Please find below (and attached) new DARPA opportunities for circulation with your national/defense S&T labs, academia, and industry.
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Broad Agency Announcement: Program Announcement for Artificial Intelligence Exploration (AIE)
Office: Information Innovation Office (I2O)
Proposal Due Date: 20 August 2024
Description: The mission of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is to make strategic, early investments in science and technology that will have long-term positive impact on our Nation’s security. In support of this mission, DARPA has pioneered groundbreaking research and development (R&D) in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for more than five decades. Today, DARPA continues to lead innovation in AI research through a large, diverse portfolio of fundamental and applied R&D AI programs aimed at shaping a future for AI technology where machines may serve as trusted and collaborative partners in solving problems of importance to national security. The AI Exploration (AIE) program is one key element of DARPA’s broader AI investment strategy that will help ensure the U.S. maintains a technological advantage in this critical area.
SEE LINK BELOW.
Link: https://sam.gov/opp/96835b0357344816bb1166533e56175e/view
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Special Notice: Drag Reducing Architected Geometries (DRAG) Information Session
Office: Defense Sciences Office (DSO)
Event Date: 6 September 2023 at 0930 (ET)
Registration Deadline: 30 August 2023 at 1600 (ET)
Registration Link: https://events.sa-meetings.com/DRAGInfoSession
Description: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is sponsoring an Information Session webcast to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of the anticipated Drag Reducing Architected Geometries (DRAG) Disruption Opportunity (DO). The Information Session will be held via webcast on September 6, 2023 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Eastern Time). Advance registration is required for viewing the webcast.
All registrants who are not U.S. citizens must complete and submit either a DARPA Form 60 (U.S. Permanent Resident and Foreign National Visit Request – e.g., industry or academia) or an Official Visit Request (foreign government personnel, only) through their country’s embassy based in Washington, DC, no later than 4:00 p.m. on September 1, 2023. Form 60 submission instructions are provided on the registration website and in the registration confirmation email. Contact your embassy staff for assistance in submitting the Official Visit Request.
SEE LINK BELOW.
Link: https://sam.gov/opp/39066fb790f341419343545529fefb72/view
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Special Notice: 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study
Office: Strategic Technology Office (STO)
TA1 Questions Due: 22 August 2023
TA1 Abstracts Due: 6 September 2023 by 1600 (ET)
TA1 White Paper and Technical Presentations Due: 25 September 2023 by 1600 (ET)
Description: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative and revolutionary approaches to design integrated, multi-service commercial nodes for mass-efficient lunar infrastructure supported by analytical frameworks intended for future use by the United States and all nations with a declared commitment to the peaceful use of the Moon per the Artemis Accords.
LunA-10 will help to enable the near-term maturation of lunar technologies and capabilities that will be necessary for future architecture objectives. The study will result in the design of system-level solutions that fuse multiple necessary lunar services and deliver a quantitatively defendable analytical framework for future lunar infrastructure that leverages technology overlap between potential services to the maximum extent possible. More than one framework is anticipated. Performers will create new benchmarks and metrics defining performance parameters for each integrated system solution, directly tied to an aggregate “critical mass” for a self-sustaining, monetizable, commercially owned-and-operated lunar infrastructure. Performers will ultimately create a System Concept Review (SCR) level design of the integrated systems, identify key enabling technologies or necessary innovation in quantitative terms, and analyze cost, logistical and technological challenges facing the aggregate frameworks thus composed. Input is sought from both lunar technology providers and lunar technology users. Solutions that are stand-alone or are not designed to integrate with other concepts or larger architectures are specifically excluded.
SEE LINK BELOW.
Link: file://filer1/DIRO/Directors/International%20Cooperation/Team%20Documents/BAA%20Outreach/BAAs/2023/08.%20AUG/21%20AUGUST/DARPA-EA-23-02.pdf
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Research Opportunity: Grip Likelihood in Underwater Environments (GLUE)
Office: Defense Sciences Office (DSO)
Abstract Due Date: 16 February 2024 by 1600 (ET)
Description:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is issuing an Advanced Research Concepts (ARC) Opportunity, inviting submissions of Abstracts for innovative exploratory research concepts in the technical domain of Materials Science and Engineering. This ARC Opportunity, methods to increase Grip Likelihood in Underwater Environments (GLUE), is issued under the master ARC Exploration Announcement (EA), DARPA-EA-23-01.
The defense, research, and commercial sectors are deploying an increasing amount of human-developed technology underwater. When these technologies need repair or modification, bringing them to the surface is often prohibitively costly and/or infeasible. Improving the ability to service these items in the water column could dramatically increase the array of deployable technologies and how they are employed. Adhesive repair can often be performed faster and with less environmental disturbance than techniques such as welding and mechanical fastening. One key tool is lacking: underwater adhesives. Current adhesives for these applications cannot cure underwater because the interfacial liquid layer prevents the necessary contact between adhesive and substrate. Overcoming this challenge requires an understanding of the mechanisms that govern interfacial liquid evacuation at the microscale and nanoscale levels. Specifically, this necessitates applications of physicochemical principles that leverage the complex phenomena that take place at these interfaces. While advances in computation have enabled tremendous strides in fluid dynamics, little work has been done to model how interfacial liquid is expelled as surfaces come into contact within an aqueous medium. This ARC Opportunity is soliciting ideas to explore the following question: Can adhesives be designed and optimized for the aqueous environment using generalizable models that govern interfacial liquid evacuation?
SEE LINK BELOW.
Link: https://sam.gov/opp/a1a6131ee07047b38cc5456f9f97bfd3/view
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Special Notice: Charge Harmony
Office: Defense Sciences Office (DSO)
Proposal Due Date: 29 September 2023 by 1600 (ET)
Description: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is issuing a Disruption Opportunity (DO), inviting submissions of innovative basic or applied research concepts in the technical domains of plasma generation and air-breathing electric propulsion.
The Charge Harmony DO is requesting proposals for EP thrusters that are capable of creating self-neutralized plasma by using the air from the atmosphere as its ionization medium. Self Neutralized Air-Breathing Plasma (SNAP) is a novel concept for EP, which has been demonstrated in the lab and proposed as a mechanism for EP thrusters at characteristic temperatures, pressures, and densities for air at altitudes between 70 and 90 km.1, 2 Unlike the plasma of EP thrusters, SNAP only uses positive and negative ions derived from air molecules. This air-breathing EP system sheds the heavy weight typically associated with space EP systems, which carry their own ionization gas (e.g., a tank of helium-xenon). Additionally SNAP EP would not require an external electron neutralization source at the thruster exit plane, further reducing complexity and weight of an in-atmospheric EP platform. Optimization of T/D for an EP thruster that utilizes self-neutralized plasma composed entirely of positive and negative ions will require techniques for shaping the electromagnetic fields that guide the plasma from the inlet to the outlet of the thruster. Electromagnetic fields that keep the ions off of the walls of the thruster should reduce the drag on the thruster and potentially reduce the negative impacts of oxidation caused by oxygen molecules and ions interfacing with the inner walls of the thrust chamber.
SEE LINK BELOW.
Link: https://sam.gov/opp/37336ee136404058a820e9d0f163b0f7/view
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If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact the DARPA International Cooperation Office at InternationalCooperation@darpa.mil.
If you would like us to include Embassy offices managing education, research, and scientific cooperation (in addition to defense) and/or direct contacts with academia and industry on this distribution, please let us know.
Warm Regards,
DARPA International Cooperation
InternationalCooperation@darpa.mil