Watch Video: “GoAERO Global Emergency Response Flyer Competition Announces USD500,000 of Awards to Global Innovators” 

GoAERO and its over­all prize worth more than USD2 mil­lion for an inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion to cre­ate Emer­gency Response Fly­ers, has announced recent­ly that 11 Stage 1 Win­ners (USD100,000) and an addi­tion­al 14 U.S‑based uni­ver­si­ty teams (USD400,000), will receive awards of USD500,000 to take their pro­to­types through to the final fly-off, reports a press release. This com­pe­ti­tion has sup­port from NASA in part­ner­ship with Boe­ing, RTX and Hon­ey­well.

The release explains, “GoAERO is cur­rent­ly com­posed of 198 teams from 85 coun­tries around the globe, who cre­ate their Emer­gency Response Fly­ers. The inno­v­a­tive air­craft being devel­oped through this com­pe­ti­tion will be equipped with cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy to per­form res­cue and response mis­sions after nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, med­ical emer­gen­cies and oth­er human­i­tar­i­an crises. Tech­nol­o­gy that has the poten­tial to save count­less human lives.”

It con­tin­ues, “In the wake of wild­fires in Cal­i­for­nia, flood­ing in Valen­cia, and con­ges­tion snarling traf­fic around the world, these auton­o­my-enabled emer­gency response air­craft are need­ed now more than ever.”

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The 11 Stage 1 win­ners are:-

: A2 Cal (Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia, Unit­ed States)

: CraneAero (Cran­field, Unit­ed King­dom)

: Ele­vate (Delft, Nether­lands)

: Har­mo­ny (Col­lege Sta­tion, TX and Still­wa­ter, OK, Unit­ed States)

: HORYZN (Munich, Ger­many)

: LIFT + UT Austin / Texas Aer­i­al Robot­ics (Austin, Texas, Unit­ed States)

: MOSTAVIO (Toron­to, Ontario, Cana­da)

: MOYA AERO (Sao Jose dos Cam­pos, Brazil)

: Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty (State Col­lege, Penn­syl­va­nia, Unit­ed States)

: Tar­tan Air Res­cue (Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia, Unit­ed States)

: Trek Aero­space (Fol­som, Cal­i­for­nia, Unit­ed States)

The Avi­a­tion Com­pa­nies Involved

The 14 awardees receiv­ing funds from GoAERO with sup­port from NASA’s Uni­ver­si­ty Inno­va­tion project are:-

: Aggie First Response, North Car­oli­na Agri­cul­tur­al & Tech­ni­cal State Uni­ver­si­ty (Greens­boro, NC)

: Air­CRAFT Lab, Saint Louis Uni­ver­si­ty (St. Louis, MO)

: ASCEND Team, Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin (Austin, TX)

: ASDL, Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy (Atlanta, GA)

: CPP.AERO Pega­sus, Cal­i­for­nia Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­si­ty, Pomona (Pomona, CA)

: GoAERO Pur­due, Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty (West Lafayette, IN)

: Har­mo­ny, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty & Okla­homa State Uni­ver­si­ty (Col­lege Sta­tion, TX and Still­wa­ter, OK)

: PSU Swift, Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty (State Col­lege, Penn­syl­va­nia)

: Res­cue Pack, North Car­oli­na State Uni­ver­si­ty (Raleigh, NC)

: Talon Lift, Embry-Rid­dle Aero­nau­ti­cal Uni­ver­si­ty (Day­tona Beach, FL)

: Tar­tan Air Res­cue, Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty (Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia)

: The Sloopy Works, The Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty (Colum­bus, OH)

: VSDDL, Auburn Uni­ver­si­ty (Auburn, AL)

: Vir­ginia Tech, Vir­ginia Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute and State Uni­ver­si­ty (Blacks­burg, VA)

PODCAST: Gwen Lighter of GoAERO Prize and its aim to ‘inspire for­ma­tion of emer­gency response fly­ers’

Gwen Lighter, GoAERO Founder and CEO, com­ment­ed, “Every sec­ond counts in an emer­gency. There is a grow­ing gap between what cur­rent air­craft can do and what first respon­ders need. Emer­gency Response Fly­ers cre­at­ed through the GoAERO com­pe­ti­tion will give every first respon­der life-sav­ing aer­i­al capa­bil­i­ties to ensure dynam­ic response to mod­ern-day emer­gen­cies.” 

She con­tin­ued, “Our Stage 1 win­ners are some of the bright­est minds in the avi­a­tion and engi­neer­ing indus­tries, hail­ing from all over the world.”

The GoAERO Prize chal­lenges engi­neers world­wide to cre­ate portable, ver­sa­tile, and auton­o­my-enabled Emer­gency Response Fly­ers that address not only every­day med­ical emer­gen­cies but also the wors­en­ing state of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, human­i­tar­i­an emer­gen­cies and cli­mate crises around the world. 

Fly­ers must be capa­ble of deliv­er­ing a first respon­der, evac­u­at­ing vic­tims in need, pro­vid­ing emer­gency med­ical sup­plies, and aid­ing in human­i­tar­i­an efforts.

Geoff Hunt, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Prod­uct Strat­e­gy at Pratt & Whit­ney, an RTX busi­ness, remarked, “We are excit­ed by the inno­v­a­tive designs that GoAERO com­peti­tors have pre­sent­ed dur­ing this first stage. Their work con­firms RTX and GoAERO’s shared belief that aero­space inno­va­tion can be har­nessed to con­nect, pro­tect, and dri­ve pos­i­tive change in the world.”

Teams do not need to win a pre­vi­ous stage prize in order to con­tin­ue into the next round of the com­pe­ti­tion, and new teams can join the com­pe­ti­tion at any time, regard­less of whether or not they par­tic­i­pat­ed in pre­vi­ous stages.

Geoff Hunt

Fol­low­ing the Stage 1 announce­ment, GoAERO and its teams will be prepar­ing for Stage 2, where teams are to present either their full-scale or sub-scale fly­ers, where up to eight teams will be award­ed addi­tion­al prize mon­ey based on their pro­to­types. 

After that, the com­pe­ti­tion will enter its GoAERO Fly-Off qual­i­fy­ing peri­od, requir­ing an air­craft that has demon­strat­ed con­trolled flight capa­bil­i­ty with a full pay­load. 

The final Fly-Off event will fea­ture three sep­a­rate mis­sions test­ing spe­cif­ic skills and capa­bil­i­ties rel­e­vant to pub­lic good mis­sions when an addi­tion­al USD1.65 mil­lion will be award­ed to win­ning teams.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.goaeroprize.com

(Top image: GoAERO)

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