Flying robots?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by EricH

Actually, Tristan, I think a year or so after that, teams had gotten to the point where they changed the challenge--they skipped the "deliver" portion and had everyone focus on the "in the building" portion. (I'd have to ask the SDSM&T UAV team's veterans to be sure of what they're doing this year.) I know SDSM&T's team was one of the mid-size choppers, dropping a quadrotor.

I remember seeing SDSMT's system in action.

The 2008 IARC represented eight straight years of trying the same thing, with the prize money building up every time, but nobody succeeding. They announced early that year that it would be the last of that challenge, and that the prize money ($80 000 by that point) would be distributed by the judges if nobody succeeded outright. Georgia Tech came closest to a complete system with its RMAX, but failed (as did others). With that, they put an end to the outdoor challenge and split the prize money.

The year after (at which point I wasn't involved), it was mostly quadrotors in a school gym in Puerto Rico. Not quite so much fun, all things considered—in fact, much more like the scale of CARD, except autonomous.

Originally Posted by EricH

When SAE does the Aero Design competition, they like to adhere to the AMA safety code at least to some extent. Nothing over 55lb (without a waiver, which SAE doesn't allow in competition), no flying over pits, no metal props, nothing beyond the safety line except flight crew/event staff. AMA's safety rule is nothing outdoors closer than 25' to anybody except the pilot and helpers on the flight line. (Indoors... well, usually the indoor flyers are much lighter and much less powerful than the outdoor birds.)

Ours wasn't legally a model plane. It carried a Transport Canada special flight operations certificate, and as such was limited by a set of binding agreements (rather than the voluntary AMA rules). We submitted design documents, and were approved for flight as a UAV under the Canadian Aviation Regulations in certain conditions and certain areas. When operating in Canada, we imposed a 30 m horizontal clearance requirement between inhabited structures and vehicles, and were not to overfly spectators (excluding support personnel).

When operating in the U.S., the competitors were guests of the Department of Defense at Fort Benning, and as such, were authorized to use military airspace for the purposes of the event. The event's own rules were in force, and they were somewhat less prescriptive.

(There have been longstanding issues with getting approval to fly large UAVs in the United States for non-military purposes. The equivalent to the SFOC is much more complicated, and among American teams, this may have driven all but the best-organized one to use modified R/C helicopters and planes.)