The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced that none of the competing teams of remotely piloted aircraft enthusiasts was able to complete the fly-off event in its year-long UAVForge initiative. “The teams brought creativity and enthusiasm to the competition,” said Jim McCormick, DARPA program manager, in the agency’s release. However, “hurdles of asset cost and complexity of use must be overcome.” states the release. Accordingly, no team received the agency’s $100,000 prize and no backpack-portable RPA design will be manufactured for additional testing in a military exercise as originally envisioned, states the release. Under UAVForge, the agency sought to encourage small teams to design, build, and manufacture a militarily relevant, small-sized RPA capable of providing persistent, beyond-line-of-sight perch and stare intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Nine finalist teams recently participated in the fly-off event at Ft. Stewart, Ga. None was able to pull off the simulated military perch-and-stare reconnaissance mission with its respective design, according to the June 28 release.
The Air Force is finished evaluating the proposed “interim” fix for the KC-46’s troubled remote vision system, and is moving toward finalizing the design of the “2.0” overhaul of the system. The Air Force is more focused on the 2.0 overhaul, and “we’ve completed nearly every aspect of the design”…