Precision Inertial Navigation & Positioning On an Integrated Tesseract (PINPOINT)
DARPA is soliciting proposals for the PINPOINT program, focused on physics and nonlinear control of inertial measurement units (IMUs) for tactical and unmanned missions. The program aims to overcome the decade-long performance plateau of MEMS IMUs by exploring revolutionary sensor architectures that operate in highly nonlinear regimes. Proposed research may include electromagnetically levitated proof masses, nonlinear resonators, and high-velocity tethered microsystems, with an emphasis on tight co-design of physical sensors with real-time adaptive control systems. Performers are expected to pursue revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Research that primarily yields evolutionary improvements to existing practice is explicitly excluded.