Airgility, an autonomous and intelligent robotics company, has advanced to the final round of competition for the MoSAIC Challenge.
The College Park, Maryland-based company said Thursday it has been selected to move forward in the competition, which is designed to spur breakthroughs and modernizations in remote autonomous indoor missions.
The MoSAIC, or Mobile Standoff Autonomous Indoor Capabilities, Challenge is facilitated by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Merge Institute.
Pramod Raheja, Airgility co-founder and CEO, said the collaboration “is very interesting for Airgility as [the organizations’] combined interests for military and law enforcement tactical operations align well with our current and future aerial robotic solutions.”
The event is broken up into three virtual challenges and two physical challenges. The latter category entails indoor navigation, room mapping and human/object tagging, as well as tactical robotic systems and human presence detection.
For the tactical robotic systems aspect, Airgility will go to Israel and compete with its DS-1 Minotaur drone.
“We are excited to travel to Israel…the selected finalists for the tactical robotic systems demo are all very impressive and some have spent millions of dollars in development,” commented Evandro Valente, Airgility co-founder and chief technology officer.
Valente said the challenge is fitting for Airgility due to the company’s specialization in technologies such as “on-board autonomy algorithms, navigation-specific decision-making and mission-specific decision-making,” in addition to “GPS-denied operations and AI-based anomaly detection.”
Cash and other awards amounting to $600,000 will be distributed to the startup or innovator who crafts the most inventive product for the MoSAIC Challenge. There are prizes in each competition category.
In August 2021, Airgility was chosen to participate in the AFWERX Revolutionizing USAF Flight Line Operations Challenge with its MS-1 Kampe unmanned aircraft system.
