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Advances in technology soon may make large-scale mesh networks a reality. The developments will create a system that can handle hundreds of sensors without occupying all the available bandwidth. The advancements improve communication among mobile nodes and support low-bandwidth sensors.

The U.S. Defense Department's ambitious effort to develop and field a family of multipurpose software-defined radios is beginning to make progress after numerous setbacks. The Joint Tactical Radio System program's goal is to replace the services' myriad radios with equipment designed for joint interoperability. The project is back on track after cost overruns and a lack of oversight in key areas drew government criticism and forced it to undergo a major reorganization in March 2006.

Built for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, the new A160 Hummingbird unmanned helicopter is designed to fly autonomously with a high-altitude endurance of 20 hours. This aerodynamically clean platform rivals fixed-wing aircraft performance to employ a suite of sensors, including foliage penetration radar that unmasks hidden troops and vehicles.

Promising advances in integrated circuit technologies such as nanowires, molecular electronics and fault tolerant architectures could help alleviate industry needs in designing and fabricating computer chips. New emerging technologies and approaches generally unknown to industry will be urgently required within six or seven years to help sustain continuing progress in dense integrated circuit production.

Significant individual technology advances are being harnessed to facilitate effective cognitive computing systems. These information system technologies focus on a common application that radically improves the way computers support human beings. A cognitive system is emerging that can reason, learn from experience, be told what to do, explain its actions and respond robustly to surprise.

An engine of innovation, the Defense Research Projects Agency's Microsystems Technology Office relentlessly drives down the size, weight and power requirements of ever-higher-performance electronic components. Its development of semiconductor materials for innovative electronic devices places this organization on the cusp of major breakthroughs with next-generation communication, radar, electronic warfare, imaging and sensor systems.

An airborne sensor system that provides standoff and persistent wide-area surveillance of dismounted troops and vehicles moving through foliage holds the potential to change the scope of warfare. Mounting this sensor beneath an unmanned helicopter would enable identification of possible ambush sites. This small radar also denies concealment and sanctuary to enemy units hiding in wooded areas or moving in the open during darkness or adverse weather.

Technologies developed for the new Network Centric Radio System will provide reliable, mobile and secure backbone battlefield communications. Designed for use with a maneuver force, the system's ad hoc capability dynamically reconfigures itself to maintain network connectivity automatically. Vehicles in the network can communicate routinely whenever within range of each other without manual configuration.

Critical actionable military data obscured by foreign languages and often masked in large volumes of different types of media are both highly important and perishable. The global deployment of a dozen monitoring systems is enabling software applications to transcribe and translate both text and speech and distill large volumes of information in multiple languages, including Arabic and Chinese.

A ship sailing inside a building, a periscope view on a PC and F-18 pilots located thousands of miles apart yet flying in formation are just some of the new teaching tools simulators now are enabling for the U.S. Navy. Computing advances and that touch of illusion that only the entertainment industry can create immerse both new and experienced sailors in virtual environments that suspend reality and convince them that what they see, smell, hear and feel truly surrounds them. The opportunities these capabilities offer are melding the Navy's training and operational environments and shrinking the time from learning to doing.