Blogs

For those following the Outback Challenge UAV competition, check out the CanberraUAV site, which is doing a good job of daily reports. This is the home team of APM:Plane lead developer Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell, the legendary gentleman on the keys above. They won the last competition and will be the team to watch when they fly later this week.

Today's report:

Today was the first Search and Rescue Challenge flights at the OBC.

It was a fair bit quieter with the high school teams gone, but it did give us all time to chat with the other competitors and make some new friends.

Some people have been asking if there is something more than the “UAV Challenge Live” feed on Facebook and Twitter. There is a live video stream in the competitors tent, which shows the activity at the flight line (where teams takeoff/land their UAVs and put their ground stations). Since the UAVs fly up to 6km away, we don’t actually see much of them except for the takeoff and landing sequence. Other than that, we are reliant on the Facebook feed too!

On to today’s teams:
OpenUAS – This was their 3rd OBC. Their UAV made it to the search area but crashed shortly afterwards.
Condor – Had technical difficulties and elected to go to the back of the queue
Monash UAS – Flew very well and imaged the search area. Unfortunately they could find Joe in the images. They landed successfully back at the airport.
PerthUAV – Imaged most of the search area, but couldn’t find Joe. They landed successfully back at the airport.
Compass UAV – Imaged some of the search area, but couldn’t find Jo. They landed successfully back at the airport.
SwissFang – Crashed part way to the search area.
MelAvio – Had technical difficulties and elected to go to the back of the queue

Tomorrow starts with VAMUdeS.

At this stage, CanberraUAV will likely be flying Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.