The UAV Challenge - Outback Rescue, also known as the UAV Outback Challenge or UAV Challenge, is an annual competition for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles. The competition was first held in 2007 and features an open challenge for adults, and a high-school challenge. The event is aimed at promoting the civilian use of unmanned aerial vehicles and the development of low-cost systems that could be used for search and rescue missions. The event is one of the largest robotics challenges in the world and one of the highest stakes UAV challenges, with the current Medical Express version of the event offering $75,000 to the winner.
The events involve a thorough scoring system with an emphasis on safety, capability and technical excellence. In particular there is a strong tendency towards autonomous flight. Notably, teams share technical details of their entries, allowing successful innovations to proliferate and increasing the speed of technological development.
The format of the Challenge changes as technological improvements make the tasks more achievable. In 2011 it changed to a search and rescue challenge. No teams successfully completed the challenge until 2014 when several teams were successful. In 2016 the open challenge changed to an automated medical retrieval task known as Medical Express.
Challenges
Medical Express Challenge
The Medical Express Challenge is the current event that is open to all. It was first held between 2015 and 2016 with the first event held in Dalby, Queensland, Australia in September 2016. The current Medical Express runs from 2017 to 2018 with the event again being held in Dalby. The challenge itself is for teams to develop a solution to the problem of remote medical retrieval. Teams have to fly their aircraft at least 20 km to a remote farm, detect the farmer Outback Joe and autonomously land close by. The farmer places a medical sample into the aircraft and it must then return to the original launch point which is at least 20 km away. The challenge was very nearly completed at the first attempt by a team from Canberra, Australia called Canberra UAV. Their communications relay aircraft crashed at the remote farm site due to an engine failure and the challenge was hence not completed. But their main aircraft did successfully return the medical sample from the farm.
Search and Rescue Challenge
The Search and Rescue Challenge was held from 2011 to 2014. It was open to worldwide participation, including by universities and hobbyists. In the challenge, teams must find a target dummy, called Outback Joe and accurately deliver an emergency package to him. The backstory of Joe is that he is a bushwalker that has gotten lost, or a worker who's ute has broken down. He is represented by a 50 kg mannequin dressed in jeans, a work shirt, work boots and an Akubra. The mission area is nearly from the airport and is approximately x . Teams must not fly greater than 1500 ft above ground level (AGL). Under the rules, teams were required to firstly identify the latitude and longitude of the target to within 100 meters. Teams that succeeded in this task were permitted to attempt to drop the package and complete the challenge.
Outback Joe was first spotted in 2010 by the University of North Dakota team. In 2012, the Canberra UAV team's aircraft automatically located the target the first fully automatic detection during all events. In 2014, 5 teams correctly identified the target location allowing them to drop a package to him. The winner of the challenge was CanberraUAV, who dropped a water bottle to within 2.6 metres of the target.
Airborne Delivery Challenge
The Airborne delivery challenge is open to Australian high school students. The objective is to create a future generation of aerospace professionals with a focus on UAVs.
An airframe has to be built and the mission is executed by two persons who will not communicate during the mission and will have technological targeting solutions in place: UAV Controller in charge of piloting the airframe (or programming the mission in case of the Robotic challenge) Mission manager in charge of the mission package drop Other team members are permitted and many teams have roles for a team manager, media manager and safety manager.
In 2009 and 2010 a Robot Airborne Delivery Challenge was also held in parallel to the main Airborne Delivery Challenge. The Robot competition was dropped in 2011 in favor of bonus points for autonomous payload dropping in the Airborne Delivery Challenge.