First university teams accepted into Vertical Flight Society’s new VTOL aircraft design competition
Eight student teams from universities in Canada, Japan and the USA have been accepted into the Vertical Flight Society’s inaugural Design-Build-Vertical Flight (DBVF) competition.
Details about the event was announced in September, and seeks to encourage interest in unmanned aircraft technology, small air vehicle design and fabrication. It is the successor to the society’s Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) Student Competition, which expanded over eight years from a 1.1lb (500g) gross weight to 3lb (1.4 kg), with increasingly challenging levels of mission complexity.
Five-page proposals which have now been accepted into the competition are from McGill University in Quebec, Canada, Ohio State University, Oregon State University, Osaka Prefecture University in Osaka, Japan, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Maryland, University of Michigan and Vaughn College of Aerospace and Technology, based in Queens, New York.
The fly-off portion of the competition is scheduled to take place at the Army Research Lab (ARL) Robotics Research Collaboration (R2C2) at Graces Quarters in Maryland, on 16th-17th April, 2021.
A total of $5,000 in cash awards will be given in two rounds: $1,000 for submission of the three best preliminary design reports, and $4,000 in awards for the top three teams during the fly-off competition.
Full details, including the request for proposal (RFP), frequently asked questions (FAQ), links and more are available on the competition website: .
