DARPA's System of Systems

DARPA’s System of Systems

DARPA‘s System of Systems (SoS) Integration Technology and Experimentation (SoSITE) program aims to develop and show concepts for maintaining air superiority. Watch the video…

Images credit DARPA

DARPA’s System of Systems SoSITE will support air superiority through novel SoS architectures. A combination of aircraft, weapons, sensors and mission systems, that distribute air warfare capabilities across many of interoperable manned and unmanned platforms.

For decades, the United States has successfully countered the threats of competitor nations by harnessing advanced technologies to create exceedingly robust and capable military platforms. But as advanced technologies have become more readily available to adversaries on commercial markets, the Nation’s focus on ever more complex weapons systems has become not just a strength but also a weakness. Effective as they are, U.S. military systems today are often too expensive to procure in the quantities needed, and may take so long to develop that the electronic components they contain are obsolete by the time they become operational.

Nils Sandell, director of DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office (STO), said:

“It can take decades and cost billions of dollars to field or upgrade advanced airborne systems today. As a result, the modernization of subsystems in these complex platforms has not kept pace with the rapid advances in commercial technology. A system-of-systems approach could help overcome this inherent issue with high-cost, monolithic, multi-function platforms.”