The Library of Congress plans to launch a prize competition for citizen coders to suggest ideas on how to modernize public access to the government’s legislative data, FCW reported Tuesday.

Bud Barton, chief information officer at LOC, said at the Legislative Data and Transparency Conference the library will seek applications for its legislative data application challenge in the coming weeks.

The competition aims to help the public understand the legislative process through the development of systems that would merge centuries-old data with modern technology.

Barton added he envisions apps that generate digital comparisons of data produced over decades or display legislative topics that may encourage collaboration between members of Congress.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency put unmanned quadcopters through a series of tests to demonstrate autonomous flight without the aid of human operators or global positioning systems.

DARPA said Wednesday three research teams under the Fast Lightweight Autonomy program flew small unmanned quadcopters through various environments using onboard cameras and sensors as well as smart algorithms for autonomous navigation.

“The goal of FLA is to develop advanced algorithms to allow unmanned air or ground vehicles to operate without the guidance of a human tele-operator, GPS, or any datalinks going to or coming from the vehicle,” said JC Lede, DARPA FLA program manager.

The technology is intended to support unmanned aerial vehicle flights in GPS-denied or GPS-unavailable environments and aid military operations or search and rescue missions, among others, DARPA said.

During the tests, researchers provided targets or objectives for the UAVs by uploading images or estimated direction and distance.

The quadcopters had to self-navigate through various obstacle-strewn locations such as building interiors, wooded areas and a hangar before flying back to the starting point.

At least one team managed to complete an autonomous flight and see their vehicle return to the starting point during each day’s obstacle-course runs, DARPA noted.

“We’ve still got quite a bit of work to do to enable full autonomy for the wide-ranging scenarios we tested, but I think the algorithms we’re developing could soon be used to augment existing GPS-dependent UAVs for some applications,” Lede noted.

He added that current UAVs could use GPS until it enters a building, then switch to FLA algorithms while indoors.

The Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology directorate has collaborated with the Army Research Laboratory to deploy a new virtual training platform that works to help first responders coordinate their tactics for active shooter incidents.

DHS said Monday the Enhanced Dynamic Geo-Social Environment is a free multiplayer online tool that is based on the Unreal gaming engine and designed to deliver collaborative role-play scenarios to train responders.

“We wanted to create a platform that could instantly be used by response agencies to meet specific training needs, using their own standard operating procedures,” said Milt Nenneman, EDGE program manager for the First Responders Group within the S&T directorate.

FRG co-developed EDGE with the Army Simulation and Training Technology Center, Training and Doctrine Command and Cole Engineering Services.

The virtual environment of the training platform serves to help first responders build on their coordination and communication for active shooter incidents while preventing injuries and casualties, DHS noted.

“When decisions must be made in a matter of seconds, every bit of training helps to save civilian and responder lives,” said William Bryan, acting undersecretary for science and technology at DHS.

Cole Engineering will distribute EDGE and provide technical support to interested response organizations.

EDGE currently uses a hotel active shooter scenario, and DHS said the team will release a new school shooting scenario for the technology in the fall.