IARC 2007

Gallery from IARC 2007

When we departed Tucson for Georgia on 20 July, our UAV
was still basically in kit form after a major redesign.
Final assembly occurred in various hotel rooms across
the country. Shown below is the condition of the UAV
on 22 July, four days before the competition:

Workshop area at McKenna. High-gain antenna plus UAV:

Below is the flight line during the competition itself.
The UAV flew beautifully on its first two test flights.
On the second flight, during a Level 1 attempt, the
vehicle started losing altitude and crashed somewhere
around the second waypoint. We believe the kill switch
went out of range and was tripped by ambient RF noise.
The kill switch is a required safety device, and is
intended to cut power to the propulsion system.

Back in Tucson after the competition, these photos illustrate
the almost total lack of damage after the crash during the
second Level 1 attempt. We are especially grateful to the
team from the Army Institute of Technology, University of
Pune, India, for their help in searching for our UAV. The
vehicle went down in a heavily wooded area northwest of
McKenna.

UAV with Drop Vehicle attached:

Last modified 2007/09/11 FLM