DARPA Perceptually-enabled Task Guidance (PTG)

DARPA is soliciting innovative fundamental research proposals in the area of perceptuallyenabled task guidance. The goal is to enable mechanics, medics, and other specialists to perform tasks within and beyond their skillsets by providing just-in-time feedback and instructions for physical tasks. We envision artificial intelligence (AI) technology that perceives the environment, reasons about physical tasks, and models the user, all in real-time. The AI will leverage commercially-available sensor technologies to see what the user sees and hear what the user hears, and will provide contextually relevant information and instruction to the user using augmented reality (AR). DARPA is soliciting these proposals to investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.

The Perceptually-enabled Task Guidance (PTG) program will develop artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help users perform complex physical tasks. Military personnel are expected to perform an increasing number of tasks and more complex tasks than ever before. Mechanics, for example, are asked to repair more types of increasingly sophisticated machines and platforms, and Medics are asked to perform more procedures over extended periods of time. The goal of the PTG program is to make users more versatile by expanding their skillset and more proficient by reducing their errors.