A sweep of awards for SAE AeroDesign

The Advanced class mission in this year’s SAE Aero Design competition required the autonomous delivery and retrieval of a payload from a designated landing zone (DLZ – Designated Landing Zone). The Advanced class mission was the same in both the East and West editions. The main objective was to complete as many mission segments autonomously as possible, as autonomy carried the highest scoring multipliers.

Students from the SAE AeroDesign Student Research Group during the competition in the United States

The mission consisted of several consecutive stages: Conventional Takeoff – a standard runway takeoff followed by a transition to stable flight; Payload Delivery – delivering the payload to the designated zone; Payload Capture – retrieving the payload from the DLZ; and Return To Base – returning to the take-off area. The aircraft itself was also subject to design constraints: a maximum wingspan of 120 inches (approximately 3.05 m), a maximum mass of 3.5 lb (approximately 1.59 kg), electric propulsion only, and a limit of three motors and three propellers. The designated DLZ area measured 8×8 feet and was prepared on site by the team themselves. It was crucial that the payload, once delivered, remained entirely within this zone. In practice, this means that the Advanced class has become a highly interdisciplinary competition – in addition to aerodynamics and aircraft design, flight autonomy, control systems, computer vision and sensing, payload release and capture mechanisms, as well as electronics and software integration all play a major role. Time was also a significant challenge for the participants: the entire flight had to be completed within four minutes, and teams received a bonus for completing the mission quickly.

“The organisers set extremely tight deadlines, which means that in just a few months we had to design, build and test the aircraft almost from scratch. This was particularly challenging in the Regular class, where a completely new rulebook was introduced this year. We also could not rely on experience from the previous season, as our team did not compete in this class at that time. This meant that we had to develop new design assumptions, calculation methods and manufacturing processes simultaneously and within a very short timeframe,” says Maria Gniewosz from the SAE AeroDesign Student Research Group.

During the competition in the United States, our students had to contend with highly variable weather conditions. Intense sunlight and high temperatures negatively affected the electronics and the film coverings of the aircraft, which required continuous monitoring of the aircraft condition and quick repairs between flights. High humidity, in turn, caused deformation of wooden structural components, which influenced the aerodynamic properties and strength of the models. During the second edition of the competition, an additional challenge came from heavy rainfall and thunderstorms, which at times made flying completely impossible.

“The thing we are most satisfied with is that we were able to create unique unmanned aircraft capable of completing their mission. Both editions of the competition taught us an enormous amount in such a short time: how to work under pressure as a team and which technical solutions perform best in practice. Contact with teams from around the world and with people from the aviation industry, as well as the exchange of experience, not only deepened our knowledge of aviation but also gave us a new perspective on how to apply certain technological solutions,” our student emphasises. “The greatest satisfaction, however, came from improving our results between the East and West editions. At the final competition we were prepared for all the factors we could not have predicted earlier. Learning from mistakes and being able to draw conclusions from them is one of the most valuable skills that work in the student research group can offer.”

Students from the SAE AeroDesign Student Research Group during the competition in the United States

The competition in the United States is now over, but SAE AeroDesign is not slowing down. At the end of June, our students will take part in the final competition of the year, the Air Cargo Challenge, which will be held in Stuttgart, Germany. They will compete with a composite aircraft with a large wingspan, designed to carry as much payload as possible.

“A great deal of work and testing still lies ahead of us before we are fully prepared two months from now. In addition to the next competition, we will also focus on sharing our passion for aviation and our technological solutions at various conferences and fairs. In the near future, we plan to take part in the ‘Technology & People: The Future of Green Aviation’ conference in Rzeszów, at the science picnic organised by the Copernicus Science Centre, and during our university’s open day,” concludes Maria Gniewosz.