This contest is organized by Alibaba Cloud and the Met Office, the United Kingdom’s national meteorological service, inviting data enthusiasts from around the world to develop solutions relating to a potential future world in which deliveries by unmanned balloons must be optimized to navigate the variability of the UK weather.
The scenario is set in the future—in the year of 2050, a world where the invention of “anti-gravity engines” has led to the creation of unmanned balloons as the preferred logistics solution. However, because of the UK’s complex meteorological conditions, the balloons are occasionally delayed, damaged or even destroyed by extreme weather conditions causing disruption and loss. The contestants will be challenged to create algorithms that can plan flight routes for these balloons to navigate the endless variation and changeable nature across the UK to optimize their delivery schedules and costs.
The objective of the contest is to develop an efficient navigation algorithm for cargo balloons while avoiding volatile weathers. In the future not so far away, propelled cargo balloons set out daily from Hyde Park London to 10 destination cities in Britain. If the wind is too strong, cargo balloons will be destroyed in midair. Thus the flight paths of these balloons are planned before each flight, based on the weather forecast by the Met Office. However, the weather forecast is usually 90~95% accurate. The Met Office runs 10 different forecast models every day and results in slightly different forecasts each more or less correct. Given the daily weather forecasts, the champion algorithm will chart the shortest while safe paths for cargo balloons.
Four sorts of data files will be provided to the players: city data, weather forecast data, in-situ measurement weather data, and test data. Some parts of the data sets have been anonymized. We provide weather forecast data and in-situ measurement weather data of five days, which is the same to the test data.
Registration
The Qualification
The Semi-finals
The Finals
Head of Informatics Lab,
the Met Office
Deputy Head of Informatics Lab,
the Met Office
Algorithm Expert,
Alibaba Cloud
Algorithm Expert,
Alibaba Cloud
Algorithm Expert,
Alibaba Cloud