These are patients for whom current medical understanding of diseases like chronic pain or fatigue, unmanageable depression or severe post-traumatic stress disorder can’t provide meaningful relief.”
6. Self-Patching Network Defense System
…Skynet is ebbing ever closer to reality, the intellectual prostituion of leading world universities in Computer Science is working with DARPA to develop the…
Self-patching network defense system
In October, the agency announced the Cyber Grand Challenge for which teams will build fully automated network defense systems that compete against each other. The systems will evaluate software, test for vulnerabilities, create security patches, and apply them to protected computers on a network. Participants with expertise in reverse engineering, formal methods, and program analysis will go head-to-head in a final event in early to mid-2016, as they demonstrate their unmanned systems. The systems will have to automatically identify software flaws and scan the network to find affected hosts. The winning team will receive $2 million.
- You see, promotion of such science with the reward of mere money and the disguise of a light-hearted competition, brings temptation to the forefront and helps push a corrupt agenda under the impression it’s going to contribute a positive change to the world.
7. Hydra Undersea Network
DARPA’s Hydra program, named after a creature from Greek mythology, aims to develop a distributed undersea network of unmanned payloads and platforms that complement manned vessels. Naval forces are in need of deploying capabilities in multiple locations at once, without building new vessels. “An unmanned technology infrastructure staged below the oceans’ surface could relieve some of that resource strain and expand military capabilities in this increasingly challenging space,” says a description of the program on DARPA’s website. The Hydra system would integrate existing and emerging technologies, DARPA said. The agency began seeking ideas and technical proposals for how to best develop and implement the system in August.
8. Content Based Mobile Edge Networking
DARPA is developing an alternative approach to creating a private cloud at the tactical level. The agency recently completed initial field testing of software running Android smartphones that enabled imagery, maps, and other important data to be shared quickly among front-line units.
The effort is part of the Content-Based Mobile Edge Networking (CBMEN) program, the purpose of which is to enable each squad member’s mobile device to function as a server, allowing content to be generated and distributed as needed. “CBMEN software automatically replicates and shares updates, causing the tactical cloud to grow and diminish as users move in and out of range of each other,” DARPA said. Phase two of the program kicked off in August to mature the technology.
9. Hollow Core Optical Fibre
A team of DARPA-funded researchers led by Honeywell International Inc. have developed a hollow-core optical fiber that could enable high-power military sensors. According to DARPA, the fiber is the first to include three critical properties necessary for military applications: single-spatial-mode allows light to take a single path, enabling higher bandwidth over longer distances; low loss allows light to maintain intensity over longer distances; and polarization control is necessary for sensing, interferometry, and secure communications. DARPA’s initial goal was to enhance fiber-optic performance for military-grade gyroscopes and to create hollow-core fiber production in the US. Although DARPA is still working on integrating this new technology into a gyroscope, the fiber can be used in other types of high-power sensors and applications that require intense optical beams, the agency said.
10. Robots for disaster response
DARPA is exploring how virtual robots could improve disaster response. The Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC) took place in June 2013, where teams directed a virtual robot through a series of qualifying tasks in a simulated suburban environment. That effort is part of a larger DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), which was created to spur development of real, advanced robots that can assist humans in emergency situations. During the virtual competition, top six teams received funding and an Atlas robotfrom DARPA to compete in the DRC trials — a second of three DRC events — in December. “The VRC allowed us to open the field for the DARPA Robotics Challenge beyond hardware to include experts in robotic software. Integrating both skill sets is vital to the long-term feasibility of robots for disaster response,” DRC program manager Gill Pratt said in a statement.
11. Microscale vacuum pumps
Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Michigan, Honeywell International, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) demonstrated how ultra-high-performance vacuum micropumps work. The DARPA-funded program, called Chip-Scale Vacuum Micro Pumps (CSVMP), focused on building a new class of powerful, tiny vacuum pumpsthat could be used in national security applications for electronics and sensors that require a vacuum. The new pumps are about 300 times smaller than commercially available systems and consume 10 times less power. DARPA said potential security applications could include gas analyzers for detecting chemical and biological disease-producing agents.
12. Rapid threat assessment
In May 2013, DARPA launched a new five-year program to understand the molecular mechanism of threat agents, drugs, biologics, and chemicals. The objective of Rapid Threat Assessment (RTA) is to create technologies that could “identify the cellular components and mechanistic events that take place over a range of times, from the milliseconds immediately following exposure to the threat agent, to the days over which alterations in gene and protein expression might occur,” DARPA said. Although the ultimate goal is to come up with medical countermeasures to chemical and biological weapons, DARPA sees RTA technologies being used to treat diseases as well. DARPA said it also wants to use the technologies developed for the RTA program with its Microphysiological Systems program, which is building “human-on-a-chip” technology.
The Spearhead Journal 