The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced a design and test competition for small, backpack-portable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Dubbed the UAVForge Challenge, the open competition is co-sponsored by the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Atlantic, and holds a prize of $100,000.
DARPA's goal in mounting the competition is "to use crowd sourcing to build small UAVs through an exchange of ideas and design practices." Participant teams are challenged to build and test a user-intuitive, backpack-portable UAV that can quietly fly in and out of critical environments to conduct sustained surveillance for up to three hours.
"The UAVForge crowd-sourced approach seeks to capture and mature novel ideas and systems integration methods from communities outside the traditional Department of Defense acquisition process," commented Jim McCormick, DARPA program manager, in a UPI report.
For the competition, self-selected teams will participate in a series of peer-reviewed milestones in which participant rating will identify the 10 teams that advance to the UAVForge Fly-Off Competition. Vehicles will undergo a simulated high-stress surveillance mission. The winning team will be awarded $100,000 and the opportunity to showcase its design in an overseas military exercise.
The winners will also work with a government-selected UAV manufacturer to produce a limited quantity of systems for future warfighter experimentation, said the report.
"This is a fascinating challenge and the solution space is wide open," continued McCormick. "We're excited to see what innovative ideas emerge, so we're trying to give individuals and teams lots of time to develop their concepts prior to the initial design submission date planned for late this fall."
SOURCE: Military has small UAS competition (upi.com)
