Team Finishes First in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Competition
In just its third year of competition, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) team finished first at the International Aerial Robotics Competition held at Fort Benning, Georgia. According to the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the sponsor of the competition, this year’s competition was the most difficult and challenging mission in the history of the International Aerial Robotics Competition.
“This competition pushed each of us to our maximum potential,” UAV team manager D.J. Kjar said. “If we had not all given our full effort we would not have won as many awards as we did. This is one of the greatest teams I have ever been on.”
The School of Mines received the highest overall score in the static events by winning best paper, best presentation and best T-shirt. They also received an honorable mention for best system. The School of Mines was one of only two teams to complete stage one of the actual flying competition by successfully flying the three kilometer route using global positioning system waypoints.
“Completion of the flying stage was really significant,” team advisor Dr. Dan Dolan said. “The team had crashed their primary helicopter just two weeks before competition so they were flying the backup at competition. They crashed the backup helicopter on the practice day at competition because of engine failure and worked through the night to rebuild it. On the day of competition, the team carefully took their first four tries to tune the machine and on the fifth and final flight of the competition successfully flew the stage.”
The UAV team is part of the Center of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing and Production, also known as CAMP, at the School of Mines. CAMP is a program that uses teams to offer an innovative engineering and science education and teach team-building and other skills students need and future employers want.
About International Aerial Robotics Competition:The International Aerial Robotics Competition, sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, challenges students to launch an aerial vehicle, navigate a series of global positioning system waypoints and fly three kilometers to a complex of buildings where the vehicle must search the front of each building for a specified symbol. Then the vehicle must launch a second vehicle that enters the building, captures video or photos of some a specified type of data and transmits that data back the starting point. The entire operation must be fully automated.
