Aerial Robots
The aerial robots vary in design from fixed wing airplanes, to conventional helicopters, to ducted fans, to airships, and beyond to bizarre hybrid creations. Because the competition focuses on fully autonomous behavior, the air vehicle itself is of less importance.
Teams choosing to develop new air vehicle types have never won, as they are disadvantaged in comparison to those which adapt existing, working, air vehicles, and can therefore concentrate on performing the mission rather than developing something that will fly at all. As a result, adaptations of conventional rotary wing and fixed wing entries have always been the overall winners, with airships and ducted fans a close second.
Aerial robots must be unmanned and autonomous, and must compete based on their ability to sense the semi-structured environment of the competition arena. They may be intelligent or preprogrammed, but they must not be controlled by a remote human operator. Computational power need not be carried on the air vehicle itself. Computers operating from standard commercial power may be set up outside the competition arena boundary and uni- or bi-directional data may be transmitted to/from the vehicles in the arena. Size or weight constraints are normally placed on the aerial robots, which must be equipped with a method of manually activated remote override of the primary propulsion system.
Read more about this topic: International Aerial Robotics Competition
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