Foundational Strategic Technologies and Systems

In addition to the six technical offices that manage the Agency’s research portfolio, DARPA operates the Adaptive Execution Office , a support office chartered to accelerate the transition of game-changing DARPA technologies into Department of Defense capabilities. AEO provides DARPA with robust connections to the warfighter community and assists the Agency with the planning and execution of technology demonstrations and field trials to promote adoption by the Services.

DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office (STO) is focused on technologies that enable fighting as a network to increase military effectiveness, cost leverage, and adaptability. STO's areas of interest include: Battle Management, Command and Control; Communications and Networks; Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance; Electronic Warfare; Positioning, Navigation, and Timing; and Foundational Strategic Technologies and Systems.

DARPA’s new podcast series, "Voices from DARPA," offers a revealing and informative window on the minds of the Agency's program managers. In each episode, a program manager from one of DARPA’s six technical offices—Biological Technologies, Defense Sciences, Information Innovation, Microsystems Technology, Strategic Technology, and Tactical Technology—will discuss in informal and personal terms why they are at DARPA and what they are up to.

ARPA research played a central role in launching the “information revolution,” including developing or furthering much of the conceptual basis for ARPANET, a pioneering network for sharing digital resources among geographically separated computers. Its initial demonstration in 1969 led to the Internet, whose world-changing consequences unfold on a daily basis today. A seminal step in this sequence took place in 1968 when ARPA contracted BBN Technologies to build the first routers, which one year later enabled ARPANET to become operational.