DARPA Wants Help Building a Drone That Flies Like a Hawk

DillyTonto writes DARPA has put out a call for ideas on how to build a fast, autonomous, maneuverable UAV that can fly up to 45 mph, navigate without assistance from humans or GPS into and through buildings that are a labyrinth of stairwells, small rooms, narrow hallways and terrorists. DARPA wants this drone to fly like the bird in this awesome hawk POV video that shows it shooting through gaps narrow enough it has to tuck its wings to get through. If you can watch the video without thinking of the forest moon of Endor, there may be some movies you should watch over the holidays.

Comments

Prototype is already built

[gatkinso]

Having working in the incestuous realm of DARPA, what I can tell you is that somebody already has a proof of concept pretty much ready to go. Since I have to be billed as "fair" they put out the RFP (with a ridiculously short deadline - which is no problem for the folks with the almost working prototype). This company is in cahoots with the DARPA PM, who in all probability worked at that company in the not too distant past.

This is how it is at DARPA.