Naomi Cooper
Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, the NavalX Midwest Tech Bridge and the Office of Naval Research have announced EpiSys Science and Draper as the winners of a U.S. Navy challenge focused on providing special operations forces with robotic autonomous systems for small unit maneuver missions.
EpiSys Science placed first and Draper took the second spot in the Artificial Intelligence for Small Unit Maneuvers Prize Challenge for their autonomous technology concepts for unmanned navigation, object recognition and mapping, the Naval Sea Systems Command said Wednesday.
The teams were selected for the $500,000 prize after they participated in a live event at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center during the third phase of the program.
The AISUM team invited 20 participants to present their white paper concepts for Phase I and eight teams were selected to demonstrate their algorithms through a government-provided virtual map for Phase II.
The goal of the challenge was to augment the effectiveness of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities within dense urban environments.
