A Nevada Engineering team has been selected to compete in a national military competition designed to advance heavy-lift drone technology.
The DARPA Lift Challenge, Aug. 2-9 at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, offers $6.5 million in prizes. The Lift Challenge is the latest in a series of national competitions organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — DARPA — to spur development in emerging technologies.
The five-person 夜色视频 team will compete against 123 other invited teams from small businesses, startups and academia. It is the only Nevada-based team in the competition.
Led by electrical engineering Professor Hao Xu, the Nevada Engineering team — Tactical Intelligent Transport for Autonomous Aerial Logistics (TITAN) — was among the first group of competitors announced on June 8. Their design is a 6-arm drone with 12 propellers total, designed to carry 3.27 pounds of payload for every pound of aircraft weight.
Undergraduate students Owen Kirpes and Cash Walker along with graduate students Matthew Goecker and Christopher-Jerrell Mengu have been working since February to build their prototype and now are completing a second aircraft to take to the competition as a backup if anything fails on the original.
“I’ve been working with them in the past few months on the project,” Xu said. “This team is very good. They’re working very collectively ... this team is very efficient.”
Team effort
The challenge was issued in a Nov. 13, 2025 news release: “The DARPA Lift Challenge aims to shatter the heavy lift bottleneck, seeking novel drone designs that carry payloads more than four times their weight, which would revolutionize the way we use drones across all sectors.”
Designs were required to weigh less than 55 pounds and be capable of lifting a minimum payload of 110 pounds across the set, 5-nautical-mile course. TITAN’s prototype, with a 3.27-to-1 payload-to-weight ratio, can generate a total thrust of 444 pounds, according to the team’s final concept paper.
“Our design is a dodecahexacopter, which means there’s 12 rotors,” Kirpes, who is majoring in aerospace engineering, said. “Each arm is stacked with two propellers, so we have 12 propellers in total. Most of the structure is made of carbon fiber, joined together with aluminum parts, so everything is light and strong.”
Kirpes is leading in the drone’s frame and propulsion development.
Electrical engineering graduate student Goecker, who holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, designed the drone’s wing system and helped optimize its aerodynamic performance. Mengu, who also is pursuing a graduate degree in electrical engineering, designed the drone’s electronic systems, which distribute power, incorporating a double redundant backup to help the aircraft operate safely.
Walker, who is majoring in mechanical engineering and is a FAA-certified drone pilot, is leading in systems design and serving as the flight director. He’ll also oversee flight operations during testing and competition.
During the competition, the drone will operate autonomously along a 1,000-foot course, traveling back and forth 15 times at a predetermined altitude. As pilot, Walker will handle the flight plan, monitor the drone in competition and ensure that it complies with FAA rules.
It’s definitely a team effort, and that team extends beyond the TITAN members.
Xu estimates that the drone research and development costs about $50,000, an expense supported by the Bean Space Foundation and the Department of Defense center CREDIT+: Advancing Data Analysis for Mission-Critical Applications in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, of which Xu is a founding member. The team also worked with the Nevada UAS Test Site to conduct flight tests.
Despite the prize money and national exposure, Xu says simply qualifying for the Lift Challenge brings opportunity.
“There’s going to be a lot of interesting opportunity and fruitful discussion among national partners for us to boost Nevada drone R&D and workforce development,” he said.
