Entering
the third decade of the Ultimate
Collegiate Challenge
75 Days
6th
Mission IARC Rules (A 2013 Winner will receive $40,000) Dates for the upcoming American Venue are 5-8 August 2013.The venue
will again be the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center in Grand
Forks adjacent to the University of North
Dakota.
In
concert with the IARC,
the 2012
Symposium on Indoor
Flight Issues was held at the Center for Innovation adjacent to the University of North
Dakota. Parallel sessions were held at Beihang University in Beijing China. Review the online Call
for Papers here.
Would your organization like to learn more about the IARC or autonomous aerial robotics? Contact us
here to invite the IARC organizer or a judge to come to your location for a presentation, seminar, or short course. The upcoming Asian/Pacific Venue is being held in Beijing China at Tsinghua University 1-4 August 2013.
(for more information, see: http://iarc.buaa.edu.cn )
Because of the expense of travel, teams from Asia and Australia can be at an economic disadvantage when entering the International Aerial Robotics Competition. The organizers have now created two parallel venues, one in Grand Forks North Dakota, USA, and one in Beijing China, PRC. Teams can compete in Mission 6 at one or the other venue (not both) under the same rules. All procedures will apply equally at either venue. New teams will register at either the "American Venue" or the "Asia/Pacific Venue".
Two venues operating nearly simultaneously on opposite sides of the planet-- competition arenas, judging, rules, and procedures will be uniform across both venues. Asian Judges and American Judges will confer, and representatives from both venues will be present at the each venue. A winner for Mission 6 could emerge from either venue, and were there to be nearly equivalent near-winning performances from both the American and Asian venues, a "fly-off" between the top two contenders would be considered at one of the two venues with a level of travel support for the team traveling farthest.
New entries should consider which venue suits them best, but once a venue is chosen, teams must continue at that venue (no switching). The online Application Form provides a space for designating the venue of choice.
NEW FOR 2013: The IARC Common Kill Switch. Safety has always been a primary concern of the International Aerial Robotics Competition and an effective "kill switch" has always been a part of the Competition requirements.
Often teams arrive at the IARC with kill switch solutions that are not independent of the onboard computer, or are in other ways inadequate. Teams without acceptable kill switch mechanisms are NOT allowed to fly.
A simple and effective means of killing power to the motors of a small air vehicle through the use of a separate radio control receiver has been developed by a member of the IARC Judging staff (Aaron Kahn) so that teams can be assured that their safety kill switch will be acceptable to the Judges on the day of the Competition. This design can be copied and built as is, or used as a reference design for teams to implement into their own vehicle. This design is considered the standard design by which other kill switch mechanisms will be judged.
Teams are not required to use this design, but are encouraged to do so. The Competition Staff will have a number of these devices on hand at the IARC for teams to borrow should their own designs be found to be inadequate. Alternately, kill switch kits can be purchased from the IARC to incorporate into existing or new designs prior to arriving at the Competition (purchase arrangements can be obtained by writing to the IARC organizer). The details of the design can be downloaded as a .zip file by clicking here.
ADVANCING THE STATE-OF-THE-ART
IN AERIAL ROBOTICS YET AGAIN
The new 6th Mission is
an extension of the 5th Mission theme of autonomous indoor flight behavior,
however the 6th Mission demands more advanced behaviors than are
currently possible in any existing aerial robot. The initial prize
award is set at $10,000 and grows by an additional $10,000 for each
year that the mission remains uncompleted. Interdisciplinary teams
from around the world are encouraged to take on the IARC challenge
and make application to the 6th Mission of the AUVSI International
Aerial Robotics Competition as it enters its third decade as THE world's PREMIER aerial
robotics challenge that time and again has advanced the state of the
art in aerial robotic behavior.
The 6th Mission continues to adhere to the Competition's
long standing practice of posing tasks that cannot be completed with
current technology and skills. As with previous missions, nothing
within the World military or industrial arsenal of robots is
able to complete the proposed mission at the time the guidelines
are released.
The 6th IARC Mission
The 6th Mission of the AUVSI International
Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) was initially held on the campus of the
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) on 13 August 2010. That
was the inaugural event of the 6th Mission which marked the 20th year
of continuous operation for the International Aerial Robotics Competition..
Mission 6 is the most challenging IARC
mission to date. No aerial robot exists which can presently perform the
behaviors required by this mission statement, however as with all past
missions, the Organizer, Judges, and Staff fully expect a university
team to meet this challenge within the space of several years, thereby
again advancing the state-of-the-art in aerial robotics.
A description of Mission 6 can be found
in its entirety in the Official
6th Mission IARC Rules but is also summarized in the following video
dramatization.
2012 Results for the 6th IARC Mission
The 2012 event was successfully held at both the American and Asia/Pacific Venues during the month of August. While some of the newer teams had only three or four months to prepare, the overall progress to demonstrate the fully autonomous behaviors required by the 6th IARC Mission was significant. The best performance was by the aerial robot from the University of Michigan. Their aerial robot was able to autonomously enter the building, map and search all corridors and rooms, and then without finding the target flash drive, exit the building and land exactly at the starting point-- all without human intervention. The University of Michigan had the capability to acquire the flash drive, but did not successfully find it. The Georgia Institute of Technology was able to autonomously enter the building and search the interior, but with time running out on its best run, it landed autonomously and initiated its "self destruct" procedure per the Official Rules. With only a few months' preparation, having joined the Competition during the Spring of 2012, the team from Nanjing University was able to create an aerial robot that entered the building autonomously and proceeded through the main entry hallway whereupon it entered one of the rooms and then initiated its termination procedure. Other teams were also able to fly autonomously into the building with varied success in navigating the interior.
The ranking for the top five teams operating with the highest autonomous intelligence levels is as follows:
1. University of Michigan
2. Georgia Institute of Technology
3. Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
4. Tsinghua University
5. Beihang University
A total of 27 teams are entered into the Mission 6 challenge. Of these, 21 teams participated in the 2012 event. Video examples from the American Venue can be viewed on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0LuaU_7YkA and the from the Asia/Pacific Venue at:http://youtu.be/hJr4odXguV4
