Access and Awareness

The ACCESS AND AWARENESS Program Element (PE 0602023E), managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is focused on applied research to develop and apply technologies that ensure the U.S. military can achieve physical or virtual presence where and when necessary. The program aims to enable effective collection, integration, and dissemination of data and knowledge. It emphasizes innovative autonomy, computing, and communications technologies, and supports robust transition planning to facilitate the adoption of DARPA-funded technologies within the U.S., thereby providing new capabilities for national defense.

ACS-01: ALL DOMAIN TACTICAL TECHNOLOGIES is the primary project within this program element. Its objective is to examine and evaluate emerging technologies and system concepts that enhance U.S. military effectiveness and survivability across all operational domains maritime, ground, air, and space. The project includes expanding operational naval capabilities throughout the sea column, developing improved situational awareness for large maritime environments, advancing ship self-defense and underwater propulsion, enabling high-speed underwater vessels, and improving techniques for underwater object detection and discrimination. It also investigates long-endurance unmanned surface vehicles, servicing assets throughout the sea column, and high-bandwidth communications, as well as distributed maritime operation architectures for a more agile and survivable fleet.

Within ACS-01, several specific programs are funded. The Albatross program aims to develop perpetually flying small unmanned aircraft systems (s-UAS) by leveraging bird-like soaring techniques and autonomous navigation informed by weather data. The goal is to reduce flight power consumption and extend endurance and range, with incremental demonstrations planned to support rapid transition to military services. The Lunar Assay via Small Satellite Orbiter (LASSO) program focuses on optimizing sensing, navigation, and propulsion for persistent, very low-altitude autonomous lunar orbiters to enable high-resolution sensing of lunar resources, supporting future in-situ resource utilization missions.

The Oversight program is designed to develop autonomy technologies for constant custody of targets in contested environments, leveraging proliferated Low Earth Orbit satellite constellations and advanced collaboration among satellites. This will support tactical operations where the number of targets exceeds available sensors, culminating in demonstrations using existing on-orbit assets. The Next Generation Electronic Surveillance Technology (NGEST) program seeks to create a new radio frequency surveillance system capable of autonomously reconfiguring frequency and spatial resources to detect critical signals in increasingly complex RF environments.

Another key initiative is Expeditionary Carbon Utilization for energy Resilience and Stabilization (ExCURSion), which aims to develop a closed-loop energy storage system combining the rechargeability of electric systems with the high energy density of fuel. The program focuses on foundational technologies for carbon dioxide reduction, capture, and storage, with the goal of enabling energy resilience for expeditionary operations independent of traditional fuel supply lines.

The All Domain Tactical Technologies Studies and Concepts component supports feasibility studies and concept development for technologies that enhance military effectiveness and survivability. This includes research into novel materials, sensors, tactics for multi-domain platforms, launch vehicles, satellites, and manufacturing approaches, as well as hardware demonstrations. Planned efforts include adaptive maneuver warfare, artificial intelligence for command and control, passive noise radar, and algorithmic development for radars.

ACS-07: ACCESS AND AWARENESS SUPPORT covers non-headquarters management costs supporting DARPA functions and activities across the Access and Awareness program element. This includes network support, contractor and program security, building security, commercial transition services, outreach to universities and industry, external contracting and financial support, and funding for program managers from other government agencies. These support costs are allocated proportionally across DARPA's applied research portfolio and fluctuate annually based on the total agency budget.