Strategic Alliance Business Group LLC (SABG) is pleased to announce our recent participation in the 2021 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Forecasting Floats in Turbulence (FFT) Challenge.
Participants were invited to create innovative solutions to incorporate Lagrangian drifters into ocean models and forecasts to better understand the impact of wind, waves, and current on the surface of the ocean and their effect on objects floating at sea.
DARPA explains the competition process:
“The goal of the challenge was to spur development of algorithms to better predict where free-drifting floats will travel over time. Competitors developed algorithms or other methods to predict where 90 Sofar Spotter drifters – about the size of a basketball – floating freely in the Atlantic would travel over a 10-day period. Each team received the previous 20 days of location data from the drifters’ GPS coordinates. Using that data, teams attempted to predict where the spotters would travel a week and a half into the future.”
The aim, apart from generating friendly competition, is to advance methodologies used for persistent, large-scale, low-cost sensor platforms. Real-life applications of such platforms include oil spill cleanup efforts and search and rescue operations.
Employee Chris Ylitalo represented SABG and generated a strong performance. Out of 44 qualifier teams, he placed 17th. SABG takes pride in our employees’ initiative to promote innovation, solve real world problems, and challenge themselves intellectually. We commend Chris and everyone who participated.
SABG is a privately-owned professional services company that is both a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned and Women-Owned Small Business. We provide support to commercial and Federal Government customers in the areas of Engineering Services, Program Management, Strategic Planning, Warfighter Integration, Acquisition Management, and Facility Operations.
