AUVSI

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) is the world's largest non-profit organization devoted exclusively to advancing the unmanned systems community. AUVSI, with members from government organizations, industry and academia, is committed to fostering, developing, and promoting unmanned systems and related technologies.

Since 2003, AUVSI has hosted the Student Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Competition which challenges students to design, build, and operate an autonomous unmanned aerial system. The complete mission objectives are for an unmanned, radio controllable aircraft to be launched and transition or continue to autonomous flight, navigate a specified course, and use onboard payload sensors to locate and assess a series of manmade objects in a search area prior to returning to the launch point for landing.

In 2006, UCSD competed for the first time in the AUVSI Student UAV Competition. Spearheaded by a team of interdisciplinary engineers, their goal was to design a system in order to complete the mission of fully unmanned aerial reconnaissance. UCSD’s fixed-wing entry consisted of three major subsystems comprised of airframe, autopilot, and payload which were managed by three respective groups within the student team. UCSD team's first entry into the AUVSI UAV Challenge yielded a very respectable 5th place overall finish.

For further details of the competition please visit the official site or UCSD's AUVSI page.