The Pentagon's Brain (48 page)

DARPA’s Talon robot approaches a deadly improvised explosive device (IED) in Rajah, Iraq. (U.S. Army, photo by Specialist Jeffrey Sandstrum)

A micro air vehicle (MAV) prepares for its first combat mission in Iraq, in 2005. Many of DARPA’s advanced MAV’s are now small enough to fit in the palm of the hand. (U.S. Department of Defense, photo by Sgt. Doug Roles)

The seven-ounce Wasp drone, part of DARPA’s Combat Zones That See, gathers real-time video and works in a swarm. (U.S. Department of Defense)

Vice President Cheney, his wife, and their daughter are greeted by General David Petraeus in Baghdad, in 2008. Petraeus wrote the first U.S. Army counter-insurgency manual since Vietnam and supported the DARPA-born Human Terrain System program which focused on winning “the hearts, minds, and acquiescence of the population.” (U.S. Department of Defense, photo by Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

The Predator drone inside a hangar at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, in 2009. (Author’s collection)

The charred alley in Chehel Gazi, Afghanistan, where Human Terrain Team member Paula Loyd was set on fire by an emissary of the Taliban. (USA Criminal Investigation Command)

DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar and Marine Corps Commandant General James F. Amos pose with DARPA’s LS3 land robot, designed to carry heavy equipment over rugged terrain, in 2014. (U.S. Marine Corps, photo by Sgt. Mallory S. VanderSchans)

An armored truck with an assault rifle mounted on top keeps guard outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory where Dr. Garrett Kenyon and his team work on artificial intelligence for DARPA. (Author’s collection)

When the IBM Roadrunner supercomputer was built for Los Alamos, in 2008, it was the fastest computer in the world, able to perform 1 million billion calculations per second. By 2013, advances in chip technology rendered it obsolete. In 2014, part of what remains of Roadrunner is used to power DARPA’s artificial intelligence project. (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

The DARPA Modular Prosthetic Limb. The work advances robotics but is it helping warfighters who lost limbs? (U.S. Department of Defense, courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

DARPA’s Atlas robot is a high-mobility humanoid robot built by Boston Dynamics. Its “articulated sensor head” has stereo cameras and a laser range finder. (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Allen Macy Dulles and his sister, Joan Dulles Talley. A brain injury during the Korean War, in 1952, made it impossible for Dulles to record new memories. DARPA’s brain prosthetics program alleges to help brain-wounded warriors like Dulles, but program details remain highly classified. (Author’s collection)