Drone Racing League launches $2 million autonomous drone competition - VentureBeat

The Drone Racing League (DRL) will host a series of races and competitions where autonomous drones will try to beat a professional drone pilot. Teams of university students and other drone enthusiasts will be invited to compete for more than $2 million. The Artificial Intelligence Robotic Racing (AIRR) Circuit will produce four AI vs. AI races in its inaugural season and will use the same video game-inspired courses as the kinds used by pro drone pilots in the DRL Allianz World Championship, DRL CEO Nicholas Horbaczewski told VentureBeat in an email. Both the AIRR Circuit and the AlphaPilot Innovation Challenge, which pits human versus machine, will take place during the 2019 season. The first drone from an autonomous team to beat a human will receive $250,000, and the winning team of the AIRR Circuit will receive $1 million.