Like something out of Terminator 1, researchers are developing
techniques for warfare of the future to create materials that self-assemble or alter their shape,
perform a function and then disassemble themselves. These capabilities
offer the possibility for morphing aircraft and ground vehicles,
uniforms that can alter themselves in any climate, and "soft" robots
that flow like mercury through small openings to enter caves and bunker
complexes.
Several university teams, including Harvard, Cornell, and MIT, are
working on different approaches to create "programmable matter"—made of
individual pieces that can self-assemble into tools or spare parts. One
of the approaches being examined uses sheets of self-folding material
that can form three-dimensional shapes on command.
A revolutionary new technology in being developed by DARPA that may allow future war leaders to command their equipment to physically change itself to meet new operational needs or to form spare parts or tools.
"You're blurring the distinction between materials and machines.
Materials act like computers and communications systems, and
communications systems and computers act like materials," program manager Dr. Mitchell R. Zakin says.
The Programmable Matter program is now approximately five months into
its second phase, which is scheduled to last about 15 months. The first
phase of the effort involved five teams, two from Harvard University,
two from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one from
Cornell University made up of experts from a range of disciplines such
as computer scientists, roboticists, biologists, chemical engineers,
mechanical engineers, physicists and artists
Among the fascinating research projects is a wrench that can it disassembles itself back into its components and re-forms into a hammer
The teams methods range from developing two-dimensional objects that fold into three-dimensional shapes to particles that build up to larger structures. One group is building what Zakin describes as "self-folding origami" machines that use specialized sheets of material with built-in actuators and data. These machines use cutting-edge mathematical theorems to fold themselves into virtually any three-dimensional object.
One Harvard team has developed a programming language to manipulate the DNA. Researchers can command the binding interactions between long synthesized strands of DNA, something that has never been done before.
Another team has developed a way to both program and coat objects with DNA. The DNA strands act as a "molecular Velcro" to hold small objects together to assemble into a tool. After it is used, the DNA can be commanded to release and disassemble the object.
Another team's approach mimics biological functions on a millimeter scale to copy how proteins are built in living organisms. Scientists created a programming language that allows each component of the material to process information. "When we put the whole thing together, it's a computer," he says.
Posted by Casey Kazan
DARPA Programmable Matter program: www.darpa.mil/dso/thrusts/physci/newphys/program_matter/index.htm
DARPA Chemical Robots program: www.darpa.mil/dso/thrusts/materials/multfunmat/chembots/index.htm
DARPA Chemical Communications program: www.darpa.mil/dso/thrusts/physci/newphys/chemcom/index.htm
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The threat paradigm is different now than it was during the Cold War, Allen points out. The community's single focus was on a global superpower and featured redundancy. Consequently, little attention was paid to interoperability across the various disciplines and intelligence agencies. Now, the current diverse threat requires collaboration and information sharing in ways that never were even envisioned before the September 11, 2001, attacks. Challenges such as weapons proliferation, rogue states and ungoverned areas have emerged to fill the vacuum left by the demise of the monolithic adversary.
These serious threats existed well before 2001, and the United States should have anticipated them, Allen asserts. Instead, the intelligence community was constrained by funding limitations and personnel departures throughout the 1990s. As the community began building more advanced technical systems, it became well aware that the complexity of today's problems requires cross-discipline action, cross-cueing and multiple-source access, to name a few aspects.
After the September 11 attacks, many underlying problems were exposed. Allen relates that the community found that it still had legacy systems that were not operating in conjunction with each other. Difficulties arose in data fusion and data sharing. Planners had talked about multilevel security systems, but no one took the risk of building them.
He cites a study on future air and space systems that he conducted in conjunction with now-Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Stephen Cambone (SIGNAL, July, page 41) last fall. Considering potential objectives up to 15 years ahead, the study determined that the intelligence community would perform better if it were horizontally integrated with the defense community and that should be the highest priority. Achieving this would be the most effective and efficient action to ensure adequate coverage by air and space systems, Allen says.
"In the past, we built one system at a time," Allen relates. "Whether it was a space system or an air-breathing system, we did not sit down from the outset and say, 'How should that system be integrated with others?' Today, we cannot do that any longer—and that's good.
"If we had thought this [new] way when we had embarked on the Future Imagery Architecture, we probably would have had less difficulty and had a much better system," he declares. That effort did not always focus on an end-to-end system, especially in the early years when planners did not consider all aspects of the ground component, he notes.
Allen explains that the intelligence community has the means to ensure that horizontal integration is built into systems. The Horizontal Integration Senior Steering Group, which involves both the defense and intelligence communities, will review major issues relating to systems integration. Other groups such as the National Intelligence Collection Board, which Allen runs, and the National Intelligence Analytic and Production Board, which is run by Mark Lowenthal, vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council and assistant director of central intelligence for analysis and production, ensure that systems focus on national needs and priorities.
The Mission Requirements Board that Allen co-chairs with Lowenthal has a secretariat that works with the community to develop the long-range requirements for systems acquisition five to 15 years ahead. As systems come to the board for validation of national-level requirements, they are examined for how they fit within an overall intelligence community architecture and with Defense Department warfighting plans. Allen likens this to the Defense Department's Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) processes.
