Institution news
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is delighted to invite university teams from around the world to register for the next exciting season of this aerospace engineering competition.
To register your team, simply complete the registration form on the UAS Challenge website, download the rules and gather your team to start designing your UAS!
Led by an enthusiastic organising committee of senior engineers working in the aerospace industry and supported by a dedicated team at the IMechE, this annual student engineering competition tasks university teams around the world to design, build and run an unmanned aerial system (UAS) that can take off, fly missions and land fully autonomously. 2024 will see the 10th Anniversary of the UAS Challenge, with special activities being planned to celebrate this milestone.
Teams are scored on a combination of written technical reports and their UAS’ performance at the live Fly-off event held in June at the BMFA Buckminster airfield, where each aircraft must demonstrate its flight capabilities in missions designed to mimic real-world humanitarian aid missions, including an image recognition task and a full aid package drop with the AirDropBox system.
The UAS Challenge regularly sees a diverse group of entrants from around the world, with teams joining from Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and others last year, alongside 2023 Grand Champions ITU ATA from Turkey. This leads to a wide variety of approaches in UAS design, capability and material choice that creates a friendly yet competitive atmosphere at the fly off where all teams are excited to see every UAS show off its capabilities.
The competition remains as close to a real-world engineering project as possible, with students developing their engineering knowledge and practical skills when creating their aircraft. In line with the Institution’s aims of supporting the next generation of engineering talent, those who participate leave university with a wealth of experience and soft skills gained outside of a classroom and go on to become highly capable graduate engineers in industry.
The UAS Challenge is grateful for the support of its partners and sponsors Ansys, Babcock International, Leonardo, QinetiQ, Maxon, PA Consulting and Spirit Aerospace and for the ongoing support of AirDropBox, ARPAS-UK, BMFA, Mashoom and Talentview Aviation.
For any further details on the competition, please visit the UAS Challenge website or email the team directly with your questions and on behalf of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the organising committee, we look forward to welcoming all teams for the start of the 2024 UAS Challenge.