Competition Team
Our Sub-teams
Each sub-team consists of members from the many different majors that work together to streamline the implementation of various systems into the final product.
Airframe
Guidance Navigation Control (GNC)
Mechanisms
Software Core
External Software
Optics & Avionics
Integration and Testing
The Competition
Overview
The competition is held annually at Webster Field in southern Maryland by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). Teams travel from around the world to represent their school, state, and country with a demonstration of their aircraft's capabilities. The competition rules are released in September with three main categories, each scored with different weights: (1) the technical design paper (TDP) (20%), (2) the flight readiness review (FRR) (20%), and (3) the mission demonstration (60%)
TDP
The TDP is due in February. This gives the team five and a half months to design a mission capable drone start to finish, including passing a preliminary design review with our advisors, and documenting our process.
FRR
The FRR is due June 1st. It is 10-minute video submission to the competition judges that proves the team's system is safe to fly.
Mission Demonstration
The Mission Demonstration takes place between June 16th and 18th. The mission consists of 8 separate functions representative of real-world applications; these functions are shown below. The drone completes these tasks autonomously with a human safety pilot on standby in the event of a systems failure.
