Small but mighty: DARPA’s new Lift competition wants drones to carry much, much more

Small drones have so far proven their utility in the commercial sector and on the modern battlefield, but even as the systems proliferate, most are still limited in one key area: the ability to move cargo. 

That’s why the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is launching a new Lift competition that seeks to revolutionize multirotor drone operations, with the goal of designing unmanned systems that can carry up to four times their own weight. By comparison, DARPA says the payload-to-weight ratio for most small drones typically comes in at around one-to-one or less.

“When I’ve talked to military and industry, they have big dreams for drones, and they see a lot of applications. But then when they actually get down to it, the payloads that they want” often require a much larger, more expensive aircraft, Phillip Smith, DARPA’s lead for the Lift contest, told Breaking Defense in an interview.

Read more at Breaking Defense