Darpa is starting a contest to design pint-size spy drones. But the agency’s proposal for this competition seems almost tailor-made for a group led by Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. This could get awkward.

The Pentagon’s way-out research arm announced today that it’s holding a competition to design unmanned aerial vehicles that cost less than $10,000 each, and can be carried in a rucksack.

That’s old hat for Anderson and his DIY Drones crew, who have been working for years on little robo-planes that cost a fraction of that.

Darpa wants to crowdsource the design and development of these UAVs, with hardware hackers collaborating online to dream up the ultimate robotic flying machine. Funny, that’s exactly what’s been going on at DIY Drones since May of 2007.

In recent years, Darpa has gone searching for all sorts of ways to tap collective wisdom, as a way of circumventing the Beltway bandits that typically dominate defense contracting. The agency has tried to crowdsource everything from military vehicle design to intelligence analysis.

Like Darpa’s previous “Red Balloon” network challenge, this UAVForge effort will have a competitive element, too.

According to the agency’s research call, teams will collaborate online to come up with designs for drones “that fly to and perch in useful locations at several kilometers range for periods of several hours, and provide continuous, real-time surveillance without dedicated or specialized operators.” (That’s something Anderson’s robo-planes can’t do today.) The winning team “will receive a $100,000 prize and an invitation to participate in an exclusive overseas military demonstration exercise.”

Before that final goal, however, the winners will have to pass a series of milestones. First, competitors will upload videos to YouTube “to advertise their skills.” A second YouTube clip will “demonstrate early flight behaviors.” Then, there’s a live video demo, from which 10 teams will be picked — and given $15,000 each — to participate in a “fly-off.” The winner of that gets the hundred grand, and a chance to see their drone fly during a 2012 wargame.

If this all sounds to you like America’s Next Top Drone Model, you’re not alone. But just like on Tyra’s TV show, the real winners here are the folks who produce the competition.

Darpa says it’ll give some lucky company $2 million to set up this UAVForge effort, and build 15 of the drones that come out of it. Take the designers’ fees out, and that firm should get $1,750,000 to build a handful of small UAVs, run a website and judge an online competition. I’m guessing there’s room for a healthy profit margin in there.

I suppose I should wish Chris Anderson the best of luck. But if my boss suddenly becomes my beat, it’s gonna make those Darpa conflict-of-interest stories much harder to write.

Photo: Chris Anderson