The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency conducted the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge’s second and final preliminary event on Dec. 12 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, DARPA said Wednesday.
The qualifier saw teams comprised of academic, commercial and defense representatives utilize machine-intelligence technologies for various scenarios involving radio frequency operations.
Six of the eight teams that garnered top scores won $750K each as part of the SC2 event, which covered a wide range of RF scenarios including interference mitigation, high-traffic spectrum demands and other connectivity issues.
DARPA selected the six winners based on the sixth scenario, which saw competitors develop autonomous RF capabilities such as those enabling radios to carry wireless applications without relying on handcrafted spectrum plans.
Paul Tilghman, DARPA’s program manager for SC2, said the six scenarios were aligned to actual situations that involve both defense and commercial systems.
All the 15 participating teams were invited to compete for the SC2 grand finale which will be held concurrently with MWC19 in Los Angeles, Calif., on Oct. 23, 2019.
DARPA partnered with trade association CTIA for the MWC19 event.