UA Flies High at International Competition
UA Engineering students put their micro air vehicle through numerous technical challenges for a place on the podium.
The UA MAV team: (left to right at back) Professor Sergey Shkarayev, Nick Mindock and Curtis Purrington; and (left to right at front) David Addai, Gavin Kumar and Daniel Shucker.
The University of Arizona Micro Air Vehicle Club took second place in overall performance and first place in indoor flight performance in the 4th International Micro Air Vehicle Competition, which took place June 1-5 in Pensacola, Fla.
Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs, are very small airplanes that are useful for military and civilian surveillance, search and rescue, and many other applications. This competition required the student team to fly MAVs both indoors and outdoors.
“Our team demonstrated outstanding performance,” said Sergey Shkarayev, the student team’s faculty advisor and an associate professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Teams from the U.S., Germany, France and Australia entered designs into the competition.
In competition, the miniature aircraft had to land on small raised platforms, navigate through buildings to identify targets, survive gusting winds, and demonstrate superior endurance. The University of Arizona vehicle is unique because it can fly horizontally like a normal airplane and also transition to a hovering mode for maneuvering in tight places. This makes the vehicle very adaptable, and capable of performing well in a different environments.