Foundational Strategic Technologies and Systems

DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office (STO) is focused on technologies that enable fighting as a network to increase military effectiveness, cost leverage, and adaptability.

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.

For decades, the United States has successfully countered the threats of competitor nations by harnessing advanced technologies to create exceedingly robust and capable military platforms. But as advanced technologies have become more readily available to adversaries on commercial markets, the Nation’s focus on ever more complex weapons systems has become not just a strength but also a weakness. Effective as they are, U.S. military systems today are often too expensive to procure in the quantities needed, and may take so long to develop that the electronic components they contain are obsolete by the time they become operational.

Mr. John Kamp joined DARPA as a program manager in 2011. His interests center on innovative approaches to transition DARPA technologies to the acquisition and user communities, programmatic best practices, transition strategies and plans, and program execution.

Dr. Thomas J. Burns is the director of the Strategic Technology Office (STO). As STO director, he is responsible for a diverse portfolio of programs in battle management, command and control; communications and networking; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; electronic warfare; and positioning, navigation and timing.