Mission Statement

The AUVSI Student Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS) competition simulates real-world unmanned aerial operations to foster interest in the growing area of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This is a multipart competition involving the design, fabrication, documentation, guidance, and control of an integrated UAV. Specific competition tasks include reliable take-off and landing, fundamental maneuvers, vision-based target acquisition, waypoint navigation, and aerial payload delivery. This multi-year, cross-disciplinary project provides students with the opportunities to:

1. Train on and refine the existing UAV and ground station,
2. Test, analyze, and improve existing system design, reliability, and capabilities,
3. Train on safety protocols associated with the UAV and ground station,
4. Assign team roles for coordinating and executing flight missions involving complex interconnected vehicle systems including flight control, image acquisition, and payload delivery (e.g. lead, pilot, navigation, targeting, and safety),
5. Present the systems design, validation, and test results to experts in the field,
6. Participate in operational and safety checks during testing and competitions,
7. Demonstrate system capabilities in flight trials,
8. Catalog, process, interpret, and visualize flight data, and 
9. Document results and lessons learned for final competition scoring and future project developments.