The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) team tied for second place at the International Aerial Robotics Competition held at Fort Benning, Georgia. The team took first place in the 2006 competition. The team tied with Virginia Tech in the mission, finishing behind only Georgia Tech. The 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.
The School of Mines received second place in the static events by winning the award for best technical paper with a score of 100. It was the first perfect score awarded to a paper in the 17-year history of the competition. In addition to this, the team received honorable mentions for their presentation as well as for innovation of design.
The team did equally as well in the dynamic events. As the team had already completed stage 1 last year, they decided to focus their efforts into completing stage 2. Using only three out of their four possible attempts, they successfully completed stage 2 by mid-afternoon. Because the event came to a close because of weather, this allowed the team to exercise the option to continue to face the challenge the following day, which they decided to do by attempting stage 3. Following four very valiant efforts, the team ended inches away from completing stage 3, which is on their agenda to master at the 2008 competition.
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.
Team members: Raunaq Bhushan (computer engineering, Rapid City), Andrew Brady (mechanical engineering, Rapid City), John Heiberger (mechanical engineering, Rapid City), Jason Howe (electrical engineering, Spring, Texas), Jake Oursland (mathematics/computer science, Rapid City), Aliyah Sanders (mechanical engineering, Rapid City), Mark Sauder (mechanical engineering, Rapid City), and Justin Williamson (mechanical engineering, Yankton).