Unmanned aerial vehicle by Bangalore kids

A team of students from city’s BNMIT (BNM Institute of Technology) has designed an unmanned aerial vehicle which can enter a building through a one-metre square window undetected by surveillance units.

The team is going to showcase this vehicle at the International Aerial Robotics Competition to be held in Grand Forks, North Dakota, US, from August 1 to 4.

The 21-year-old competition is organised by the Association for Unmanned Vehicles System International (AUVSI). It comprises an international technical conference and an aerial robotics competition with a given mission to complete.
Universities from all over the world will be participating in the event.
“We have designed the vehicle which operates unmanned, navigates and maps the surroundings in a GPS-denied area by avoiding strategically placed obstacles, laser barrier and parse Arabic signs to find a particular room to pick up a flash disk and replace it with a decoy,” said Achal Arvind, a team member.
“This year, we are eyeing the first place in the competition. For that, we’ve designed a fully autonomous quadcopter. Once airborne, it is on its own without any remote control by an operator,” he said.

In the 2011 competition held at Grand Forks, BNMIT team, the only one from India, stood second in static judgement and tied for fourth place in the overall mission.

The team will be represented by Arvind, Shashanka L and BG Prasad, head of the department of computer science, BNMIT. This time, there will be three teams from India.

According to team members, the vehicle can be used in defence and search and rescue operations.