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See Some Entries For DARPA's Crowdsourced Drone Building Contest

In an attempt to speed up innovation and lower the cost of rolling out new technologies, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has taken a host of new initiatives aimed at building up their network of private contractors. The secretive...

In an attempt to speed up innovation and lower the cost of rolling out new technologies, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has taken a host of new initiatives aimed at building up their network of private contractors. The secretive agency, tasked with developing mind-bending new tech for the United States’ armed forces, has apparently decided that crowdsourcing is the hot new way to tap into fresh ideas. This year, the newest DARPA-run competition is UAVForge, a crowdsourced contest to develop new unmanned aerial vehicles. Using a cute pun, UAVForge claims to be on the hunt for the ‘Ultimate Aerial Vehicle,’ offering a crisp $100,000 to the team that provides it.

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Now, we could rap about the potential moral issues of having some sort of American Idol-type competition for the armed services’ favorite deliverer of death. On the other hand, some fresh blood in the UAV ecosystem might be a positive thing considering our current arsenal is quite sick. In the end, privatizing military innovation is far from a new thing. Also, UAVForge is focused on small, cheap UAVs aimed at reconnaissance rather than blowing people up. With plenty of contracts on the line, it does feel a bit refreshing that DARPA is starting to open up to the public about its selection process. Accountability is always a good thing. Of course, there’s another curious aspect to the competition: why would DARPA make so public the plans (and voting) for a series of its next UAVs?

Recently, Jim McCormick, a program manager at DARPA, spoke in a conference call about the UAVForge program as it nears the end of the submissions phase:

The objective is to facilitate the exchange of ideas among a loosely connected international community united through common interests and inspired by innovation and creative thought. So the real focus here is innovation, and we’re looking at an alternative way to tap in to innovative approaches from around the world. We seek to lower the threshold to entry for hobbyists and citizen scientists, hoping to yield greater innovation, shorter timelines, better performance and more affordable solutions. So this ties into the broader manufacturing initiative that DARPA is pursuing, that better, faster, cheaper is important.

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It’s like if you took the golden ticket and candy out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, left in all the dark vibes and casually added in some drones. Good enough for me. Check out some of the entries to the UAVForge contest below.

XL-161 Trinity (High Altitude Unmanned Airborne Laser)
Falcon UAV
Skyeye Fixed Wing Hybrid UAS
Autonomous Quadrocopter
Mini Panther UAV

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Follow Derek Mead on Twitter @DrDerekMead.