A University of Glasgow Singapore - Singapore Institute of Technology team has enjoyed a flying start in this year's 'Nontri-Autonomous Aerial Vehicle Challenge' which took place in Bangkok, Thailand.

Dr Sutthiphong "Spot" Srigrarom, Associate Professor, Aerospace Systems reports: "UGS-SIT student team 'Robocopter', led by Teo Wei Kang, Jhovanie Tang Wei Kang, Esmond Lim and Quek Jun Kheng, performed well and was able to enter the final round, and finished 6th from total of 22 entries (2nd for international team). That was despite a crash landing on their final run!

"Although, we could not finish on the podium, we had received a lot of commendation from judges, other participants and spectators, on our innovative design of our tilt-trirotor platform (other are either fixed wings, quadrotors or hexarotor). This platform could fly well and complete the challenging tasks, e.g. take-off, orbit, hold, way-points and land -all autonomously, on the first day.

"Unfortunately on the second day, it experienced a strong and sudden wind gust and fell down. Nevertheless the students were able to retrieve, re-assemble and repair the platform so quickly that, it could fly again. The team received great feedback on their fail-safe design, as well as the students' resilience, fighting spirit, and field engineering skills."

Image of the Singapore robocopter team

First published: 30 November 2015

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