DARPA FANG Winners Announced

DARPA has announced the winners of its $1 million FANG Challenge project. The three-person Team Ground Systems received the highest score measured against the requirements for the Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle (FANG) competition.

The FANG project was set up to help the military quickly design an amphibious combat vehicle, while simultaneously testing out new crowdsourcing tools. We first wrote about it here. Desktop Engineering also covered the design tools in a Virtual Desktop blog post. 

Since the challenge launched earlier this year, more than 200 design teams (totaling more than 1,000 participants) used the agency’s META design tools and VehicleFOrGE collaboration platform to design and simulate mobility and drivetrain subsystems.

“I’m very pleased with the quality of the submissions we received during the challenge, and we have learned a great deal throughout the process,” said Army Lt. Col. Nathan Wiedenman, DARPA program manager. “The first FANG Challenge has been a great experiment, and the submission of many viable, innovative designs has validated the Adaptive Vehicle Make (AVM) design tools and provided invaluable feedback to continue their development.”

The winning FANG design will be built by the DARPA iFAB program group. The second FANG Challenge will launch later this year, and will focus on the chassis and structural subsystems.

Source: DARPA