Hello everyone,
We are UBC Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS), a multidisciplinary student engineering team at the University of British Columbia that designs innovative autonomous aerial vehicles and their support systems for competitions.
This past year, with the help of CubePilot’s Cube Orange+ as well as the Here3 and RTK system, UBC UAS worked hard to design and build a new VTOL aircraft. The goal of the AEAC competition this year was to create a scaled-down human transport vehicle while SUAS focused on image recognition and a water bottle dispensing system. We design our system to use the same core aircraft frame with interchangeable payloads so that we could maximize reuse between competitions. Our system also involved an extensive software suite that connected through MissionPlanner to send commands to the Cube. Furthermore, we mounted dual Here3s as well as set up the RTK base station for centimeter-level accuracy. The VTOL aircraft was designed for flying at speeds up to 60 km/h with a range of up to 10 km. Taking advantage of both vertical and horizontal flight controlled by the Cube, we have a flight time of around 35 minutes.
As a gold sponsor of our team, CubePilot has been instrumental in helping us build autonomous aircraft systems that consistently perform at a high level and fly safely and reliably. We relied on CubePilot’s Cube Orange+ along with the Here3 GPS system to control our VTOL. Their firmware and support for the Cube allowed us to ensure mission safety was maintained at all times and that the aircraft had programmed safety procedures in case of failure. The Cube also allowed us to fly preprogrammed missions so that the VTOL could fly automated missions. We are grateful for CubePilot’s support for our team and we look forward to continuing to use their products to power our systems.
Here are some photos of the system prior to completion for those interested:
