MXO Pitch Day 2026
Limit: 3 (one per Thrust Area) // Tickets Available: 0
Thrust Area 1: Y. Takashima (Optical Sciences)
Thrust Area 2: C. Fucetola (Astronomy & Steward Observatory)
Thrust Area 3: G. Cole (Wyant College of Optical Sciences)
Limiting Language
A proposing organization, identified by a unique CAGE Code, may submit no more than one Abstract per Thrust Area. Each Abstract submitted by the same organization must identify a different Principal Investigator, technical team, and represent a distinct technical approach.
Eligibility
Universities whose proposed Principal Investigator has not previously served as a Principal Investigator under a DARPA-funded award.
Thrust Areas
Thrust Area 1: A world beyond electronics
The “a world beyond electronics” thrust seeks to develop non-electronic and hybrid physical approachesto advance sub-functions and unit operations to create future warfighting systems and capabilities. These sub-functions and unit operations include but are not limited to:
- Sensing and communications beyond electronics. While we will continue to need sensing and communications, novel approaches can not only improve upon what modern radio-frequency systems deliver for the existing battlespace but also invent functions leading to new capability for the future battlespace. Examples of non-electronic developments could include optical, quantum, organic, and acoustic devices. The addressable physical stimuli (e.g., optical thermal, acoustic, chemical, etc.) and/or appropriate information buses (e.g., photonic, fluidic, or otherwise) for the proposed device should be provided in detail as well as performance estimates.
Thrust Area 2: Foundations beyond components
The “foundations beyond components” thrust explores technologies and methods that survive and even thrive in hostile and challenging environments. Production and use of these components can then be used in novel and previously unforeseen applications.
- Extreme environments are both natural and man-made. The natural extreme environments of interest include space, undersea, and the arctic. Technologies and methods should lead to systems subjected to a wide range of environmental conditions and natural attacks such as corrosion. Man-made environmental impacts, including the actions of adversaries, add system effects such as shock and vibration.
- Advanced capabilities will require increasing amounts of intelligence, automation, endurance and survivability. Assuming that humans are not present, a heterogeneous mix of distributed uncrewed systems may be warranted requiring advanced sensing, actuation, orientation, processing, communication, and power. Each of these has its own research challenges.
- Making and sustaining these components and systems require unique approaches to leverage the local environment itself, use what is in place, and erase the line between equipment and environment.
Thrust Area 3: Materials beyond nature and current synthetic practice
The “materials beyond nature and current synthetic practice” thrust seeks the discovery and fabrication of new materials that exceed what can be found in nature or are currently produced. MXO believes that novel applications, research breakthroughs, and advanced capability development will benefit from new materials used in new ways.
- Material properties realized after fabrication. Beyond phase change materials, how do we identify future programmable material and synthesize component properties? Examples include ad-hoc tunable electrical, magnetic, optical, and mechanical properties beyond the state of the art.
- Built-in autonomous property resiliency of materials/components. Imagine if we could maintain pre-determined material and component properties without humans in the loop. Examples include self-healing (recovery of material properties or improvement in their reliability), self-deformation (material as sensor and actuator), or self-protection (anti-break, anti-rust, anti-aging).
- Artificially created new material properties. How do we identify previously unattainable material properties followed by the manufacturing and realization of this new material? Examples include room temperature superconductor and inorganic-like electrical characteristics in organic material systems