Pentagon researchers are moving with their plan to develop vanishing deliver drones that could deliver supplies to forward-deployed troops and then disappear. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded contracts to two companies for its Inbound, Controlled, Air?Releasable, Unrecoverable Systems, or ICARUS, program [outgrowth of the DARPA Vanishing Programmable Resources, or VAPR program], which seeks to develop an autonomous aerial system that could deliver 3-pound payloads to within about 32 feet of a GPS-programmed location and then fade away. DARPA has awarded contracts of $2.3 million to Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, known as PARC, and $2.9 million to DZYNE Technologies for the project, Military & Aerospace Electronics reported. DSIAC Related Article, DARPA”s ICARUS & VAPR Programs to Develop Vanishing Polymer Materials for Air Delivery Vehicles,https://www.dsiac.org/resources/news/darpas-icarus-vapr-programs-develop-vanishing-polymer-materials-air-delivery-vehicles DARPA VAPR Website,http://www.darpa.mil/program/vanishing-programmable-resources DARPA ICARUS Website,http://www.darpa.mil/program/inbound-controlled-air-reasonable-unrecoverable-systems
