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What DARPA's Been Up To, At Length

Posted by timothy on from the one-long-list-of-credits dept.

The New York Times takes an inside look at DARPA, the secretive defense agency, mentioned frequently on Slashdot, that is "changing the way we use machines — and the way they use us" in the form of a review of Michael Belfiore's The Department of Mad Scientists. Besides tracing the history of the agency, Belfiore's book expounds on the well-known Grand Challenge and its link to ever-more-automated vehicle control in civilian and military contexts, as well as other DARPA pet projects, including robotic surgery, information analysis, and the integration of electronics with the human body.

6 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. The truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Darpa is an old boys network that funds tons of projects by the program managers friends. I worked on a robot project for a couple of years and it was depressing. They ask you to do something impossible, but something that sounds cool. Then they don't care if it doesn't work - the right money has exchanged hands.

    Sure they have done some good things, but that was a long time ago. What my complaint is mainly about is the low level of science, and the sleazy way they distribute their money.

    1. Re:The truth by Glonoinha · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Science isn't about doing something and getting the expected results. Science is about doing something and when reviewing the results going 'Well that's odd. Guys come here and look at this.' And then discovering something new.

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
    2. Re:The truth by hedwards · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's often times easier to get funding from DARPA as there's a lot of idiots that refuse to pay for research that's practical for everyday use, but tons that are willing to pay for technology that blows shit up. Or is in some other way useful for destroying the world.

      Which is really why the NSF should be given a reliably large sum of money each year and told to just make the best use of it.

    3. Re:The truth by mikewas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're missing the point. DARPA is about reaching a long-term goal -- one which isn't achievable with existing science/engineering. DARPA contracts are short term contracts whose goal is to determine why one small step towards the ultimate goal is not achievable. This is followed by another contract that determines how to facilitate the previous step ... or to determine how that is blocked. And it keeps on going!

      Eventually there is success, and the success flows back to the first step ... except now you are asked to go just a bit farther to discover what the next block is.

      The PM's job is to keep an eye on the overall goal & to act as a champion for the program. And, although they are generally experienced technical managers, PM's don't remain at DARPA for a long time, it's just too intense.

      If you understand what is going on, and DARPA contracts are great to work on, encouraging freedom & creativity, and you'll probably get more contracts. If not then you'll end up frustrated, somebody else will have to dig through your CDRLs to get the needed data, and the followup contract will end up going to somebody who understands the process.

      --

      "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
  2. The suckitude that was DARPA head Tony Tether by philgross · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No mention of the disastrous Bush-era reign of Tony Tether at DARPA? With an incurious, aggressive president, we got an incurious, aggressive DARPA head, who cut long-term and academic research in favor of short-term corporate research. His dumping by Obama led to joy and celebrations (OK, cautious hope) across the land.

  3. Tether did a good job by Animats · · Score: 3, Informative

    Tony Tether (whom I've met) did a reasonably good job with DARPA. Especially in robotics. He was behind the DARPA Grand Challenge, which was done partly to give academic robotics departments a serious butt-kick. Academic robotics had been funded by DARPA for decades, but nothing fieldable was coming out. The reason that major universities devoted entire departments to the Grand Challenge was that DARPA had told them quietly that if they didn't do well, their funding was going away. Prior to the Grand Challenge, a typical academic robotics project was one professor and a few grad students producing a thesis on an obscure topic. Universities weren't organized to do system integration and make all the subsystems play together. Now they are.

    It was time to cut back on Government-funded R&D in computer science, because it's a mature technology. DARPA shouldn't be funding "high performance graphics" - industry, Hollywood, and the game industry are doing that just fine. Networking is in good shape. DARPA hasn't been influential in operating systems since the 1980s. DARPA never had much of a role in personal computing at all.

    DARPA isn't the NSF. Their job is to develop technology DoD can use.