Setting the scene with the stunning synchronized drone swarm opening the Olympics, Marine officer David Pinion writes a well-reasoned commentary on the emerging challenges and opportunities facing military planners.

After laying out some of the challenges, such as successful drone mini-swarm attacks in Syria and Yemen, the rise of additive manufacturing and the threat to legacy systems, Lt. Col. Pinion lays out six steps ranging from the development of an AI strategy to the creation of a permanent experimentation force that service leadership might consider. 

​Click here for more.

​​For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.

While the national missile defense currently relies on intercepting threats in the terminal phase, directed-energy weapons hold the key to defeating missile launches in launch or boost phase.

Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, discussed the optimal solution of dropping an enemy’s payload on top of them during a recent presentation on missile defense. 

Click here for more on the strategic vision for lasers, particle beams and microwaves.

For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.
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As the services focus on turning innovation into battlefield systems, the Army is offering technology companies higher profits for speed.

Recently, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology spoke at the AUSA Global Force Symposium and discussed the Army’s incubator, the valley of death for technology adoption, challenges with intellectual property and higher profits. 

​Click here for more.

​​For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has released a video of ideas for sixth-generation fighters, missiles, micro-drone swarms and unmanned planes.

All of these are natural evolutions of current science and technology applied to military challenges. Since the services are beginning to clamp down on the public release of their future technologies, this video may be one of the last we see of these before some of these systems go into testing. 

​Click here to watch Air Force 2030 — Call to Action.


​For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.

Episodic or short-term memory loss is the most common memory loss in people with brain injuries or Alzheimer’s disease. But what if science could produce a fully implantable, closed-loop neural interface capable of restoring normal memory function?

After almost five years of DARPA-sponsored research with the Restoring Active Memory program, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the University of Southern California may have found a solution.

Recently publishing their results in the Journal of Neural Engineering, the team has “demonstrated the first successful implementation in humans of a proof-of-concept system for restoring memory function.” 

Click here before you forget.

​​For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.

reports.agorafinancial.com/DTA_evergreen_0717/WDTATA03/index.htm?pageNumber=2For the past 20 years biomedical research has made great progress in developing ways for a person’s brain to communicate with a device like a prosthetic limb. Until now, that required invasive surgical techniques to allow precise connections to specific areas of the brain.

Now DARPA wants to expand on that research to create high level brain-system communications without surgery by a program, Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3).

The potential military and commercial applications are extraordinary and we will monitor the technology closely for potential investments. 

Click here for more.

​For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.

.Last week we told you about how the DoD leadership created a Close Combat Lethality Task force to overhaul of how the infantry is manned, equipped and trained.

In this article, the authors explore some of the challenges and commercial gaming technology being evaluated to provide a completely immersive virtual training environment for infantry units on foot. Several of our Defense Technology Alert portfolio companies are in this space and we will be on the lookout for more.  

​Click here for more of this fascinating technology.

For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.

Here are two interesting numbers: 3,269 and 0.

The first is the number of startup companies to graduate from over 170 commercial accelerators just in 2016. As you might guess, zero is the number of accelerators which the Department of Defense has partnered with in the ten years preceding.

Happily, that is changing rapidly. Click here to read the case for DoD collaboration with commercial technology accelerators and the promise of newly launched defense accelerators now underway.

For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.

The American way of war, deploying overpowering industrial might, crushing firepower and owning the sea and air, may have come to an end is the premise of Elbridge Colby, Dep Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development.

One of the architects of the National Defense Strategy, Colby makes the case that multi-billion-dollar investments in artificial intelligence and hypersonic missiles by China and Russia poses a challenge to our traditional approach to warfighting. While the solution will come in a combination of technology, training and doctrine, all three areas will require a more agile development process than our current bureaucracies can provide. 

​Click here for more on the challenges and America’s response.

​For access to some of the most profitable opportunities in the defense technology sector, check out Massengill’s Defense Technology Alert. Click here to learn more.