Lockheed Martin has partnered with the Drone Racing League to create the AlphaPilot competition . The tournament is designed to encourage research into autonomous vehicles , which will have important future applications , such as in disaster response . The series pits two autonomous drones against each other to reach the Artificial Intelligence Robotic Racing Challenge finals , with a prize of $ 500 m for the winner . An additional $ 250,000 will be awarded if the team can beat a human pilot . The competition has been developed to improve the devices ' ability to respond to their environment , which is critical to their real - world application .
Lockheed Martin has partnered with the Drone Racing League to create the AlphaPilot competition. The tournament is designed to encourage research into autonomous vehicles, which will have important future applications, such as in disaster response. The series pits 430 autonomous drones against each other to reach the Artificial Intelligence Robotic Racing Circuit finals, with a prize of $1m for the winner. An additional $250,000 will be awarded if the team can beat a human pilot. The competition has been developed to improve the devices' ability to respond to their environment, which is critical to their real-world application.