Taking a leaf from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Research and Engineering Directorate has initiated a prize effort to entice “inventive and novel approaches to solve problems of US military interest. DARPA has used big bucks to spark interest in such endeavors as new robotic vehicles. In its first foray, DDR&E is offering a $1 million prize for a wearable electric power system that would reduce the weight “dismounted warfighters” must carry to support their load of electronic equipment. Potential competitors will get a briefing this fall and must register by Nov. 30. DDR&E, which plans to conduct the competition in fall 2008, has set up a new prize Web site utilizing the old Uncle Sam Wants You image and the catchphrase “Could You be the Winner?”
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…