Highly changeable conditions, including heavy rain and high winds, failed to dent the spirits of the record 32 teams competing at BMFA Buckminster in rural Leicestershire.
Team Bath Drones from the University of Bath were the grand champions of the competition, which challenged students to design, build and fly unmanned aerial systems (UAS) weighing up to 10kg in a variety of missions.
“On the first day of the competition we had 14 successful flights, which was the most we've ever done on a first day of competition. And then we were at pace going into the second day and the UK weather hit,” UAS Challenge project manager Kristina Panikkar told Professional Engineering. “We went from glorious sunshine and a heatwave to heavy rain and then to high winds, then back to glorious sunshine, then back to high winds.”
The unsettled weather forced the event to adapt, with flights cancelled on the second day. The organisers allowed teams to come in from 7am the next day, with flights taking off from 7.30am until judging stopped six hours later.
Coordination and cooperation between the teams was vital to making that happen, Panikkar said, with manual and autonomous flights taking place amid changes to the queue and the flightline. “It was just great to see,” she said. “Everyone just wanted for everybody to be able to achieve some of those flights, to show off what their aircraft could do.”
Being able to adapt to external conditions is part of engineering, she added, providing more useful experience for students preparing for careers in the profession.
The wind was higher than what was required from the aircraft but within regulations, so teams were given the option of assessing their aircraft and choosing to fly if they were confident. The “exceptional” winning team from Bath was one of those teams, Panikkar said, still managing to complete the course well despite the blustery conditions.
First-time competitors UCD UAV Team from University College Dublin, who took the business proposition and airworthiness prizes home, also made the decision to fly. “There's quite a narrow window on the flightline. If you don't fly one day, your chances are you're only going to get to fly the next day,” said team leader James Blackburn.
“By the time we got on to the flightline, it was gusting… about 30 knots, which is about 15 metres per second – that's our take-off speed. So we literally had the battery bag on the aircraft to stop it taking off while on the flightline waiting to go.
“I took a vote with the team and we voted to fly, so we did. We got off the ground and we flew for a few seconds, and it was just not controllable really. So the pilot aborted the [flight] and we only had some minor damage. We had it repaired within an hour.”
‘Much more than the competition’
Taking part in the challenge for the first time ever meant building a team “from scratch”, Blackburn said. “It's so much more than just the competition, it's all the lead-up, the six months of work that goes in beforehand… There's never been a UAV team from Ireland before.”
The group of mechanical and electronic engineers built a twin-propeller fixed wing aircraft with a standard tail configuration. Weighing 7.5kg and carrying up to 2kg, unique features on the aircraft included a flap under the nose cone that held the payload, which folded up into the fuselage after the payload was released. The configuration reduced drag in both positions, Blackburn said.
The miniature uncrewed aeroplane also included a crumple zone built into the nose cone, which allowed for swift repairs after an even bigger crash on the final flight.
The team now plans to approximately double in size, Blackburn said, and they hope to return to the fly-off with the maximum of 10 people next year.
Simulated success
Both University College Dublin and Politecnico di Milano from Italy impressed in their first year attending, Panikkar said. “They came in prepared and asked all the right questions and learned from each submission,” she said. “They showcase that you can come in and – as long as you listen and follow the rules – you can perform really well and you can even win awards.”
Earlier this year, Panikkar told Professional Engineering that there would be more emphasis on design and testing, and simulation in particular, at this year’s event. That focus paid off, she said.
“This is the highest-scoring simulation path that we've ever had in the competition,” she said. “We've been doing it [for] five years now and we had a number of teams getting top marks or within one or two of them, because they were using it as they were intended to, and the actual quality and calibre of the aircraft models was exceptional.”
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.