AA241X: Design, Construction, and Testing of Autonomous Aircraft
The purpose of the competition (er, class) was for teams of ~8 students each to design, build, test, and fly a fully autonomous UAV in a simulated search-and-rescue mission. Each team was given a motor, propeller, and basic set of electronics, including an Ardupilot Mega (APM) 2.5 board. We weren't allowed to use the ArduPlane software, however - we had to write our own custom control system to control our aircraft.
It became clear pretty early on that the team I was recruited to join, Game of Drones, had basically assembled a UAV dream team - several of us had experience in designing RC aircraft, one of us had developed aircraft control systems in the past, I knew all about the construction and CAD, etc. - we had it all covered. Not only that, our personalities just meshed - no arguments or conflicts; we worked well together, and had fun doing so. The results reflect this - not only did our final design fly four times as many successful flights as the other teams, it was supremely stable in flight (barring strong winds), and looked damn good in the air, too. Don't believe me? Check out the links below.
Our team's totally awesome website:
http://gameofdrones.weebly.com/
Class Website (updated for each new class):
http://adl.stanford.edu/groups/aa241x/
Initial aircraft were constructed using very basic methods (hot-wire foam cut wings, quick box-style laser-cut fuselage) to enable rapid turnaround and iteration. For our first "real" design, we transitioned to a fully built-up balsa and basswood design, making full use of the in-house laser cutter (and pushing my CAD skills to the limit) to design a plane that performed amazingly, and was (on the second iteration, at least) almost as easy to assemble as a Lego kit.
It became clear pretty early on that the team I was recruited to join, Game of Drones, had basically assembled a UAV dream team - several of us had experience in designing RC aircraft, one of us had developed aircraft control systems in the past, I knew all about the construction and CAD, etc. - we had it all covered. Not only that, our personalities just meshed - no arguments or conflicts; we worked well together, and had fun doing so. The results reflect this - not only did our final design fly four times as many successful flights as the other teams, it was supremely stable in flight (barring strong winds), and looked damn good in the air, too. Don't believe me? Check out the links below.
Our team's totally awesome website:
http://gameofdrones.weebly.com/
Class Website (updated for each new class):
http://adl.stanford.edu/groups/aa241x/
Initial aircraft were constructed using very basic methods (hot-wire foam cut wings, quick box-style laser-cut fuselage) to enable rapid turnaround and iteration. For our first "real" design, we transitioned to a fully built-up balsa and basswood design, making full use of the in-house laser cutter (and pushing my CAD skills to the limit) to design a plane that performed amazingly, and was (on the second iteration, at least) almost as easy to assemble as a Lego kit.
Flight Test Videos