Students, scholars and professors at the University of Florida have won a radio frequency-focused contest hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA said Thursday that it held the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge’s championship during an event at Mobile World Congress 2019 that took place Oct 22 to 24 in Los Angeles.
The contest sought technologies that use artificial intelligence to better leverage the radio frequency spectrum. The winning team, known as GatorWings, entered an autonomous radio that demonstrated navigation across wireless spectrum obstacles. GatorWings’ AI engine used reinforcement learning techniques to maximize use of available spectrum bits. The team won the contest’s grand prize of $2 million.
“GatorWings really stepped up their design in the final year, they previously finished fifth and sixth in the preliminary tournaments,†said Mr. Paul Tilghman, DARPA’s program manager for SC2. The competition demonstrated the ability of autonomous wireless networks to address limits of spectrum allotment.
