Systems of Systems

Airspace for the flying public today is perpetually congested yet remarkably safe, thanks in no small part to a well-established air traffic control system that tracks, guides and continuously monitors thousands of flights a day. When it comes to small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) such as commercial quadcopters, however, no such comprehensive tracking system exists.

DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office (STO) will host a Proposers Day conference on the Aerial Dragnet on September 26, 2016, at the DARPA Conference Center, 675 North Randolph Street, Arlington, Virginia, from 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM (EDT). The purpose of this conference is to provide information on the Aerial Dragnet program, promote additional discussion of the topic Aerial Dragnet is addressing, and address questions from potential proposers.

The Arctic region is poised for greater regional significance as polar ice retreats in coming decades. Ship traffic likely will increase during summer months, and commercial activity focused on the sea floor is expected to grow. The Arctic is largely isolated, vast, and environmentally extreme. Remote sensing may offer affordable advantages over traditional methods of monitoring the region—aircraft, satellites or manned ships and submarines—due to the great distances in the Arctic.

Dr. Craig Lawrence joined DARPA in 2013 as a Program Manager for the Strategic Technology Office (STO). Dr. Lawrence’s interests are in battle management, command and control (BMC2); autonomy, optimization and control theory; and modeling and simulation.

Dr. Jeffrey Krolik joined DARPA in December 2014 as a Program Manager in the Strategic Technology Office. His interests include physics-based signal and sensor array processing with applications to radio frequency (RF) and acoustic surveillance systems.