Our UAV will figure in top five of the US contest

Seven students from RV College of Engineering in the city are all set to compete in an international aero-design contest conducted by “Aero-design”, the student chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). The three-day contest will be held in Georgia, US from April 3. The students are leaving for the US on March 23. With no prior knowledge or exposure to aerospace or aeronautical engineering, these students have built an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Vyoma II.

Incidentally, RVCE was the first Indian institution to participate in this annual competition, co-hosted by Lockheed Martin and NASA. Their exhibit of 2008 edition, UAV Vyoma I, received a certificate of outstanding performance from SAE Aero-design and a certificate of appreciation from India’s president, Pratibha Patil. Vyoma II team member Adarsh JD, a final year mechanical engineering student, spoke to DNA on their efforts.

How did your team prepare in the run-up to the contest?
We worked for six months to get project Vyoma II off the ground. The competition required us to design, fabricate and test-fly a UAV. The event is scheduled from April 3-5 and nearly 65 teams are expected to compete at the SAE event.

Was it difficult to find sponsors?
The initial budget for the project was around Rs15 lakh. Last year, the budget was Rs9 lakh and we had sponsors like Wipro. This year, no IT company was keen to sponsor the project due to the recession. Though they were unable to provide financial funding, HAL assisted us with the technological know-how. We cut our budget to Rs8 lakh. Our major sponsor is a Dubai-based aviation company, Doo Technologies, which gave us Rs6 lakh. The remaining Rs2 lakh was contributed by the RSS Trust of RVCE.

What gives Vyoma II an edge over others?
This year, the event’s organisers have changed the rules regarding the material that needs to be used to build the UAV. They have said that no team can use carbon or glass fibres. Last year, most of the teams had used these material as they help reduce the weight of the aircraft. But our previous team did not use them because of cost constraints. We opted for material like Balsa wood and Aramid composites, which are cheaper and lighter.

What areas have you focused on to ensure that you are better prepared for this year’s competition?
Last year, the team was unaware of the climatic conditions in the US. The team’s UAV crash-landed because of strong winds. The tail of the aircraft was damaged on the second day of the three-day contest. Our team also was unaware that they could carry a spare aircraft along. So they had to spend time repairing and re-building the aircraft’s tail. Now that we are aware of these rules, we will first test-fly it here and make any required modification before testing at the venue of the competition as well. We will also try and build a spare aircraft, if time and resources are available.