UAV FORGE

Project Description: 

UAV Forge is a multidisciplinary engineering design team focusing on designing, manufacturing, programming, and testing autonomous aerial vehicles. The design aims to fulfill the constraints that allow the team to participate in the AUVSI SUAS 2023 competition season.

The AUVSI competition requires that the system’s UAV have autonomous flight capabilities, the ability to perform object avoidance of stationary and dynamic objects, and the ability to do object detection, localization, and classification. The system must also perform an airdrop task wherein UAV Forge will manufacture an assembly that will interface the UAV with descent and autonomous ground vehicles.

AUVSI SUAS Competition: 

The ground vehicle, once landed, will autonomously drive to its set destination to complete payload delivery. Though the emphasis for this year’s team is to perform well in the competition setting, the primary objective is to ensure the undergraduate students participating in the project apply their engineering skills to a compelling real-world problem.

The SUAS competition is designed to foster interest in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), stimulate interest in UAS technologies and careers, and engage students in a challenging mission. The competition requires students to design, integrate, report on, and demonstrate a UAS capable of autonomous flight and navigation, remote sensing via onboard payload sensors, and execution of a specific set of tasks. The competition has been held annually since 2002.

Multiple package delivery companies have tasked Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to deliver packages to customers. These UAS must avoid each other, map the operating area to identify hazards, avoid static obstacles like buildings, identify potential drop locations, drop the package to a safe location, and then move the package to the customer.” - SUAS 2023 Rulebook

Goals & Objectives: 

The scope of this project is to design, manufacture, build, program, and test an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to compete in the 2023 AUVSI SUAS Competition. The team will aim to be competition ready by the first week of June 2023. The UAS must accomplish Autonomous Flight, Obstacle Avoidance, Object Detection Classification and Localization (ODCL), and Air Delivery. Design decisions should seek to strike a balance between speed of completion with respect to the project timeline, consistency, and competition effectiveness (points scored). Solutions will be both manufactured by team members and bought off the shelf, left to the discretion of team members. The team will be proactive in defining system requirements, setting strong deadlines, and updating its Work Breakdown Structure as the calendar year progresses. The team will demonstrate operational excellence throughout the year with effective communication between subsystems and members, extensive testing procedures and protocols to deal with system failure, and ensuring the safety of the UAS and its members. Major deviations to the project timeline for any subsystem will be brought to the attention of the leads in a timely manner.

Timeline: 

Fall Quarter: Design decisions made, solutions designed, and purchase orders for necessary parts submitted

Winter Quarter: The subsystem teams perform unit tests throughout the week to make sure the design is ready for the overall test at the end of each week

Spring Quarter: The subsystem teams finalize their designs, run tests, and bring it all together, developing a drone ready for competition

Team Contact:

Email: uavforge.uci.sdp@gmail.com

Instagram: @uavforgeatuci

Website: https://sites.uci.edu/uavforge/

Advisor: 

Professor David Copp 

Contact: dcopp@uci.edu