AlphaPilot — Lockheed Martin AI Drone Racing Innovation Challenge

Team MAVLAB of The Netherlands, is $1 million richer after their autonomous drone won the 2019 Artificial Intelligence Robotic Racing (AIRR) Circuit race. The team is part of a drone research lab from Delft University of Technology where they developed algorithms to drive their  autonomous drone through the track at a top finishing-time of 12 seconds – 25% faster than the second-place drone.

“AI played a major part in our solution and we are thrilled to see it turned out to be very reliable during many of DRL’s AIRR races. The team worked super hard on this and we are very grateful we were rewarded with this beautiful prize from Lockheed Martin. I would like to congratulate the other AlphaPilot Team finalists for making it this far, and I can’t wait to see how autonomous drone technology innovation will continue to evolve over the next few years,” said Christophe De Wagter, Team MAVLAB Lead.

AIRR, the autonomous drone racing series, accelerates AI innovation through futuristic sports competition. The challenge, sponsored by Lockheed Martin, competed nine international AlphaPilot Teams of students, engineers and programmers from five continents competed in AIRR by developing AI that could autonomously pilot standard, custom-built DRL RacerAI drones the fastest.

“The AlphaPilot open innovation challenge is about going fast, taking risks and pushing the boundaries of AI and autonomous flight,” said Lockheed Martin Chief Technology Officer Keoki Jackson. “We are excited to recognize Team MAVLAB and award them with the $1 million prize, but the most energizing part of this competition is seeing how Lockheed Martin’s partnership with DRL inspired great emerging global AI talent to help our world leverage AI and autonomous technologies.”   

As a bonus lap to push the limits of performance between human and machine, Team MAVLAB participated in an AI vs. human-piloted drone race. Both flying the DRL RacerAI drone, Team MAVLAB’s AI raced against DRL Pilot Gabriel “Gab707” Kocher, one of the best drone pilots in the world, who competes in the 2019 DRL Allianz World Championship Season. While DRL Pilot Gab707 won the race, finishing in six seconds, five seconds faster than Team MAVLAB, showcasing the ever-closing gap in performance between AI and humans.

Through this series, Lockheed Martin was able to foster a growing community of artificial intelligence experts by providing a high-visibility opportunity to shine and compete, while simultaneously catalyzing innovative approaches toward autonomous systems command and control.

This program was financed through tax returns and demonstrates our commitment toward STEM and giving back to the community. 

For fans interested in watching the futuristic final of AI-powered drones racing against each other, DRL will air highlights from the AIRR Championship on Sunday, Dec. 29 at 4 p.m. ET on NBC and via @DroneRaceLeague on Twitter.