This week a new interview was posted on Voices from DARPA. In it, the host interviews Dr. Jim Galambos, a program manager (PM) in the Strategic Technology Office (STO). Dr. Galambos currently managers three active programs at DARPA – Cross-Domain Maritime Surveillance and Targeting (CDMaST), Blue Wolf, and Hunter. The podcast starts with a brief overview of how Dr. Galambos progressed in his career from active duty Navy to directing the advanced technology office at Penn State to joining DARPA as a PM. The main focus of the discussion aligns with the idea Dr. Galambos is taking with CDMaST – specifically system-of-systems. The main concept behind system-of-systems is to look at what was once considered a delivered product – an airplane, submarine, cruiser, etc – and instead look at each deliverable as a single part of a whole network of deliverables (or systems). Dr. Galambos is working towards identifying the specific roles, functions, capabilities, and responsibilities each individual system plays and how it may be possible to shift non-primary factors to other systems. This approach may drastically improve the capability of the systems as a whole while also reducing the timeline from technology develop to implementation in the field. Pretty cool stuff, so the question is – where else can we see system-of-systems be implemented? Can biology, computer science, simple logistics all benefit from this approach or must the individual system be at a specific complexity before this approach will work?
