MicroPilot: Official Autopilot of the 2005 AUVSI Student Competition
August 5, 2005
Congratulations to the University of Texas at Arlington; winner of the Third Annual Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Student Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Competition that took place on July 2 at Webster Field in Maryland, USA.
As the official autopilot of the competition, MicroPilot provided 11 of 13 teams with an MP2028g autopilot, a servo expansion board, a GPS receiver and antenna, a connector kit, along with HORIZONmp ground control software. In addition, many teams took advantage of MicroPilot accessories and used an AGL for autonomous landing, as well as the XTENDERmp Software Developers Kit.
Representing MicroPilot at the competition and awards banquet was Jennifer Bell, Business Development Manager Europe, Africa and Educational Markets:
"It was very exciting to be part of this prestigious event. MicroPilot is very proud of the teams for all their effort, imagination and hard work. We look forward to seeing what future challenges the organizers will come up with and hope that next year even more teams will compete."
This growing event featured 13 teams from universities and colleges from around the world. The overall winners were: University of Texas at Arlington, Virginia Commonwealth, North Carolina State University, Virginia Polytechnic, University of Manitoba, Canada and the University of Kentucky. The other teams that competed were: Cornell University, California State Polytechnic University, Parks College St. Louis University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Polytechnic University of New York, Istanbul Technical University and Mississippi State University.
Teams were judged on three elements, technical paper, oral presentation/static judging, and mission performance. A variety of airframes from RC trainers to helicopter and twin jets competed. Each team had 40 minutes to perform their mission, which included dynamic air vehicle control, waypoint navigation, targets and interaction, and landing – all autonomously.
For a third year, MicroPilot was the official autopilot of the 2005 AUVSI Student Competition and was very pleased that 5 of the 6 winning teams used an MP2x28g autopilot system.
