Harnessing Complexity

Developers of imaging systems have long been beholden to certain rules of optics designs so well established and seemingly immutable as to be treated as virtual “laws” of physics. One widely considered pillar of optical design, for example, is that imaging systems must be built from a series of complex and precisely manufactured optical elements arranged linearly. The result of such assumptions is that certain high-performance imagery devices inevitably end up being large and heavy, composed of dozens or more optical elements.

The ultimate goal of the DARPA Accelerated Computation for Efficient Scientific Simulation (ACCESS) is to demonstrate new, specialized benchtop technology that can solve large problems in complex physical systems on the hour timescale, compared to existing methods that require full cluster-scale supercomputing resources and take weeks to months. The core principle of the program is to leverage advances in optics, MEMS, additive manufacturing, and other emerging technologies to develop new non-traditional hybrid analog and digital computational means.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is sponsoring a Proposers Day to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of an anticipated Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the Complex Adaptive System Composition and Design Environment (CASCADE) program. For more information visit http://go.usa.gov/cT7uR.

DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O) is hosting a Proposers Day to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of the upcoming Data-Driven Discovery of Models program. The program aims to develop semi-automated model discovery systems that enable non-expert users (i.e., users with subject matter expertise but no data science background) to create empirical models of real, complex processes. DARPA believes such a capability would increase the productivity of data scientists, and enable many more users to make predictions from data.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is sponsoring a two-day Proposers Day event to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of the DSO Office-wide Broad Agency Announcement (BAA): http://go.usa.gov/cStaQ. The event will be held at the DARPA, 675 North Randolph Street, Arlington, VA 22203 on June 22-23, 2016, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Advance registration is required; attendees may attend in person or participate via webinar.