DARPA announces software defined radio UAV hacking event

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced a week-long event to challenge teams from academia, industry, and the software defined radio (SDR) enthusiast community through a series of hacking sessions called the DARPA Bay Area SDR Hackfest on Nov. 17.

According to DARPA, teams from across the country will come together to explore the cyber-physical interplay of SDR and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during the event. Specifically, each team will utilize their SDR hacking skills to ultimately control UAVs through a defined set of operations, called Hackfest Missions.

The event will also include brainstorming sessions, featured speaker sessions, and areas for attendees to interact and work with SDR experts.

DARPA noted that since the event is not billed as a competition, it will provide ways for attendees to share technological achievements, learn from one another, and foster collaborative efforts and engagement.

“At the end of the Hackfest, we hope to see new solutions to problems, better use and development of tools that expand the capabilities of everyone, and the buildup of new relationships with parts of the science, engineering, and technology communities that we have not interacted with before,” Tom Rondeau, DARPA Microsystems Technology Office program manager, said.

Teams featured in the event include the Texas Radio Terminator from Southern Methodist University, Team Platypus Aerospace from the Aerospace Corporation, Team Fly-by-SDR from Hacker DoJo, DROGON from Raytheon BBN Technologies, the Adversarial Science Laboratory from Assured Information Security, DeepEdge from the University of California at Irvine, Fat Cat Flyers from Fat Cat Lab, and YeS DR from Parsons Corporation.