Engineering news
On the final day of the IMechE’s UAS Challenge event, the assembled crowd held its breath after the University of Surrey’s small aircraft swerved violently following take-off.
The autonomous plane had taken off very quickly, perhaps pushed by one of the many unpredictable gusts of wind at the BMFA Buckminster airfield in Lincolnshire, and banked immediately at the top of its climb. Losing height, and rapidly gaining speed, it briefly clipped the ground before barrelling over and landing upside down on the grass, losing parts as it came to a stop.
Despite the dramatic crash, the team was flying again within hours. At the end of the day yesterday (15 July), the Surrey students clinched the Grand Champion prize at the unmanned aircraft competition.
The later flight, in which the team managed to manually drop the aircraft’s simulated humanitarian payload over the drop zone for the first time, was possible thanks in part to a modular design approach. The wings, tail and fuselage could all be swapped out if needed, letting the group be ready as quickly as possible after an accident.
The team came out on top thanks to scoring well across a number of categories, and for their aircraft’s autonomous flight – a feat which other teams at the downsized event found difficult.
Speaking to Professional Engineering after a successful flight, team leader Oliver Gent said: “It’s been a lot of hard work. We’ve been testing since early March, we’ve flown eight times, and now that we’re here – yesterday when it took off, I was trying to record it and just completely forgot about the recording. Since September, this is what we’ve been working on.”
The leader was determined to succeed after volunteering for the 2018 edition of the event while in his first year of university. That team’s aircraft only managed to take off and fly for a metre, before coming back down again.
To overcome similar issues, Gent said the approach this year was to prototype as early as possible and “get something to work”, while also aiming for the highest number of points as possible. “We’re not trying to do anything super-advanced, but we aim to win.”
The twin-engine craft can go up to 70mph and fly up to 5km. After some ‘twitchy’ flight on Wednesday, the team added more waypoints for the autonomous system to fly through, smoothing out its motion.
Despite a number of autonomous test flights before the competition, flying in front of other teams and judges at the competition was “nerve-racking”, team member Ryan Hewitt said.
The annual challenge follows an industry build cycle and is aligned to aerospace industry standards, helping competitors develop their engineering knowledge and practical skills alongside university coursework.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.