CAN YOU DESIGN, BUILD AND FLY THE NEXT-GENERATION UAV?
Challenge announced for creating new, small unmanned flying machine
Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) play a critical role in modern military operations. The next generation of these aerial robotic systems needs to have enhanced takeoff and landing capabilities, better endurance, require less support equipment and be adaptable to mission needs in varying conditions. News Release
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Throughout history technical challenges have inspired generations...
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has released a request for Information (RFI) to solicit ideas and information to support its 100 Year Starship Study™ program. The 100 Year StarshipStudy is a project seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make interstellar space travel practicable and feasible. News Release
Security needs around the world dictate that the United States has access to reliable information that could impact national security or deployed military personnel. Given the vast amount of information in multiple languages and formats, it can be difficult to analyze and determine what’s important. Additionally, there’s a need to be able to readily communicate with local populations of foreign countries and non-English speaking allies. News Release
Swirling thousands of miles above earth, military satellites provide critical capabilities to warfighters—which makes protecting them from collision with space debris, meteors and microsatellites a top priority. Until now, monitoring the deep regions of space has been difficult, with spots and gaps in coverage leaving these high-flying machines vulnerable. DARPA’s newly developed Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) aims to change that, ushering in a new era of ground-based space surveillance technology to fill coverage gaps and offer an unprecedented wide-angle view of small objects in deep space. News Release Program Page
“The fact that we have real world needs that have to be solved yesterday, if not sooner, adds an urgency that provides a sharp focus absent in a lot of other places,” said Dr. Thomas Lee, director, Microsystems Technology Office, DARPA. That focus was one of several reasons why Lee, who received the 2011 HO-AM in engineering (The Republic of Korea’s equivalent to the Nobel prize), decided to join DARPA recently as the new director of MTO. News Release
Today’s warfighters possess the ability to meet the dynamic demands of the battlefield by relying on their knowledge and training to make the right decisions in demanding complex situations. In contrast, unmanned systems and electronic devices, while able to collect and process information, are limited in their efficiency and flexibility, and current computer systems can only process information according to their programming. Program Page News Release