Every year since 2002 AUVSI SUAS (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Student Unmanned Aerial Systems) in association with Robonation have run a competition encouraging students from around the world to get involved in the design of drones.  AUVSI and Robonation are both non-profit organizations that hope to foster interests in unmanned systems, robotics, innovation, and solutions to global challenges through education.  Each year brings together more and more of the brightest young engineers.

The competition takes place at the site of the UAS Test and Evaluation Directorate, The Patuxent River Naval Air Station Webster Field in St. Mary’s County, Maryland.  The 2018 competition, held on June 16th, featured 69 teams.  Of those teams 35 were American teams with the rest representing foreign contingencies.  The winners in order from first to third were: The Universite de Sherbrooke, from Quebec, Flint Hill School, from Oakton, VA, and Virginia Tech University, from Blacksburg, VA.  Over $70,000 was awarded to the winning teams combined.  This year’s 17th annual competition took place on June 12th, though the winners have not yet been announced.  The 2019 competition saw the largest enrollment yet with 75 teams competing from around the world.

The competition is open to high school, under graduate, and graduate students.  There are three main components to the competition.  As found on the AUVSI SUAS website the three objectives are as follows, “a Technical Journal Paper which describes the systems engineering approach and the UAS design, a Flight Readiness Review (FRR) where teams describe their mission readiness and what testing gives them confidence, and a Mission Demonstration where the team is evaluated on performance.”  Within the main objectives are certain task to be completed. The mission tasks change each year and are based off of how drones are currently being used throughout the industry. 

For example, the 2017 objective was to design a drone fit for a search and rescue missions.  The contestants had to engineer a plan that would cover interoperability, autonomous flight, obstacle avoidance, object detection, localization, and classification, and air delivery.  The 2019 agenda is one that is very relevant.  The competition rules state the objective as “A package delivery company has tasked an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to deliver a package to a customer. The UAS must avoid obstacles like buildings, identify potential drop locations, drop the package to a safe location, and then move the package to the customer’s location.”

This competition has been a tremendous force in the discovery of the next up and coming drone designers.  Students from around the world learn how to work within their own teams, then as collaborating teams.  Besides the prize money awarded to the winning teams there are often coveted scholarships, internships, and employment opportunities.  The AUVSI SUAS is one of the best forums to shape and prepare the UAV engineers of the future.