http://www.arpa.mil/ (World Wide Web Directory, 06/1995)

Welcome to the ARPA Home Page

The ARPA Mission

The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD). It manages and directs selected basic and applied research and development projects for DoD, and pursues research and technology where risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions and dual-use applications.

Consequently, the ARPA mission is to develop imaginative, innovative and often high risk research ideas offering a significant technological impact that will go well beyond the normal evolutionary developmental approaches; and, to pursue these ideas from the demonstration of technical feasibility through the development of prototype system.

ARPA: Past, Present and Future

Recent Agreements Signed

ARPA Testimony

Organization

ARPA is a separate agency under the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), reporting to the Director of Defense Research and Engineering.

Within ARPA, there are two levels of activity; technical program management, and internal support functions. ARPA's technical program offices manage the R&D activities. They support not only broad, basic technology programs, but also small, discretionary projects that prepare the way for major programs to demonstrate future defense systems. While the technical offices' programs are diverse, they have significant overlapping impact. The following chart provides a pictorial overview of the ARPA organizational structure.

A Collection of ARPA Technical Office HTTP Servers

This server is evolving as more technical offices come online. Information provided by this server is superseded by printed information where applicable.

ASTO: The Advanced Systems Technology Office engages in high-risk, high-payoff advanced military research, emphasizing the "system" and "subsystem" approach to development.
CSTO: The Computing Systems Technology Office advances the frontier of computing systems and information technology to insure that DoD has the technologies needed for future mission capabilities.
DSO: The Defense Sciences Office mission is to identify the most portentous new ideas within the basic science and engineering community and develop those ideas into new DoD capabilities.
ESTO: The Electronic Systems Technology Office focuses on electronic systems technology to produce smaller, lighter, and more mobile information systems.
MSTO: The Maritime Systems Technology Office manages the development of a wide range of technologies applicable to the maritime industry.
MTO: The Microelectronics Technology Office drives the development of key electronic component technologies and their rapid implementation in systems.
NMRO: The Nuclear Monitoring Research Office pursues research and development (R&D) to enhance U.S. capability to verify compliance with nuclear test treaties and to monitor the production, testing and storage of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
STO: The Sensor Technology Office research and development programs bring about improvements in U.S. ability to detect, locate and track both ground-based targets and airborne threat vehicles such as cruise missiles and manned aircraft.
SSTO: The Software and Intelligent Systems Technology Office develops advanced software technology required to produce and manage affordable defense systems.
TRP: The Technology Reinvestment Project is a very unique "virtual" organization that spreads across all ARPA Technical Offices; the Military Services; the Departments of Commerce, Energy and Transportation; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and the National Science Foundation. Its central mission is to stimulate a merging of Defense and commercial industrial bases to assure DoD access to critical Defense-related technologies at a cost kept low due to a simultaneous commercial interest.