Looking Back

In September 2023, the “International Micro Air Vehicle Conference” (IMAV) took place in Aachen. IMAV is an annual conference with an associated competition and was organized this year by the Institute of Flight System Dynamics (FSD) at RWTH.

This year the competition consisted of an indoor and an outdoor part, although we mainly focused on the outdoor missions.

Preparations in software and hardware development began in March. The aim was not only to participate successfully but also to develop a software basis for future competitions.

What Was The Goal Of The Competition?

The goal was to use autonomous drones to locate lost hikers in remote areas. Some of the tasks included mapping a specific area, locating people, and tracking or accompanying a vehicle.

How Did Hardware Development Go?

The quadcopter was developed from scratch by our team members from a variety of engineering backgrounds (mechanical and electrical engineering). The rules and scoring system resulted in a focus on speed, which is why our drone was designed with this goal in mind.

Our drone was mainly made of carbon fiber with the aim of integrating all the necessary components in such a way that even in the event of problems, major damage can be avoided.

For the indoor mission, a gripping mechanism was developed to transport weights and deliver them from a distance.

How Did Software Development Go?

As with previous IMAV projects, the software of our drone is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS), which is established as a standard for robotics applications.

Since the drone has to fly the missions autonomously without manual input, a Raspberry Pi was used as a flight computer, which supplies the flight controller with the necessary data. In addition to the sensors built into the flight computer, a GPS system from Holybro and a camera were also installed as sensors.

Since it is not possible to evaluate the data on the drone itself due to limited computing capacity, the raw data was sent to a server on the ground, where maps were created from the images and person recognition was carried out.

Technical Specifications

Empty Weight: 1.200g
MTOW: 2.500g
Frame Size: 330mm
Time of construction and development: March 2023 – September 2023
Motors: 4x IFlight
Battery: 2p 14,8V 2600mAh LiPo (provided by MyLipoShop)
Propeller: 7×3.8in
max. thrust: 8.500g

Special Details

  • DLink 4G
  • Raspberry Pi 4
  • Holybro Pixhawk PX4
  • Holybro GPS