Despite being only a week from final, UAV Forge has seen some significant progress towards reaching the goals set by the project towards accomplishing the mission task. That being said, the project does not currently have the funds to make it to Maryland. As a possible solution to the problem, a ZotFunder profile is in the works to generate funds from the public. The hope is this will allow the members wanting and able to go, whether they are necessary for the mission demonstration or not, to get travel and housing covered.

As for progress, the Ground Station team successfully created a systems to interact with the PixHawk and feed it input to autonomously create and follow a path based off of waypoints entered by the user as well as takeoff and even land. These processes will be tested over the weekend at the project’s fifth flight test and as one of the key goals for the project and competitions, there is a lot of excitement for its trials.

The Avionics team has spent some time and research deliberating on the which settings would be best for the camera to take photos without an excessive amount of blur and noise in the image. These quality of these photos must be above the threshold for object detection to be testable and successful. Work continues to take place in researching the radio turret and the supplies necessary to construct it.

The Structures team has been working diligently on assembling the newly arrived Aeroworks Trainer 20-30cc kit plane to be used as the project’s competition plane. Arriving earlier this week, it may take another week or two to be fully assembled and more to fit the motor and move all avionics from the Sig-T test plane to inside the competition plane neatly. Additionally, testing to if and how the payload (a small water bottle) will rupture when being dropped from cruising altitudes. Thankfully, the bottles tested all ruptured at the cap when dropped from a height of about 75 ft.

While the team’s progress will slow with finals right around the corner, the team has seen great progress throughout this quarter and the software and structures necessary to complete the mission and meet our goals is almost within the project’s grasp.

UAV Forge Documentation Officer,

Kenzo Spaulding