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Contact: Chris Bryant

STARKVILLE, Miss.ā€”Ļć½¶Ö±²„ā€™s Raspet Flight Research Laboratory recently played an integral role in an unmanned aircraft systems flight competition in Starkville, Mississippi, where $720,000 in prize money was awarded through federal innovation funding to drone enthusiasts.

The National Institute of Standards and Technologyā€™s Public Safety Communications Research Division, along with Mississippi State and Kansas State University Aerospace and Technology Campus, hosted the First Responder UAS Triple Challenge; a prize competition for drone enthusiasts to build and operate unmanned aircraft that can better help first responders in emergency situations.

After a weekā€™s worth of competitions, the First Responder UAS Triple Challenge awarded $150,000 in the final stage, part of a total available prize purse of $520,000 for two challenges, to teams of drone enthusiasts for building solutions to help emergency first responders locate multiple missing persons more efficiently.

ā€œWe were impressed with the competitorsā€™ innovative ideas and diligent preparation,ā€ said Tom Brooks, director of the Raspet Flight Lab. ā€œEfforts like this accelerate technology availability to first responders, and we were thrilled to be a part of it.ā€Ā Ā 

Challenge 3.1 winners were selected for improving image detection and enhanced navigation techniques to ā€œclose the distanceā€ more quickly. Winners include:

• First place, Team AMAV from the University of Maryland, $40,000;
• Second place, Team ARCC from Pennsylvania State University, $20,000;
• Third place, Team Aggie from North Carolina A&T State University/Purdue University, $10,000; and
• First Responderā€™s Choice Award, Team AMAV from University of Maryland, $5,000.

In Challenge 3.2, teams were awarded prize money for innovating a cost-effective, robust and easily deployable drone solution which delivers data files in a cellular denied area. Winners of 3.2 include:

• First place, Team ARCC from Pennsylvania State University, $40,000;
• Second place, Team Mantech/FLYT Aerospace, $20,000;
• Third place, Team EpiSci, $10,000; and
• First Responderā€™s Choice Award, Team ARCC from Pennsylvania State University, $5,000.

Finally, the competition awarded prize money to teams for developing an attack and countermeasure on open-source navigation or control software that may disrupt a droneā€™s navigation for Challenge 3.3. The following winners were awarded $30,000 each:

• Team Mantech/FLYT Aerospace;
• Team ARCC from Pennsylvania State University; and
• Team CNA Corporation/RIIS LLC.

Raspetā€™s portion of the effort was coordinated by Shawn McNutt, aviation program manager in the Ļć½¶Ö±²„flight lab.

MSUā€™sĀ Raspet Flight Research LaboratoryĀ is the nationā€™s leading academic research center dedicated to the advancement of unmanned aircraft systems. Raspet is the only institute in the world designated both as the Federal Aviation Administrationā€™s UAS Safety Research Facility and as official UAS Test Sites for both the FAA and the Department of Homeland Security. Home to a fleet of the largest and most capable unmanned aircraft in academic use, Raspet conducts UAS research on behalf of federal agencies and commercial industry.

Ļć½¶Ö±²„is Mississippiā€™s leading university, available online atĀ .