• 19 Jul 2023 08:38 AM
• 0

Auburn Wins eVTOL Drone Competition

The 3rd Annual VFS Design-Build-Vertical Flight (DBVF) student competition flyoff was held June 6–8, 2023. The competition was hosted by SURVICE Engineering and sponsored by Moog Aircraft Group, with teams from the US and Canada making it to the flyoff.

DBVF was conceptualized several years ago as a hands-on opportunity for students interested in vertical flight to gain real-world experience on specific design challenges relevant to electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. An emphasis on small-scale uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) design and development is the focus of the competition, with the flight demonstration courses pushing aircraft designs for hover efficiency, speed and endurance, as well as autonomous flight capability.

The competition ran the full academic year with the request for proposals posted in August through the fly-off competition in June. Teams had several deliverables throughout the year such as technical reports documenting their progress on designing, building and testing their UAS. This year, 11 university teams submitted a letter of intent to participate in the competition. Nine of those teams made it through the next gate of submitting a preliminary design report (PDR) in December. The teams had a wide variety of configurations, from standard quadcopter approaches all the way to more exotic tail-sitter and lift-plus-cruise designs. The preliminary design reports are meant to give the teams an opportunity to document a formalized path forward to project completion. Volunteers from the rotorcraft field review the design reports and offer feedback to the teams.

Final technical reports (FTRs) were due in May and included a more rigorous documentation of the aircraft conceptual and preliminary design, manufacturing methods, advanced technologies, performance analysis and flight testing. These FTRs, as well as the PDR, then went into the overall competition score.

The annual competition culminated with an in-person fly-off event where the teams attempted various flight challenges. Six university teams were represented at this year’s final fly-off, hosted by SURVICE Engineering in Churchville, Maryland, with support from the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) in nearby Aberdeen, Maryland. The fly-off consisted of multiple components: namely the final team presentations, attempts at both manually and autonomously piloted flight performance courses, and flight demonstrations, as well as the opportunity to receive presentations and technical engagements from the SURVICE team.

The team presentations provided an opportunity for in-person dialogue between the various university teams and the competition judges, as well as other volunteers and guests attending the event. The teams fielded open Q&A following their presentation, with ample time for open dialogue throughout the course of the three-day competition.

The flight performance course had been modified this year to put a larger emphasis on range and endurance, which was meant to simulate a real-life UAS mission. Teams were required to navigate an ovular track several hundred feet in length with a VTOL touch-and-go once per lap. The manually piloted course was scored on both speed of the first lap, as well as the total number of laps completed. The autonomous course attempt only required the vehicle to complete one full lap with predefined waypoints.

Three of the university teams ended up successfully claiming flight time. Auburn University, this year’s first-place winner, successfully completed both course challenges with one complete lap on each course. The University of Maryland and McGill University both successfully flew their tailsitter vehicles, albeit with crashes that stopped them short of completing a full lap. One additional challenge of the manually piloted course was a minimum 2-lb (0.9-kg) payload requirement — which is more than 11% of the vehicle weight — while still remaining within UAS Group 1 classification, i.e., less than 20 lb (9 kg). All three teams had elected to go with the minimum-required payload.

• 1st Place: Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA
• 2nd Place: University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
• 3rd Place: McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada
• Honorable Mention: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

The event was a large success thanks to the dedication and perseverance of the university teams. Notably, two teams repaired their aircraft to achieve multiple flight attempts after suffering flight test crashes. The event was pulled off very smoothly due to the support of many volunteers who helped coordinate, run and judge the event. Volunteers from the VFS DBVF committee — led by Dr. Jason Cornelius of NASA Ames Research Center — SURVICE Engineering, Moog Aircraft, ARL, VFS staff and elsewhere came together to pull off a great event. It was a fantastic few days spent engaging the university students in a hands-on rotorcraft event, and the organizers very much look forward to next year’s competition.

More information about the competition is posted at www.vtol.org/fly. Questions, or inquiries regarding the 4th Annual DBVF competition, can be emailed to fly@hq.vtol.org. The 2024 Request for Proposal (RFP) will be posted by the end of the summer.

An album of photos from the event taken by SURVICE Engineering is available in the VFS Vertical Flight Photo Gallery at https://gallery.vtol.org/albums.