The U.S. Air Force is looking for companies with ideas for drone technologies and is doing so with a competition to be held at Northeastern's state-of-the-art drone testing research facility on July 24.
The Pitch Day competition in Kostas Research Institute marks the first of a dozen Air Force competitions scheduled for this year and the second such competition it has ever held. The purpose of these events is to help the Air Force find companies that can help the military solve national security challenges in areas such as space, hypersonics, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems.
For the July 24 competition, the Air Force is inviting companies that develop all types of drone technologies. These technologies include payloads that can defeat other drones, payloads to detect weather hazards to help drones navigate safely, and systems that can deal with large groups of drones that pose a security threat.
The decision to hold an event focused on drone technology at Northeastern's Innovation Campus in Burlington, Mass., was a natural one, he says Peter Boyntonthe managing director of the Kostas Research Institute and professor of medicine at Northeastern.
“Because the Air Force is now doing so much work working with our researchers at KRI, I think the opportunity to host this Pitch Day became obvious,” says Boynton. “It just made sense to use this facility with our new and really unique research facilities here – and because this is a place where they already work.”
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center has allocated $2.8 million to fund research through its unit at Hanscom Air Force Basewhich is a short drive from Northeastern's Innovation Campus. The partnership between Hanscom and Northeastern allows the Air Force to adapt to the rapidly changing commercial market for autonomous and unmanned aircraft systems, known as UAS.
“The fact that the Air Force is holding Pitch Day here is really a validation of George Costa's vision to bring together faculty, companies and mission-focused organizations to innovate quickly,” Boynton says, referring to Northeastern's late 1943 whose lifetime investments have been integral to advancing the university's research in nanotechnology and homeland security.
The July 24th event will be divided into three parts. During the morning session, 13 companies will present their proposals in 15-minute sessions before a panel of judges made up of Air Force personnel. Presenters with the best ideas will receive immediate funding for the first phase of their projects.
“When a company wins their pitch, the Air Force brings them into an adjacent conference room and they swipe a credit card and give them their funding right then and there,” says Boynton. This rapid approach, he says, will allow entrepreneurs to quickly build and test prototypes for new technologies.
“We haven't seen any other government agency able to be as nimble and as quick to fund entrepreneurial talent as the Air Force is now,” he says. “Instead of six months, they cut it down to six minutes.”
During the second part of the program – open to the press – the results of the competition will be announced and a handful of the winning companies will be invited to present their technologies. Drone demonstrations will be held at of the installation anechoic chamber and Faraday cageand will be followed by a networking event with national security agencies, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's aeronautics division and other agencies.
The Air Force's inaugural Pitch Day was held in March in New York, where from more than 400 submissions, the Air Force invited 59 companies to submit their proposals, awarding 51 contracts totaling $8.75 million.
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