Around 2012, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a competition for organizations to build an Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAV) that can perform fully autonomous missions for five hours. No one could fulfill the requirements at the time of the competition. That’s when UAV Forge began at UCI and since then, the project has build three different UAVs.

The main project goal for UAV Forge is to achieve the DARPA competition requirements and produce a highly innovated design. The UAV must be fully autonomous, have obstacle avoidance capabilities, and perform mission tasks set by the user. The end date of our project is in Spring 2017, where we will demo a functioning UAV during the Spring Design Review event hosted by the Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UCI.

This year, the UAV will have a scale tilt rotor design inspired by the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey. We are currently incorporating new program features such as mid-flight re-task capabilities, a user-friendly interface with Google Maps, speed and altitude control. Our production focus is on 3D printing and rapid prototyping so that we can increase the rate of optimization in our designs.

UAV Forge contributes to the growing interest in the unmanned vehicle market. From ordinary citizens, the government, and corporations, people are looking for ways to use UAVs to fulfill many different purposes. We want to develop an UAV that appeals to a wide audience and challenges our members to innovate and bring unique ideas to life. One scientific endeavor the project strives to accomplish is the miniaturizing of advance UAV technology into a portable package. Overall, this project allows UCI engineering students to build real world skills such as leadership, teamwork, and professional communication skills. Students can apply their knowledge in CAD design, control systems, propulsion, manufacturing, and avionics to UAV Forge. The educational experience gained from participating in this project helps our students grown to become better, more creative engineers.