DARPA Is Ready with Its Next Grand Challenge

With the growing use of electromagnetic spectrum, DARPA has taken a new challenge in hand. The military research agency has launched a new Grand Challenge that will have teams develop artificial intelligence-powered radios that cooperate with each other to avoid wireless congestion. This step is taken as it was essential for DARPA with the growing number of military and civilian wireless devices.

Rather than force devices to use narrow frequency ranges regardless of how crowded they may be, the company would like to see those gadgets negotiate frequency sharing whenever they need it. The agency’s Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2) will reward teams for developing smart systems that collaboratively adapt in real time to today’s fast-changing, congested spectrum environment — redefining the conventional spectrum management roles of humans and machines in order to maximize the flow of radio frequency (RF) signals.

In Las Vegas, DARPA officials unveiled the new Challenge before approximately 8000 engineers and communications professionals gathered at the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE). DARPA will even have to create a giant wireless testbed to see how the competitors fare in relatively realistic conditions.

The Challenge comes at a time of fast-growing need. In order to coordinate and execute their critical missions, military operations increasingly rely on access to the wireless spectrum. But the military is not alone in this challenge: as society enters an era in which ever more products, from refrigerators to automobiles to commercial unmanned aerial vehicles, need access to the spectrum, it will take far more efficient use to meet the demand.

Thus, AI-based radios in the military are something that is going to be very useful as they could keep communications up and running on the battlefield.