alt.hn

6/19/2026 at 5:01:19 AM

Lift Challenge

 https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/lift

by mhb

6/19/2026 at 8:04:19 AM

> Competitors must create an aircraft that is both lightweight and powerful – lifting at least 4x its weight while flying a 5-nautical-mile circuit course.

I'd make it 50NM. 5 is way too easy to bullshit with edge case engineering. Alternatively, set a minimum payload capacity of something like 100kg.

by bob1029

6/19/2026 at 8:26:17 AM

Maybe "edge case engineering" is precisely what they're looking for? Get people to think about beating the rules with cheesy strategies, in hopes some of those could, with some cleverness, scale up and evolve into proper, broad-range solution - or at least become a key previously-missing component of one. But even if it can't, very narrow capabilities can still be useful too; military isn't beyond doing silly things if they offer enough tactical advantage (enough to offset extra burden on logistics, at least).

by TeMPOraL

6/19/2026 at 5:04:16 PM

From the rules:

>110 pounds is the minimum payload weight to receive a qualifying score.

by Legend2440

6/19/2026 at 8:49:18 AM

Giant hot air balloon for lift + 4 rotors for steering? It wouldn't be fast, but it might work [in low wind conditions].

by xnx

6/19/2026 at 12:48:42 PM

Rules exclude that approach.

by mhb

6/19/2026 at 4:57:06 PM

How would you build a bullshit solution to move 2.5 pound around a 5 mile course (maneuvering) with a vehicle weight below 0.63 pound? I think if you solve that it’s not a bullshit solution but actually useful.

by echoangle

6/19/2026 at 5:08:20 PM

Hate that "warfighter" has entered our vocabulary. It's so kitsch...

by stratosgear

6/19/2026 at 10:07:23 AM

CATL is working on 12000 Wh/kg air batteries, they will solve this problem, give them the prize.

by childintime

6/19/2026 at 4:55:51 PM

Been working this for a few months now. It’s not a crazy hard problem - but it does break the mold of distance and speed taking priority over capacity. If you have any questions feel free to ask. I can get into the pros/cons of all the various options and tuning knobs.

by sysreq_

6/19/2026 at 6:25:54 PM

> not a crazy hard problem

Saw the one video linked here comparing other existing transport ratios, and asking for double that is 'not crazy hard'? It certainly sounds like a challenge.

by Catloafdev

6/19/2026 at 5:07:09 PM

Yeah I'd be interested to hear more about what the options might be. Also curious why it is that DARPA thinks this is solvable, but no one has come close yet.

by stevage

6/19/2026 at 5:24:26 PM

The tunable influences on a rotor are primarily velocity (rotation speed) and surface area (radius). Conceptually it’s more similar to something like a human powered helicopter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVelo_Atlas) than you might expect.

by sysreq_

6/19/2026 at 5:04:10 PM

Why do you find it ethically ok to continue to support the Department of Defense/War?

by AndrewKemendo

6/19/2026 at 6:54:33 PM

How does the cognitive dissonance of having the luxury to express that opinion while being protected by the most powerful military in the world not rip you apart?

by mhb

6/19/2026 at 7:17:07 PM

Do you just follow me around with the same tired argument?

Again…I spent 17 years as a military officer I’m not hearing anything from someone that hasn’t served anything.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48478867

by AndrewKemendo

6/20/2026 at 12:32:41 AM

> Do you just follow me around with the same tired argument?

Indeed not. You're the one who made the comment on something I submitted.

by mhb

6/19/2026 at 7:09:32 AM

The military is waking up to the need to adapt frontline logistics. With killrates of 90% for traditional trucks in the Ukraine war, without resupply missions by UAVs/UGVs holding positions is impossible now.

by emsign

6/19/2026 at 7:29:41 AM

If the truck killrate is 90% what is it for troop transports? How do infantry get in and out of position?

by fc417fc802

6/19/2026 at 8:45:52 AM

on foot (not 20km, usually its something like 3-5km AFAIK, 20km is the width of both sides strongpoints + no-mans-land between), or on some fast and agile one-way craft: motorcycles, buggies, e-bikes

the key idea is that you need something which can get you onto the enemy position either before hunter drones take off, or that a drone won't take out the whole complement, hence the uselessness of trucks

going on foot is not really due to the human wave nature of the attacks, but rather its like WW1 stosstruppen - they use whatever cover they can find and a squad of 4 on foot is much easier to go through bushes used as cover or when weather is not suitable for flying

of note here is that trucks were not really used for transport on the tactical level on the frontline, however lately (with drones from destinus) logistics runs in the rear have also become a problem even 100km+ deep - thats where the 90% killrate figure comes from

by blini-kot

6/19/2026 at 11:47:24 AM

> however lately (with drones from destinus) logistics runs in the rear have also become a problem even 100km+ deep

That is quite interesting but in light of that my original question remains (except shifted 100 km back) what about troop transport? Are the combatants suffering a 90% killrate on all their large vehicles near the front or if not then what is special about logistics runs?

by fc417fc802

6/20/2026 at 1:55:25 AM

90% killrate might be a little bit of a stretch, but the problem is real, although not for all locations and not for all types of vehicles -- small civilian SUVs and various humvee-like trucks don't have that problem: more agility and speed. Most importantly, however, is the tuning of a CNN aborad autonomous killer drone, those can figure out the military 6x6 target as it is sufficiently large and distinct to be targeted autonomously, but for smaller trucks its still a problem

So the answer for troop transport and some of the logistics shifted onto smaller vehicles, although the tendency have been there the whole war -- the key innovation was the use of small drones for recon, which basically lifted fog of war and increased kill chain speed for inter-unit operation, i.e. infantry calls an artillery strike precisely on target and from the comfort of a pillbox equipped with a large screen to monitor feeds from 5-10 recon drones hovering 24/7 over allied positions

by blini-kot

6/19/2026 at 7:33:44 AM

> How do infantry get in and out of position?

