We asked Bilal more about his career, his involvement in the challenge at Pakistan’s DHA Suffa University and how he will be helping to enhance the Challenge as both an industry insider and academic.
Q: Please tell us a bit more about yourself and your background
Bilal Siddiqui (BS): I was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1980, and somehow took a fascination with things which fly at a very early age. When I was eight, I drew a sketch and working principle of a ramjet engine (turned out it was mostly correct). I was also adept at taking apart my toy cars and fashioning them into helicopters and airplanes (though they never took off).
Fast forward to my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and a friend gifted me a copy of "Introduction to Flight" by John Anderson. It amazed me to such an extent that I went on to read almost all the aerospace engineering by the author on my own. There was no course on flight sciences in the programme I was studying, but I started pursuing it as a career on my own. My capstone project, (which won the undergraduate project of the year award, was designing and building a small turbojet engine.
I went on to take my first job as an engineer at the National Space Agency. I did a master's degree in aerospace engineering, followed by PhD in electrical engineering, still focusing on flight technology. I have held positions in both industry and universities and currently I am a senior technology manager and aircraft designer at Pakistan's biggest unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturer ABM Satuma Llc.
On a side note, I am also leading development of a completely crowd-funded and open source medical ventilator for emergency treatment of COVID-19 patients (OpenVentPK), which is now at the verge of regulatory approval.
Q: What interests you the most about aerospace engineering?
BS: Having diverse education and experience in most engineering fields, I am somewhat entitled to make qualitative comparison between different engineering disciplines. Aerospace engineering demands a lot of compromise and optimisation from the designer: things need to be light, compact, strong, safe, reliable enduring high variations in temperatures, pressures and speeds. This often means that we need the very cutting edge of technology not only to be competitive but to remain safely airborne.
You can park a car or anchor a boat in case you run out of fuel, but doing that at 100 feet above the ground is perilous. To me, this amazingly small design space is what drives an aerospace engineer to be more creative and optimize their design ever more.
Q: What are you going to bring to the UAS Challenge competition?
BS: I have been involved with the UAS Challenge since 2016 as faculty head of DHA Suffa University team from Pakistan. Since then I have been advising and coordinating all teams from Pakistan, including the Grand Champions of 2019, NUST Airworks.
As coordinator for UAS Challenge for IMechE Pakistan Group, I have been exposed to procurement, logistics and visa issues faced by international teams and will be able to guide them in navigating those. Similarly, being both an industry insider and an academic, I will be giving my input in improving the Design Challenge to make it more realistic and enabling the participants to be a better fit for careers in aerospace engineering.
Q: Where do you see the Challenge going in the future?
BS: I envision the Challenge to have a new element added every couple of years, with more support from the industry in making it affordable to more teams.
It would be a very nice idea to devolve the competition into smaller sub-events in many international locations. My experience with working remotely with teams across the globe in developing the medical ventilator has taught me that technology today has given more meaning to being "together at the same place at the same time". If we can have online fly-offs, scrutineering etc., we can solve a lot of logistical problems....and live with the times and I foresee the industry to be like that.
Design sessions and production will be powered with cyber-physical systems in an Internet of Things (IoT). I think that adds an exciting new flavour to the competition.
Bilal and team at the 2017 Live Fly Off
Q: What advice would you give to teams competing this year?
BS: First of all, I wish you all the health during this pandemic. Stay safe and communicate more online. A good design starts with finding out what others before you have done. So, start by researching all the previous design at UAS Challenge, especially the winners. You will start seeing a pattern: innovation. You cannot win by doing the same basic designs we are used to seeing, so you need to be innovative to be a cut above the rest. Remember, this is a competition, so remain a step ahead.
Q: Finally, what would you say to any students who are thinking of joining the Challenge for the first time?
BS: There is always a first time for everything and don't be overwhelmed if you do not have an aerospace engineering major in your team.
I recommend you read Anderson's Introduction to Flight. Engineering is all the same: a combination of basic sciences and mathematics, only the application is different. Being first timers, I recommend you make a few cheap foam gliders and trainers to get hands on with basic concepts and learn the art of flight. If you are making a rotary wing, still do a cheap proof of concept. You can find many resources online as well and I will be happy to guide you to them.
There is also a special prize for the best new entrant to appreciate the unique challenges faced by these teams, so make sure you aim to carry some prize on your way back home. Veteran teams do not have any particular advantage over you as long as your give it your fullest. There was a first time for them too, once upon a time!
Thank you to Dr Siddiqui for his candour and detailed answers; make sure to say hello to him at live fly-off event next summer!