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Embry-Riddle Students Take Third in Unmanned Air Systems Competition

Team Blackbird Daytona Beach, Fla., July 27, 2010 -- A student team from the College of Engineering at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach campus took third place in the Student Unmanned Air Systems Competition held June 16-20, 2010, at Webster Field in St. Inigoes, Md.

The eighth annual competition, sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), attracted more than 30 teams from around the globe.

Embry-Riddle’s Team Blackbird placed third overall and first in oral presentation. Team SOAR (Self Operating Aerial Reconnaissance), also from the College of Engineering at the Daytona Beach campus, received recognition for its performance in high-accuracy target finding.

Both teams were interdisciplinary, with participating students coming from the College’s Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Software Engineering degree programs.

The students on Team Blackbird were Randy Breingan, Michael Dop, Michael Fabula, Ryan Hoffman, Ramiro Perez, Can Phung, and Terik Weekes. The team’s advisors were professor of Computer and Software Engineering Dr. Massood Towhidnejad and research associate Jayson Clifford.

The students on Team SOAR were Mike Bakula, Pete Carros, Jon-Erik Jaegersen, Rajan Khatri, Rajiv Khatri, Mike Perstin, and Thisara Pinto. The team’s advisor was Dr. Charles Reinholtz, chair of the Mechanical, Civil, and Engineering Sciences Department.

The competition, based on a simulated mission in which Marines on patrol send out an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) unit to perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, emphasized the system’s autonomy, speed, and accuracy. Technical challenges involved development of a UAS capable of taking off, flying a series of waypoints, and landing autonomously with minimal human direction. The vehicle then had to enter and search a predefined area for over a dozen randomly placed targets of varying size, shape, and color, with all these tasks, including system start-up, deployment, and recovery, accomplished in under 40 minutes.

The competition presented significant systems engineering and logistical challenges. In developing a fully functional system from inception to delivery, culminating in a single 40-minute demonstration with almost zero tolerance for error, participants gained hands-on experience in project planning and management in addition to engineering topics from embedded computing to aircraft design.

The College of Engineering at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach campus supports multiple unmanned systems faculty research and student activities. Embry-Riddle is the first university in the world to field student teams in all five AUVSI competitions: Student Unmanned Air Systems Competition, International Aerial Robotics Competition, International Ground Vehicle Competition, International Autonomous Surface Vehicle Competition, and International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition (the latter two co-sponsored by the Office of Naval Research).

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering. Embry-Riddle educates more than 34,000 students annually at residential campuses in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott, Ariz., through the Worldwide Campus at more than 150 campuses in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and the Middle East, and through online learning. For more information, visit www.embryriddle.edu.