Our Crowdfunding Groups
UAV Austin is a student-led technical organization that specializes in fixed-wing unmanned aerial systems (UAS) based at The University of Texas at Austin. With faculty mentorship and support from the UT Austin Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, the organization partakes in building a semi-autonomous aircraft every year to compete in the Student Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS) competition hosted by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Seafarer Chapter in Maryland.
Our members learn to tackle sophisticated challenges from a technical and systems perspective using tools relevant to our current technology wave and present their solutions effectively. Members learn how to work dynamically on a team and deliver high-quality results under strict deadlines. Fundamentally, UAV Austin allows students to access a professional engineering experience applicable to today’s industry. Our members in the industry will uphold the quality of engineers produced by The University of Texas at Austin.
When asked why our members are passionate about their project, we received a variety of answers:
- [I] feel like I’m physically working on a project that has real-world applications that makes what I do in UAV more meaningful to me and my career. Also, the experience of tackling a problem in a team helps us all develop as individuals as we work together.
- I enjoy getting to work on a diverse range of programming problems relating to aerospace. I don't think there's any other club on campus where I can learn and do the kind of things I do at UAVA.
- It’s letting me experience engineering while working to be admitted as an aerospace engineering major. It’s really helping me ensure this is the right place for me and that I can fit in.
Our Goals for This School Year:
This year our team is focused on refining the airframe that we built for the competition last year (pictured above) to enable new functionalities. One of our first priorities is to build a new gimbal system to mount our camera. A large majority of the competition requires using computer vision to recognize targets on the ground. Our gimbal will allow for the camera to search for these ground-based targets. Our current iteration of the gimbal looks like:
One of our other main goals this year is to replace the pitot tube on our aircraft. The pitot tube is one of the most critical pieces on the aircraft. The pitot tube calculates the airspeed of the aircraft during flight. Accurate and reliable pitot tube readings are crucial to autonomous flight operations. Our current pitot tube may clog if the flight conditions are too humid or if it is raining, which would critically put our mission and, more importantly, our plane at risk. To fix the issue in our current pitot tube, the tube cannot be unclogged, so we need to replace the unit. A new pitot tube that can drain fluids would put an end to this issue, saving us time and money in the future.
We also want to acquire a new mission laptop. A mission laptop is at the center of operating the plane from the ground. Our team currently does not have a team laptop, since our laptop stopped working last year. We currently use a few of our member’s laptops as the mission laptop. However, this is not efficient and safe because settings that we adjust for on one computer cannot be transferred over to another computer automatically. This presents a risk to our safety and the plane’s operability, as manually transferring settings can produce unwanted errors. A team laptop will remove this variable from our competition preparation as all data will be saved on one laptop.
Lastly, our team needs a new transmitter. The transmitter is the controller we use for all manual flight operations. Manual flights are a vital aspect of our aircraft and system testing and verification process. Hence, a working transmitter is crucial for this process and for our success at competition. Earlier this year, our transmitter’s antenna broke, making the transmitter unreliable. A new transmitter is critical to our mission success and may also improve the operability of the aircraft.
A donation will go a long way in helping UAV maintain a competitive aircraft for the 2019-20 season!
Roughly 10% of our members are Mechanical Engineers. Your donation will help them learn and practice industry critical skills.
Almost 25% of our members come from areas of study outside of Aerospace, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. Your donation will help us continue to provide these critical interactions between people of different fields.
About 35% of our members are Aerospace Engineering majors. Your donation will allow them to continue to explore opportunities directly related to their field.
77 is the number of teams we are competing against at the AUVSI SUAS competition. Teams come from universities all over the world.
Mach 1 is known as the "sound barrier", or the speed of sound. Most commercial flights happen below Mach 1, or at subsonic speeds. As a Mach 1 donor, you will receive a personal Thank-you letter from UAV Austin and more!
Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound and is in a region considered "supersonic". As a Mach 2 donor, you will receive acknowledgement on our organization website and aircraft!
Mach 5 is five times the speed of sound. Speeds above Mach 5 are considered "hypersonic". The industry is ambitiously looking towards hypersonic flight and travel as a future expansion of aviation. As a Mach 5 donor, you will receive an invitation to visit our organization and present at a general meeting.
