A team of students from Missouri S&T will demonstrate its unmanned drone’s maneuverability and flying prowess at a collegiate competition this summer.

The event, the International Aerial Robotics Competition, will be held July 31-Aug. 2 in Atlanta. The competition challenges students to design, build and operate the next generation of multirotor robots that can operate both manually and autonomously.

The 2018 competition challenges teams to demonstrate new behaviors that have never been attempted in previous competitions, including man-machine interaction, fused sensor enhancement of a human operator by a fleet of aerial robots, swarm interaction and head-to-head interaction with opposing aerial robots.

Missouri S&T’s robot, named Sentinel, will carry on-board electronics that will enable it to fly completely autonomously and identify targets based on shape and color. These electronics include custom student-made autonomous flight software and a motherboard that will process the images captured by a camera. Sentinel uses the camera in conjunction with computer vision software to identify and target ground targets.

The Multirotor Robotics Design Team is one of 20 student-run teams in Missouri S&T’s Student Design and Experiential Learning Center (SDELC). The SDELC, housed in the Kummer Student Design Center, provides teams with computer design laboratories, a manufacturing shop, office space and logistical support. Design teams mirror small start-up companies that plan large-scale projects, organize into departments, raise funds, communicate their ideas and solve open-ended design challenges. Almost every team competes annually at an event against other collegiate teams from around the country and the world. For more information about the teams, visit design.mst.edu.