The autonomous UAV Team is another of the three teams within PVIT Robotics. In Autonomous UAV, our ultimate goal is to design, build, and program a fixed wing aircraft that will be capable of navigating an airborne course without any human interaction. The aircraft is controlled by a small on-board computer that must be able to deal with issues such as changes in wind gust speed, maintaining a constant altitude during turns, what to do if it is headed towards a building, etc. To aid in dealing with these tasks and issues, the computer will have at its disposal a variety of sensors including GPS, Camera, Altitude/airspeed sensors, 3-axis gyros, and a compass. The team strides to attend the annual SparkFun Autonomous Vehicle Competition which is to be held in mid-April in Boulder, Colorado. There the aircraft must complete one lap around the SparkFun warehouse building. The team to complete the lap in the least amount of time will win the competition. If no team completes a full lap, both time and distance will be taken into account to choose a winner.
This is the first year that PVIT has had an Autonomous UAV team, so unlike the other teams, we have no mistakes from which to learn. Look forward to another update outlining our progress.