The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will host the DARPA Lift Challenge from Aug. 2-9 at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The public can attend for free.
The challenge is a prize competition to incentivize the development of novel unmanned aircraft systems with significant payload-to-weight ratios. Typically drones are limited to carrying a payload that is only equal to or less than their own weight. Participants are challenged to design and fly a drone weighing 55 pounds or less carrying four times or more its own weight over a 5-nautical-mile course.
“The DARPA Lift Challenge is more than a competition; it is a chance for competitors to advance a critical technology that can improve many aspects of our society, and it’s an invitation to the American public to witness a potential leap in aviation,” DARPA Lift Challenge Program Manager Phillip Smith said.
The challenge is open to university students, inventors, and companies. DARPA will award $6.5 million in prizes including grand prizes and prizes for most revolutionary aerodynamic design,
most revolutionary powertrain design, and most promising.
Flite Fest, one of the largest radio-control events in the world, will be co-located with the competition from Aug. 6-9.