The research agency DARPA is soliciting the help of smartphone developers to come up with new applications for UAV ISR platforms. What’s the connection you ask? The convergence of networks, processing power, storage, and other functions now well-known and explored in consumer devices could potentially be applied to UAV platforms. The example given is the desire to fly a “swarm of small deployed UAVs to be controlled as a single unit.”
It’s funny to me that the speed at which smartphone developers are able to bring things to market is also one of the appealing attributes. Currently, ISR apps take 3-8 years to develop. I think DARPA’s got the right idea by creating a Think Tank scenario to get as many ideas through the door as possible and then to narrow it down rather than hire a team of developers right off the bat and limit their options. It’s very Apple in approach and hopefully it’ll work out for them. If you’re a developer, this could be a pretty cool project. To find out more on how to submit a proposal check out FedBizOpps.gov.
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