Military Prize Roundup - September 22, 2008

The Wearable Power Prize competition check-in starts today at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, CA. The whole event is on until October 4. Here's the full schedule for the final event. Some highlights:

Oct. 3, 2008: Kids’ Day
Area schools have been invited to bring classes for a day of learning about the WPP objectives and the science and technology behind them. In addition, the students will tour the competition site and exhibits from competitors, major DoD laboratories, and the military service branches.

Oct. 4, 2008: Prize Day
0700: Opening Ceremony featuring the U.S. Marine Corps Band
0800 – 1500: Technology Showcase opens
0900 – 1300: WPP Field Test / Power Wear-Off
1500: Prize ceremony
1500: Technology Showcase closes

Meanwhile, Singapore's TechX Challenge final event was September 21 (yesterday). I didn't see information about the winners yet.

The British MOD's Grand Challenge winners were announced on August 19. The winner was Team Stellar (not the GLXP team) and their SATURN.

Miltary Prize Month

A lot of prize events are going to happen in the next couple weeks. In addition to the Regolith Excavation and General Aviation Centennial Challenges, there are a lot of people and teams that have been involved with space prizes at the Oshkosh AirVenture air show. I've mentioned all of these recently, but that's just the beginning.

A number of military innovation prize events are planned soon. The UK MOD Grand Challenge for autonomous or partly autonomous systems to help troops monitor threats. This PDF presentation shows the final challenge extending from August 4-24 at Copehill Down, an urban warfare training village.

Meanwhile, Singapore's TechX autonomous urban robot competition has its final event scheduled in August.

It's also a big time for student autonomous vehicle prizes. I've already posted on some of the 2008 ones recently. Here's what's coming soon:

AUVSI International Aerial Robotics Challenge - July 28-Aug 1, at Fort Benning, GA - $80,000 in prizes are available.

AUVSI International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - July 29 - Aug 3 - The public is welcome and it's a free event. From the Public FAQ: The Competition will be held at the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center's Transducer Evaluation Center (TRANSDEC) pool located on Point Loma, San Diego. More acronyms will be available at the Competition site.

Miltary Prize Roundup

The British MOD (Ministry of Defense) Grand Challenge had some announcements in January. They're looking for a contractor to support the MOD Grand Challenge event. They also made some changes to the MOD Grand Challenge plans based on observing the U.S. DARPA Urban Challenge, such as making it a 2-phase competition.

Here's a blog from one of the MOD Grand Challenge teams - this one from Reading University. The MOD site has much more on all the teams on their teams page.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Wearable Power Prize site has some fairly new updates involving Instructions and Guidelines for teams as they make and send in certain required documents:

Fuel Plan Instructions
System Description White Paper

Finally, in the Military Prizes section on the right I've updated the Singapore TechX Challenge link which apparently moved.

MOD Grand Challenge Teams Announced

Cnet News blog has an article about the U.K. Ministry of Defense's Grand Challenge to make robotic soldier assistants. This was a bit over a month ago. The MOD Grand Challenge Teams page lists (and links) 6 teams that got contracts to help with their entries, 8 teams that will be self-funded, and 2 associate teams that don't address all of the challenge's goals and therefore presumably can't win, but that are still of interest (eg: they may help other teams). Entries ranged from Unmanned Arial Vehicles, to ground vehicles, to systems with blimps. Different teams have different specialties, such as transportability/light weight, ability to find IEDs, low visibility, multiple ground/air components, and multiple sensors at different EM frequencies.

MoD Grand Challenge Update

The British Ministry of Defense had a briefing on the MoD Grand Challenge in March. A 3-page list of people attended, many from British universities and aerospace companies. Different presentations described the rules, registration process, and practical military views on urban warfare and the kinds of environment the competitors should consider in their designs (terrain, weight a soldier can carry, threats, etc). The winners should be able to enter an area and identify a variety of types of threats.

There are interesting commentaries here and here.

See more here.

more on 2 vehicle races

Cosmic Log has posted more on the Automotive X PRIZE draft rules that were just release, and also the DARPA Urban Challenge. They are 2 entirely different challenges, but it gets one thinking in different ways when you read about the 2 challenges in the same article. Of course there are other challenges like the British MOD Grand Challenge and Singapore's TechX Challenge, as well as interest (if not available funding) in a Centennial Challenge for a Lunar Vehicle that at least in part remind one of the DARPA challenge.

Ministry of Defense Grand Challenge

Aviation Week reports that the British Ministry of Defense has issued a Grand Challenge for a sensor platform that can work in urban combat environments. The current rules include a trophy and the possibility of a contract, but (unfortunately, from the point of view of this blog) no cash prize for the winner is mentioned. In that sense it is similar to the current round of the DARPA Grand Challenge. The MOD Challenge is restricted to UK contestants, unlike the DARPA Challenge which already has contestants from several countries.