A Xerox subsidiary has been awarded a potential $2 million contract to develop and demonstrate a self-destructing sensor technology for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
PARC and DARPA intend for the Disintegration Upon Stress-Release Trigger system to use a mechanism to shatter microchip-based electronics on command, PARC said Tuesday.
This technology development work is part of DARPA’s Vanishing Programmable Resources Program.
“Imagine being able to cover a large area, like the ocean floor, with billions of tiny sensors to ‘hear’ what is happening within the earth’s crust, and have them quickly disintegrate into, essentially, sand, leaving no trace and not harming the planet or sea life,” said Sean Garner, a PARC researcher and DUST principal investigator.
PARC is studying the use of DUST technology in military, scientific and commercial environments.
The Xerox unit says it envisions the platform working to secure personal information stored in laptops, e-wallets, mobile devices and wearable gadgets.
DARPA’s VAPR project seeks to build electronic devices that can be configured in real time and can physically vanish when obsolete.