DARPA Researching Smartphone Apps to Fly Drones
The Department of Defense has its eyes set on developing mobile apps that could leverage sensor systems for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), military surveillance and reconnaissance, and intelligence vehicles.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, otherwise known as DARPA, the agency responsible for coming up with many of the U.S.’s military technology, is seeking app developers for smartphones for its Adaptable Sensor System (ADAPT), according to a statement last week.
DARPA said that while sensor systems have become increasingly sophisticated and complex while offering “advances in capabilities far beyond their current use,” the agency is limited because it lacks “sophisticated, adaptive applications” for their usage. It said that apps could potentially tie some of these sensor systems together and could be rolled out in a few months instead of in a few years.
With the technology, UAVs, often called drones, which are commonly used in Pakistan and Afghanistan, could be “controlled as a single unit,” or in a manner similar to a “swarm” of insects, using one of these apps to control them. This would be much easier than controlling each component individually, DARPA said.
The ADAPT program would improve sensors used by standard smartphones and use civilian developers to spearhead the initiative, the agency said. New approaches to network connectivity, accelerometer use, user interfaces, and other features are in the works.
“The integrated processing, storage, communications, navigation and orientation functions built into smartphone hardware and software can be leveraged to create far more powerful distributed sensor devices than we use today,” stated Mark Rich, the program manager of DARPA, citing the relatively rapid increase in speed and other capabilities in smartphones over the past several years.
DARPA said commercial smartphones are relatively cheap and use common hardware and software. Core software for the ADAPT program is currently under development and functions similar to the Android mobile OS.
Rich said a potential use for the ADAPT program would include hiding perimeter security sensors at an airfield, on small UAVs or underground, that could allow data sharing.
The difference between the ADAPT sensors and commercial smartphones, however, is they will not have user interface features such as a touchscreen, camera, phone, or a battery.
Use of smartphones and apps are growing for the military, and for public outreach.
Several months ago, researchers with Boeing and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology successfully flew a miniature unmanned aircraft using an iPhone app featuring a touch interface from 3,000 miles away.
A few days after DARPA announced its plans to use smartphone sensors, the National Security Agency (NSA) also released an iPhone app called the “NSA CryptoChallenge” in an attempt to “educate young adults on career opportunities with NSA and recruit the best and brightest to support NSA’s cybersecurity initiatives,” a statement reads.
The game, which is free of charge, tests the nation’s “most intelligent college students and young adults” to solve cryptographic puzzles and tests the user’s ability to recognize patterns, the NSA said.
With the cryptography app and others, the NSA can “recruit the top-tier technical talent we need to become future leaders” in the intelligence agency, stated NSA human resource director Kathy Hutson.
