US military spending millions on advancing self-destruct tech for devices

The US military is spending millions to build “vanishing” technology that self-destructs on the battlefield, like the tape recorder that goes up in smoke in the Mission: Impossible television show.

The Pentagon’s hi-tech research arm has awarded contracts worth more than $ 17 million in the past two months to prevent micro-electronic sensors and other devices from falling into enemy hands.

The companies have been tasked to develop “transient” electronics that could be destroyed remotely or crumble into tiny pieces.

In the 1960s series

Mission: Impossible , the lead spy always receives top-secret instructions on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, before being told “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.”

Now the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding a 21st century version of the recorder, backing experimental projects under the Vanishing Programmable Resources Program.

The use of small, sophisticated electronics in everything from radios to weapons has increased dramatically for American forces, but it is “nearly impossible to track and recover every device,” according to a DARPA contract document last month.

“Electronics are often found scattered across the battlefield and might be captured by the enemy and repurposed or studied,” it said, warning America is in danger of losing its technological edge.

The new programme aims to solve the problem by creating systems “capable of physically disappearing in a controlled, triggerable manner,” rendering the devices useless to the enemy.

DARPA is known for its ambitious research, some of which has resulted in breakthroughs useful for both military and civilian use, including the creation of the Internet and GPS navigation system.

For its latest project, the agency is reinterpreting the idea of a “kill switch,” which dates back to the Cold War, when “permissive action link” devices were introduced to prevent a rogue nuclear launch.

Unlike ordinary off-the-shelf electronics that can last indefinitely, the agency “is looking for a way to make electronics that last precisely as long as they are needed,” said programme manager Alicia Jackson.

The device could be destroyed either by a signal sent by commanders or prompted by “possible environmental conditions” such as a certain temperature, she said.

The nascent technology is potentially revolutionary, with possible applications for medicine as well as combat, officials said.