Lift Challenge

https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/lift

by mhb • 1 month ago

42 48 1 month ago

This is being announced to us or everyone right now? It's only around 10 weeks away: that seems surprisingly close. Have some folk already been made aware & have they had time to build for this DARPA Challenges? Generally I think of them as longer running challenges.

ThunderBee• 1 month ago

this competition was announced October last year. IIRC registration ended sometime Q1 this year.

fc417fc8024• 1 month ago

Generally I think of them as longer running challenges.

Given how outlandish the ratio requirement is compared to currently available products I expect this one will be recurring for at least a few years similar to what happened with the self driving challenge 20ish years ago.

mhb4• 1 month ago

I'm looking forward to the DARPA Challenge to create a service where you can sign up to be emailed about new challenges. This one started October, 2025. More details at https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/lift/competitors

"Phase 1 | Launch

October 2025

Special Notice publishing (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.

Website launches (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.

Rules and prize announcement (Oct. 23): Detailed draft rules and prize structure are announced, specifying objective and subjective judging criteria."

Schlagbohrer• 1 month ago

Darpa.mil got slashdotted? Wow. The folks who invented the internet...

emsign• 1 month ago

The military is waking up to the need to adapt frontline logistics. With killrates of 90% for traditional trucks in the Ukraine war, without resupply missions by UAVs/UGVs holding positions is impossible now.

fc417fc8024• 1 month ago

If the truck killrate is 90% what is it for troop transports? How do infantry get in and out of position?

sneezychl• 1 month ago

How do infantry get in and out of position?

They don't. Life expectancy of a Russian on the front line is hours. You just send in another wave.

lukan2• 1 month ago

Armored carriers if avaiable.

torginus• 1 month ago

Quads and dirt bikes afaik.

KptMarchewa• 1 month ago

On foot, walking 20km+ to the position.

blini-kot2• 1 month ago

on foot (not 20km, usually its something like 3-5km AFAIK, 20km is the width of both sides strongpoints + no-mans-land between), or on some fast and agile one-way craft: motorcycles, buggies, e-bikes

the key idea is that you need something which can get you onto the enemy position either before hunter drones take off, or that a drone won't take out the whole complement, hence the uselessness of trucks

going on foot is not really due to the human wave nature of the attacks, but rather its like WW1 stosstruppen - they use whatever cover they can find and a squad of 4 on foot is much easier to go through bushes used as cover or when weather is not suitable for flying

of note here is that trucks were not really used for transport on the tactical level on the frontline, however lately (with drones from destinus) logistics runs in the rear have also become a problem even 100km+ deep - thats where the 90% killrate figure comes from

brador• 1 month ago

Really just a battery challenge.

Possibly against laws of physics at energy density of 4x?

eichin• 1 month ago

I saw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohImHa4f5U (Hoarder Sam, "I'm building a drone for the DARPA lift challenge") the other day and it was a pretty good discussion of the "shape of the envelope" of the problem (and what kind of lift ratios actually exist in modern air vehicles), and particularly how they've set up the constraints to eliminate a bunch of "easy" approaches.

It also reminded me that for the first round of the self-driving grand challenge, none of the vehicles even completed the course :-) They really are trying to encourage "out of the box", or at least "not in the obvious box", designs...

echoangle3• 1 month ago

It doesn’t prescribe batteries as far as I can see. You can also build a gasoline powered vehicle which would get you roughly 6 times the energy density.

bob1029• 1 month ago

Competitors must create an aircraft that is both lightweight and powerful – lifting at least 4x its weight while flying a 5-nautical-mile circuit course.

I'd make it 50NM. 5 is way too easy to bullshit with edge case engineering. Alternatively, set a minimum payload capacity of something like 100kg.

TeMPOraL2• 1 month ago

Maybe "edge case engineering" is precisely what they're looking for? Get people to think about beating the rules with cheesy strategies, in hopes some of those could, with some cleverness, scale up and evolve into proper, broad-range solution - or at least become a key previously-missing component of one. But even if it can't, very narrow capabilities can still be useful too; military isn't beyond doing silly things if they offer enough tactical advantage (enough to offset extra burden on logistics, at least).

xnx• 1 month ago

Giant hot air balloon for lift + 4 rotors for steering? It wouldn't be fast, but it might work [in low wind conditions].

mhb4• 1 month ago

Rules exclude that approach.

echoangle3• 1 month ago

https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/lift/rules

Forbidden in 3.7

echoangle3• 1 month ago

How would you build a bullshit solution to move 2.5 pound around a 5 mile course (maneuvering) with a vehicle weight below 0.63 pound? I think if you solve that it’s not a bullshit solution but actually useful.

Legend2440• 1 month ago

From the rules:

110 pounds is the minimum payload weight to receive a qualifying score.

childintime• 1 month ago

CATL is working on 12000 Wh/kg air batteries, they will solve this problem, give them the prize.

dang• 1 month ago

[stub for offtopicness]

[title fixed now]

konchunas• 1 month ago

It's Heavy Lift, not life

kreelman• 1 month ago

When life gets tough...

Contact DARPA for a lift !

A_D_E_P_T• 1 month ago

Heavy life challenge: Biology usually discriminates against heavy isotopes. Can we reverse, redirect, or exploit that tendency? Find a way to get plants and bacteria to preferentially incorporate heavy atomic isotopes.

Use microbes, algae, duckweed, or plant-cell cultures to produce deuterated and 13C/15N-labeled complex biomolecules that are expensive or impractical to synthesize chemically.

Could be fun, honestly.

neonstatic• 1 month ago

You think your life is heavy, huh? You might want to check out this challenge...

zx8080• 1 month ago

Typo in title: "lift" not "life"

cc @dang

sysreq_3• 1 month ago

Been working this for a few months now. It’s not a crazy hard problem - but it does break the mold of distance and speed taking priority over capacity. If you have any questions feel free to ask. I can get into the pros/cons of all the various options and tuning knobs.

AndrewKemendo2• 1 month ago

Why do you find it ethically ok to continue to support the Department of Defense/War?

mhb4• 1 month ago

How does the cognitive dissonance of having the luxury to express that opinion while being protected by the most powerful military in the world not rip you apart?

stevage• 1 month ago

Yeah I'd be interested to hear more about what the options might be. Also curious why it is that DARPA thinks this is solvable, but no one has come close yet.

sysreq_3• 1 month ago

The tunable influences on a rotor are primarily velocity (rotation speed) and surface area (radius). Conceptually it’s more similar to something like a human powered helicopter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVelo_Atlas) than you might expect.

Catloafdev• 1 month ago

not a crazy hard problem

Saw the one video linked here comparing other existing transport ratios, and asking for double that is 'not crazy hard'? It certainly sounds like a challenge.

uberex• 1 month ago

Hydrogen-filled balloon wins

le-mark• 1 month ago

Not allowed by the rules.

sysreq_3• 1 month ago

The container required to hold 100 m^3 of compressed gas easily breaks your weight limit. Viable but not viable given the rules.

stratosgear• 1 month ago

Hate that "warfighter" has entered our vocabulary. It's so kitsch...

Lift Challenge

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