The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has kicked off a competition that challenges participants to develop software-based radios capable of operating in adverse spectrum environments.Eighteen teams from across the country demonstrated prototype systems for the first part of the spectrum challenge held at DARPA’s headquarters in Arlington, Va. on Sept. 11 and 12, the agency said Thursday.
Rutgers University’s wireless information network laboratory built a data visualization platform to illustrate contestants’ use of radio frequencies and progress in transferring files during live matches.
“I expect we’ll see a massive increase in innovation when many teams come back six months from now with completely new designs,” said Yiftach Eisenberg, a DARPA program manager.
“Those designs hopefully will build off the baseline algorithms and techniques we saw, and show us for the first time the reasoning and adaptive capabilities DARPA seeks to deliver,” Eisenberg added.
Teams from Vanderbilt University and Northeastern University won the preliminary event and received $25,000 each, according to the agency.
DARPA will award $150,000 in total cash prizes for the entire competition and hold the final demonstrations in March 2014.
