Over the past week, UMBC AIAA SUAS (UAS) participated in the annual SUAS international competition in California, MD. We headed to the competition with our workspace and the 8 feet wide aircraft, Gita XI 12. The evening of Tuesday was filled with ensuring our aircraft was ready for safety inspections, failsafes, and dropping mechanisms. We practiced setting up the airplane, creating waypoints and flight paths, and ensuring safety through a detailed safety checklist. On Wednesday, we passed safety inspection with no obstacles, in less than 10 minutes. Due to slowdowns at the competition flight line, we did not get to fly on Wednesday. On Thursday, our flight order # moved to 31, from an initial 43. We had to quickly assemble the airplane due to suddenly being called on deck for flight, and we certainly assembled it quick. At flight, we successfully prepared and performed safety checks on the airplane within our setup time. In mission time, we took off! Switching to autonomous mode, we hit all waypoints accurately without breaching the fence. After the lap, drop, and map flights, we successfully landed Gita. Due to overheating and telemetry issues, we decided to be safe and call off the flight.
Although the drops missed and mapping footage failed, and we only flew one lap, this was a success. This was the very first time that UMBC AIAA participated in SUAS in person with a flight! The judge awarded us all 50 of 50 points for operational excellence and nominated us for the Safety Award for being timely, communicative, and above all, choosing to prioritize safety over points. We additionally earned points for needing less operators, having easy to transport batteries, and moderate weight. This placed us in 19th place out of 81 registered teams for the Mission. We additionally earned 25th place for our Technical Design Report, and 13th place for our website.
Scores, on the other hand, were miniscule compared to the experience. In addition to the entire experience of designing, building, and flying, we experienced teamwork throughout the assembly and setup times, focus and resilience through the 110 F heat and sudden call up times, and the relationships formed. We interacted and talked with the University of Calgary (Canada), McGill (Canada), numerous Turkish teams, Military Technical College (Egypt), Nirma University (India), InnovateX (Bangladesh), Missouri University, AGH Solar Plane (Poland), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and more. We helped Team Pura (Turkey) with carbon fiber, Kartail Air (Turkey) with failsafes, and FKGAL Aviation (Turkey) with disassembly. We received tokens of appreciations from them and additionally from The Royal Air Force Academy (Thailand), Yeditepe University (Turkey), and more.
The 2025 SUAS competition was amazing. This would not have been possible without our sponsors: UMBC COEIT, UMBC Mechanical Engineering, UMBC SGA, ST-Engineering (Middle River Aircraft Systems), UMBC CSEE, SolidWorks, and Composite Envisions. We would also like to shoutout to some members:
- Ashwin for the ridiculously miticulous payload dropper construction
- Ben for coming to the BAR late night to work on the plane
- Connor for working on the computer vision for the future knowing that this would not be implemented on Gita
- Dan for so many drives for the FRR and setups despite not being a SUAS member (he is now, technically)
- Jonah for being up and early to ensure we don't lose our spot at competition
- Gabe for all the numerous rides needed for the FRR
- Kalel for making the motor mount when we were strained for time
- Kai for the drops and flight line operations
- Kamil and Neb for so many composites (wing, landing gear, shock absorber, sanding, and motor mounts) + staying up until 1 AM for wing vacuum bagging
- Mario for the landing gear, wings, fuselage, alignments, and so much more
- Murali for the website, thrust test stand, and Standard Testing Drone (STD) setup
- Nate for making the tail and helping with Jenga
- Nowrin for the cool AIAA shirts we got this year and fuselage repairs
- Pranav for the KML overlays that helped Profound with mapping and drops
- Shrikant (Profound) for all autonomy and repairing so many radio components
- Will for his insane solder skills and battery connections
There are many people who, despite not being members, stepped up to help. We thank:
- Nolan and Matthew for paving the way for SUAS
- Art for teaching us how to make a wooden tail
- Team Arrow from Nirma University (India) for helping us with GCS
- Lesa and Amy for so many logistical supports, funding resources, and space allocations
- Dr. Eggleton for his administrative help
- David Paton for connecting us with MRAS
In essence, this was the best year for SUAS. We have grown a lot, learned a lot, and had interactions with people we would not otherwise. Thank you, so so so much, to everyone who made UMBC AIAA SUAS possible!
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Jason Michael Perry, left, and Dr. Anupam Joshi, right