They don't. Life expectancy of a Russian on the front line is hours. You just send in another wave.

by sneezychl

6/19/2026 at 7:47:14 AM

If that were the case then there wouldn't be anyone there to receive the resupply to begin with.

by fc417fc802

6/19/2026 at 8:01:07 AM

Also .. if that were the case russia would not find volunteers anymore, as the large majority of russian soldiers in Ukraine are there by free will, not because they were force drafted.

Edit, I forgot, most are not aware of that:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-conscripts-war-combat...

by lukan

6/19/2026 at 8:25:43 AM

On foot, walking 20km+ to the position.

by KptMarchewa

6/19/2026 at 8:06:55 AM

Quads and dirt bikes afaik.

by torginus

6/19/2026 at 8:03:31 AM

Armored carriers if avaiable.

by lukan

6/19/2026 at 6:50:09 AM

This is being announced to us or everyone right now? It's only around 10 weeks away: that seems surprisingly close. Have some folk already been made aware & have they had time to build for this DARPA Challenges? Generally I think of them as longer running challenges.

by jauntywundrkind

6/19/2026 at 12:53:48 PM

I'm looking forward to the DARPA Challenge to create a service where you can sign up to be emailed about new challenges. This one started October, 2025. More details at https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/lift/competitors

"Phase 1 | Launch

October 2025

Special Notice publishing (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.

Website launches (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.

Rules and prize announcement (Oct. 23): Detailed draft rules and prize structure are announced, specifying objective and subjective judging criteria."

by mhb

6/19/2026 at 7:31:40 AM

> Generally I think of them as longer running challenges.

Given how outlandish the ratio requirement is compared to currently available products I expect this one will be recurring for at least a few years similar to what happened with the self driving challenge 20ish years ago.

by fc417fc802

6/19/2026 at 6:54:46 AM

this competition was announced October last year. IIRC registration ended sometime Q1 this year.

by ThunderBee

6/19/2026 at 4:58:55 PM

Hydrogen-filled balloon wins

by uberex

6/19/2026 at 5:10:14 PM

The container required to hold 100 m^3 of compressed gas easily breaks your weight limit. Viable but not viable given the rules.

by sysreq_

6/19/2026 at 5:05:20 PM

Not allowed by the rules.

by le-mark

6/19/2026 at 7:50:16 AM

Really just a battery challenge.

Possibly against laws of physics at energy density of 4x?

by brador

6/19/2026 at 8:00:57 AM

I saw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohImHa4f5U (Hoarder Sam, "I'm building a drone for the DARPA lift challenge") the other day and it was a pretty good discussion of the "shape of the envelope" of the problem (and what kind of lift ratios actually exist in modern air vehicles), and particularly how they've set up the constraints to eliminate a bunch of "easy" approaches.

It also reminded me that for the first round of the self-driving grand challenge, none of the vehicles even completed the course :-) They really are trying to encourage "out of the box", or at least "not in the obvious box", designs...

by eichin

6/19/2026 at 4:54:20 PM

It doesn’t prescribe batteries as far as I can see. You can also build a gasoline powered vehicle which would get you roughly 6 times the energy density.

by echoangle

6/19/2026 at 7:03:02 AM

Darpa.mil got slashdotted? Wow. The folks who invented the internet...

by Schlagbohrer

6/19/2026 at 4:39:32 PM

[stub for offtopicness]

[title fixed now]

by dang

6/19/2026 at 8:28:59 AM

Typo in title: "lift" not "life"

cc @dang

by zx8080

6/19/2026 at 7:28:41 AM

You think your life is heavy, huh? You might want to check out this challenge...

by neonstatic

6/19/2026 at 6:47:58 AM

It's Heavy Lift, not life

by konchunas

6/19/2026 at 8:39:53 AM

Heavy life challenge: Biology usually discriminates against heavy isotopes. Can we reverse, redirect, or exploit that tendency? Find a way to get plants and bacteria to preferentially incorporate heavy atomic isotopes.

Use microbes, algae, duckweed, or plant-cell cultures to produce deuterated and 13C/15N-labeled complex biomolecules that are expensive or impractical to synthesize chemically.

Could be fun, honestly.

by A_D_E_P_T

6/19/2026 at 9:14:53 AM

I know you're joking, but changes in isotopes mildly affect reduced mass and hence enzyme kinetics. Maize and other C4 plants already preferentially enrich themselves with 13C [0-3] which occasionally buggers up metabolomic experiments. Famously, a few drugs use 2H rather than natural abundance H typically in order to exploit a kinetic isotopic effect and get a better Km in their binding pocket [4].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractionation_of_carbon_isotop... [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7577891/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1734681/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C4_plants [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterated_drug#Examples

by azalemeth

6/19/2026 at 9:32:50 AM

Personally I don't see this as joking, I think this whole space is severely underfunded and could use some publicity and moonshot contests. I mean, think of it, the planet Earth is full of beautiful and diverse nanotechnology that can literally map-reduce complex behavior over individual molecules, and we do so little to use it for practical purposes. Even most advanced manufacturing methods we use are still simple things applied in bulk, counting matter by volume instead of as objects. There's lots of unexplored potential within reach, and here we actually know it can pan out, because we see these processes happening everywhere, all the time, all at once, all around us.

by TeMPOraL

6/19/2026 at 6:49:59 AM

When life gets tough...

Contact DARPA for a lift !

by kreelman