Student Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition (SUAS).

SERAPHIM is a system consisting of a fully autonomous drone and an autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicle which was our entry to the Student Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition (SUAS) organized by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).

AUVSI Image

The UAV was made keeping in mind a series of tasks that should be completed by the UAS system built:

  • Interoperability: The UAS could download mission details, upload aircraft telemetry in real time, and upload mission deliverables to an external networked system.
  • Autonomous Flight: The UAS autonomously takes off, flies within boundaries, navigates a series of waypoints, and lands.
  • Obstacle Avoidance: The UAS autonomously avoids obstacles, which can be stationary or moving.
  • Object Detection, Classification, Localization: The UAS takes pictures of a search area, detects objects of interest, classifies its characteristics, and provides a GPS position.
  • Mapping: The UAS takes pictures of an area of interest and stitches the imagery into a map.
  • Air Delivery. The UAS autonomously drops a payload object so that it lands undamaged at a provided GPS position.