"My view is that we will have the mechanisms in place that will make this work," Allen warrants. "I don't see how we can get it wrong in the future."
This build-in approach must become the norm for all future intelligence systems from the earliest aspects of planning and design. "In the future, I don't think any program manager, any director of central intelligence, or any secretary of defense will ever go build these systems in isolation," Allen offers. "In the 1970s and 80s, and even into the 90s, we did this—and we did not always think how they would operate with other sensors and systems. We did not think of how we could cross-link the communications."
Allen notes that the community did not have the technology or the bandwidth then that it has now. The great bandwidth expansion that is underway now enables that built-in horizontal integration capability. "We won't have to collect wideband signals abroad and then fly them back with an aircraft in order to study them, to figure out what they are," he says. "Those days are going to be gone. We are going to be able to pull [information] back instantly or push information that we fuse out to even the lowest-level echelon in the military or to embassies around the world."
However, building in horizontal integration does not solve the problem of existing systems that lack the capability. The community has many legacy systems that are not as integrated, nor planned to operate, with other systems as they should be, Allen admits. So, a multitude of efforts underway aim to provide stopgap fixes that would allow diverse assets to exchange vital collection data.
The National Intelligence Collection Board, which comprises all the senior managers of the intelligence community, looks at how collection assets are rated against a particular high priority. This group meets several times each week, and it uses "brute force" to build new business practices and break down stovepipe systems and cultural barriers, Allen allows.
Until recently, for example, the community had never considered how to integrate air-breathing platforms—manned or unmanned—with overhead national technical means systems, Allen states. That is being done today, he says, and in the years to come, legacy systems will fade from view as the intelligence system becomes far more capable.
Both the defense and intelligence communities must proceed with bandwidth implementation. This encompasses the Transformational Communications System, or TCS (SIGNAL, February, page 25), as well as other systems within the defense community. "Obviously, to achieve horizontal integration, we have to be able to move various types of data rapidly," Allen observes.
Similarly, the intelligence community has not achieved the degree of information assurance that is needed. Multilevel security remains "an obstacle that bedevils us," Allen allows. The community must be able to move information from different collection sources rapidly from one collection discipline to another. Yet another need is collaborative tools that can filter through terabytes of data. Technical challenges loom for cross-linking satellite systems and for cross-linking space and air systems. Some of these efforts have funding, but additional funding must be appropriated for other aspects.
"I believe we're on the cusp now of solving most of the technical problems, which will enable us to be more efficient as an intelligence community," Allen affirms.
Even with all the attention paid to technology solutions, policies and cultural issues are "by far" the biggest challenge facing horizontal integration, Allen states. "I believe that policies, processes, culture and so-called turf issues will be some of the more difficult and frustrating aspects of making this [horizontal integration] happen," he declares.
The biggest problems lie in policies, especially those governing the sharing of data of varying classifications and collectors. However, Allen believes that these policy barriers can be overcome.
"There are real problems in effectively managing across the agencies, across the various intelligence disciplines," he continues. "There have been self-imposed barriers employed by many elements of the intelligence community—problems of sharing, problems of collaboration, problems of security. Some agencies find it difficult to share intelligence with others."
Lt. Gen. James Clapper, USAF, (Ret.), director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), has been "out in front" on horizontal integration, according to Allen, particularly in following the January 2001 recommendations of the Independent Commission on NIMA. The commission's approach is to use imagery as a pathfinder for integration with other disciplines to identify, locate and target adversaries. He states that Gen. Clapper has moved actively with other intelligence community agency heads to ensure that they all are working toward horizontal integration.
Allen offers that "fairly phenomenal" progress has been made among intelligence community leaders since the September 11 attacks. However, the community is not where it needs to be yet. The new Terrorist Threat Integration Center was formed by the FBI and the CIA, and it reports to the director of central intelligence. Officials are still working out processes and procedures to share information more quickly across the community and to ensure that any threat information flows into this center and on into the Department of Homeland Security. Allen admits that issues and problems remain, but he adds that a lot of the relevant data is flowing, and any threat data flows immediately regardless of the security classification.
On an organizational level, sharing information among diverse intelligence agencies with strictly defined missions could run afoul of the law. All work involving sharing and providing data is carefully reviewed and approved by legal advisers within the intelligence community and the Department of Homeland Security, Allen states. This is done specifically to protect the privacy and rights of U.S. citizens, he observes, adding that there is "a very rigorous application of the law" ensuring that the line between foreign and domestic intelligence is not crossed.
However, these safeguards run the risk of keeping some vital information isolated that could provide a piece of a puzzle for preventing a terrorist act. Allen affirms that "the enormous cooperation between the FBI and the CIA," along with the establishment of the Terrorist Threat Intelligence Center, ensures that the right experts receive the necessary information rapidly. However, not all of the issues of government information exchange have been solved, he adds.
Related:
* Researchers Leave Terrorists Nowhere to Hide (February 2003)
A variety of technologies under development by U.S. government researchers soon may help security organizations to track, anticipate and preclude terrorist activity. Part of an overarching program, these applications will permit analysts and decision makers quickly to assess and act upon patterns and trends in terrorist activity.
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