Dassault UAV Challenge
September 2021 - May 2023
The Dassault UAV Challenge is a competition organized by Dassault Aviation. The teams are given a set of features where each one gives a certain number of points. The winning team is the one with the most points.
The challenge is made of 2 phases. The first one, that spans from September to January, starts with 12 teams whose goal is to design the drone. Only 6 teams are kept for the second phase that ends in May or June with an exhibition weekend. During this part, Dassault gives 500 € to each team to help them build the drone. The maximum budget is 1000 €.
I participated in it for two consecutive years, representing my engineering school. With my team, we always managed to go to the final weekend.
2022 Edition
For my first participation, I led the team of 6 people and oversaw the conception of an autonomous hexacopter.
It was equipped with a flight controller in charge of its dynamic behavior, and an onboard computer to perform real-time person recognition. We flew it autonomously during the competition.
2023 Edition
I also was the team leader for the second participation. The team shrank to 4 people. We decided to work on an autonomous Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft (VTOL) that could perform real-time onboard person recognition. It was a much more ambitious project.
We chose to build a VTOL with an inverted V-tail, the main engine in the back and 4 horizontal motors for the vertical takeoff and landing.
Digital twin
The CAD model was made with Fusion 360. The frame is composed of balsa, a lightweight material widely used in aeromodelling. The tubes holding the horizontal motors are in carbon, while the tubes stiffening the wings are in aluminium.
We ran CFD simulations with Ansys Fluent to quickly iterate over our design.
Assembly
The VTOL we built had a large wingspan of 1.80 m. To be able to transport it, we chose to build removable wings. All the balsa pieces have been laser cut. They were then glued together to form the structure.
The VTOL fuselage houses all electronic components except the servomotors located in the wings used for the control surfaces. To reduce costs, we used speaker wires to power the motors used for vertical propulsion.
Person recognition
We ran CFD simulations with Ansys Fluent to quickly iterate over our design.
Competition
The competition weekend was the opportunity to test the drone in a very large field in front of the jury. It was very intense !
It was amazing as we were able to meet the other teams and see their work.
