upvote
Your assumption is correct, they were prohibited:

>3.7 Heavier than air: The UAS must be a heavier-than-air aircraft. The use of any lighter-than-air gases to provide buoyant lift is strictly prohibited. Teams may use chemically inert gases for subsystem actuation, safety inerting, and component rigidity, provided that there is no buoyant advantage and the gas is contained in components operating at pressures indicative of mechanical function.

https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/lift/rules

reply
Someone did fly a sort of balloonocopter, a quad copter that used inflated balloons as the cross arms, My disappointment is immeasurable that they were not allowed to use a lifting gas in it. I mean, it flew poorly anyway, but seeing as it is an unmanned vehicle, I would have used hydrogen as my lifting gas, and then when it had a catastrophic failure it would get a viking funeral for free.

As it is, there were some impressive metal fires during crashes, another win for lithium batteries.

reply
Gases? So vacuum is allowed?
reply
I'm currently reading Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds. In the second book, there's a water-world where there are airships, and a whole city held aloft in the air by "vacuum bladders".

I'll admit when I first read that detail in a description of the blimp-like airship the 2 characters are riding right at the beginning of the book, it took me a second to realize exactly what it meant. My understanding of airships like blimps and such hinges on something being in the gas bladder... But yes, nothing is certainly lighter than something! I haven't yet encountered any technical description of how the bladders are constructed, which I look forward to reading.

reply
If you can make a vacuum container lighter than air then go for it.
reply