UAV Outback Challenge
The event is aimed at promoting the civilian use of unmanned aerial vehicles and the development of low-cost systems that could be used for search and rescue missions.
Notably, teams share technical details of their entries, allowing successful innovations to proliferate and increasing the speed of technological development.
Teams have to fly their aircraft at least 20 kilometres (12 mi) to a remote farm, detect the farmer Outback Joe and autonomously land close by.
The farmer places a medical sample into the aircraft and it must then return to the original launch point which is at least 20 kilometres (12 mi) away.
Their communications relay aircraft crashed at the remote farm site due to an engine failure and the challenge was hence not completed.
In the challenge, teams must find a target dummy, called Outback Joe and accurately deliver an emergency package to him.
The trophy is named in honour of Rodney Walker (QUT), who conceived of the idea of the UAV Outback Challenge in 2005 along with Jonathan Roberts and George Curran of CSIRO.
Team Galah suffered an engine shutdown just inside the search area and made an emergency landing less than 100 metres (330 ft) from Outback Joe (although they were not aware of this at the time).
Team Melbourne UAV were en route to the search area when high wind conditions flipped their aircraft causing it to enter flight termination mode.
[13] Team Robota, from Texas, was awarded second place after their aircraft successfully entered the search area but had to abort the mission due to a technical issue.
In 2010 the UAV Challenge was organised by ARCAA (QUT and CSIRO), Queensland Government and Aviation Development Australia Limited.
It was sponsored by Insitu, CASA, Australian Defence Magazine, AUVS-Australia, Boeing, CAE Inc. and South Burnett Regional Council.
Instead an Airborne Delivery Challenge (High-School teams) championship was held at Calvert Radio Aero Modellers Society flying field (approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Ipswich, Queensland) between September 27 and 28.
The 2012 event was held at Kingaroy October 1–3 and followed a similar format to the 2010 competition with both a Search and Rescue and Airborne Delivery Challenge.
Over the subsequent 18 months the field was reduced to just five, the rest having either failed to pass certain milestones or withdrawing due to technical difficulties such as crashes.
In 2012 the UAV Challenge was organised by ARCAA (QUT and CSIRO), AUVS-Australia and Aviation Development Australia Limited.
It was sponsored by Insitu Pacific, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, CASA, Mathworks, Aviation Australia, Stanwell Corporation Limited and DSTO.
The event also had the assistance of personnel from Raytheon, the Royal Australian Navy and the Victoria Police Air Wing.
For the second time, the Airborne Delivery Challenge (High-School teams) championship was held at Calvert Radio Aero Modellers Society flying field.
The competition was very close and was notable because for the first time a high-school team (The Hexfactor for Mueller College) managed to achieve a successful autonomous drop of a chocolate bar to Outback Joe, landing within the required 10m distance to be award bonus points.
The 2014 event was held at Kingaroy September 22–26 and followed the same format to the 2012 competition with both a Search and Rescue and Airborne Delivery Challenge.
The winner of the Airborne Delivery main competition was the all-girls team the DareDivas from Mueller College, Australia.
It was sponsored by Insitu Pacific, Northrop Grumman, Mathworks, Boeing, CASA, Stanwell Corporation Limited and DSTO.
The Challenge was also supported by the Queensland Government, South Burnett Regional Council, UAS-Pacific, and Australian Defence Magazine.
The high-school event was held for the third time at Calvert Radio Aero Modellers Society flying field (approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Ipswich, Queensland).
The event was significant in that major changes to the rules of the Airborne Delivery Challenge meant that the mission task was far more difficult for teams that it had been in previous years.
2018 marks the return of the Medical Express Challenge for the open teams and the introduction of voluntary dynamic no-fly zones (DNFZ) to the competition.
Dynamic no-fly zones represent obstacles that an UAV must avoid during its transit to the search area, which can be birds, bad weather and other aircraft.
Due to the complexity of this requirement, only a few teams attempted this aspect of the challenge, with the stand out being Canberra UAV whose avoidance performance impressed the judges.
